Blue [Album], by Joni Mitchell

I guess the most obvious thing to say about Blue (and believe me, quite a lot of people have said it already) is that the songs in this Joni Mitchell masterpiece are as comfortable in a pop music record as they would be in a poetry book (and a really good one, in case you were wondering). Always present in any decent list of the greatest albums of the century, Blue is usually the best rated by a female solo artist. This is a true singer-songwriter masterpiece: simple, beautiful arrangements, confessional lyrics, a brilliant, distinguished voice... The story goes that Joni wrote most of the album while traveling through Europe, taking a break from the biz after her first few records made her a pretty famous singer. She sings of love ("My Old Man"), infactuation ("Carey", "A Case of You"), hopeless romanticism vs. a more pessimistic view ("The Last Time a Saw Richard"), the blues (well, "Blue", "River"), homesickness ("California", I guess "River" fits here too) and the pain of giving a child up for adoption ("Little Green", which she actually did, by the way, when she was 20 something years old)... this is very personal, very beautiful work of art... she's said that, around this time in her life (1971) she had basically no defenses and thought that she should always show herself to the world as she truly is... and it shows...

Interestingly enough, the first song I ever heard from this album was River, and the only thing I knew about Joni Mitchell then was that Alanis Morissette considered Joni (one of) her biggest influence, musically speaking... there was this TV show I liked, called Ally McBeal, and it was always filled with good music (specially Barry White!!), and in this particular episode Ally asks Robert Downey Jr.'s character to sing a song for her (it's near christmas, I think) and he sits at the piano and sings "River" beautifully... it was a beautiful scene and I just had to find more about that amazingly sad and melancholic song... the second big contact I had with songs from Blue was through Legião Urbana's rendition of "The Last Time I Saw Richard" (Legião Urbana is a brazilian rock band, by the way... gone since mid-'90s, but probably the best we've ever had), which just struck me as so amazing and Dylan-esque I was really surprised when I found out it was Joni's. Guess I should have taken the hint and gone and bought the bloody record, but I didn't: not until Rolling Stone put it as number 30 in their "500 greatest album of the century" edition, the highest ranked album by a woman; it wasn't only the position in itself, but the review was quite enticing (for my taste). So I finally got the album and gave it a good listen with the lyrics at hand (the lyrics are really important here, in case you haven't picked that up yet): simply amazing.

The title track, "Blue", is one of the greatest of the record, in my opinion... it shows every important trait of the album: sadness, melancholy, truthfulness, emotion and simplicity: it's basically her, her music and her sadness.

Blue, songs are like tattoos
You know I've been to sea before
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey blue, here is a song for you
Ink on a pin
Underneath the skin
An empty space to fill in
Well there're so many sinking now
You've got to keep thinking
You can make it through these waves
Acid, booze, and ass
Needles, guns, and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs
Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go
Well I don't think so
But I'm gonna take a look around it though
Blue, I love you


Blue, here is a shell for you
Inside you'll hear a sigh
A foggy lullaby
There is your song from me

Other song that always catches my eye is "The Last Time I Saw Richard"... just beautiful.

"The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
and he told me 'all romantics meet the same fate someday
cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe'...
'You laugh', he said, 'you think you're immune, go look at your eyes
They're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realise they're only pretty lies?
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies'
...
Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator
And he drinks at home now most nights with the TV on
And all the house lights left up bright
I'm gonna blow this damn candle out
I don't want nobody comin' over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes
Dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days

Can her optimism/romanticism beat Richard's pessimism?? By the way, I found the version by Legião Urbana on YouTube: