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Joni Mitchell: Blue

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Reprise Records
Released: 1971.06.01
Time:
 35:41
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Joni Mitchell
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.jonimitchell.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2001.06.30
Price in €: 10,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] All I Want (J.Mitchell) - 3:32
[2] My Old Man (J.Mitchell) - 3:33
[3] Little Green (J.Mitchell) - 3:25
[4] Carey (J.Mitchell) - 3:00
[5] Blue (J.Mitchell) - 3:00
[6] California (J.Mitchell) - 3:48
[7] This Flight Tonight (J.Mitchell) - 2:50
[8] River (J.Mitchell) - 4:00
[9] A Case of You (J.Mitchell) - 4:20
[10] The Last Time I Saw Richard (J.Mitchell) - 4:13

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


JONI MITCHELL - Guitar, Piano, Keyboards, Vocals

STEPHEN STILLS - Bass, Guitar on [4]
JAMES TAYLOR - Guitar, Vocals on [1],[6],[9]
SNEAKY PETE KLEINOW - Guitar, Pedal Steel Guitar on [6],[7]
RUSS KUNKEL - Drums on [1],[6],[9]

HENRY LEWY - Engineer
GARY BURDEN - Art Direction
TIM CONSIDINE - Cover Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1987 CD Reprise 2-2038
1999 CD DCC 1132
1999 LP DCC 2069
1987 LP Reprise MS-2038
1987 CS Reprise M5-2038



Sad, spare and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer-songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Mitchell's songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss (two words with relative meaning here) etched with stunning complexity; even tracks like "All I Want," "My Old Man" and "Carey" — the brightest, most hopeful moments on the record — are darkened by bittersweet moments of sorrow and loneliness. At the same time that songs like "Little Green" (about a child given up for adoption) and the title cut (a hymn to salvation supposedly penned for James Taylor) raise the stakes of confessional folk-pop to new levels of honesty and openness, Mitchell's music moves beyond the constraints of acoustic folk into more intricate and diverse territory, setting the stage for the experimentation of her later work. Unrivaled in its intensity and insight, Blue remains a watershed.

Jason Ankeny - All Music Guide
© 1992 - 2001 AEC One Stop Group, Inc.



Joni Mitchell would go on from this '71 recording to make more popular, more ambitious, and more challenging albums, but she's never made a better one. Working with minimal accompaniment (Stephen Stills and James Taylor are two of the four sidemen), the Canadian thrush summoned an involving song cycle of romance found and lost. Though Blue is an uncommonly intimate representation, it's also astonishingly open and gracious. Songs such as "All I Want," "Carey," "California," and "A Case of You" work equally well as poetry and pop music.

Steve Stolder - Amazon.com essential recording



Joni Mitchell hat nach dieser 1971er Scheibe noch erfolgreichere, ehrgeizigere und anspruchsvollere Alben gemacht -- ein besseres aber nie. Mit minimaler Begleitung (Stephen Stills und James Taylor sind zwei ihrer vier Gefolgsleute) beschwor die kanadische Nachtigall einen fesselnden Liederzyklus über Liebe, die gefunden und verloren wird, herauf. Obwohl Blue ein ungewöhnlich persönliches Werk ist, ist es auch erstaunlich offen und mutig. Lieder wie "All I Want", "Carey", "California" und "A Case of You" sind sowohl Poesie wie auch Popmusik.

Steve Stolder - Amazon.de



Schon früh malte, schrieb und komponierte sie: Songschreiberin Joni Mitchell verband akustischen Folk mit Elementen aus Jazz, Blues und Country - besonders gekonnt auf dem sinnlichen 71er Album Blue, auf dem die Amerikanerin Beziehungen durchleuchtet.

© Audio



Mit diesem Meisterwerk aus zehn Songs, das anspruchsvoller komponiert und poetischer getextet war als die vorangegangenen drei LPs, etablierte sich Joni Mitchell 1971 als Songschreiberin und Interpretin ohne Konkurrenz. Die Arrangements ihrer Songs tendierten jetzt zu vollerer, mehr rockori- entierter Instrumentierung, Baß und Schlagzeug waren nicht länger verpönt. Die längst überfällige CD-Version des Albums stellt das eklatanteste Beispiel an Klangverbesserung gegenüber einer LP das, das dem Rezensenten bis dato untergekommen ist. Obwohl keine Neuabmischung vorliegt, ist der CD/LP-Unterschied unter jedem klanglichen Aspekt dermaßen krass, daß sich ein verbaler Vergleich verbietet. Eine Muß-CD.

© Stereoplay



Joni Mitchell was the female icon of the 1970s' singer-songwriter/folk scene, and no album more perfectly encapsulates that first phase of her career than 1971's critically acclaimed Blue. After this, Mitchell moved into more pop-oriented productions and had hit singles, but here, all 10 tracks have spare instrumentation, and half are just Mitchell singing and playing either piano ("My Old Man," "Blue," "River," "The Last Time I Saw Richard") or acoustic guitar ("Little Green").

For some listeners, Mitchell's singing on earlier efforts had sometimes seemed affected or precious. By this point, she was singing more naturally, though she was still unafraid of switching dramatically into a high head tone and remained utterly distinctive. Given the so-called confessional lyrics -- full of intimate details, often cleverly couched and assumed to have been drawn from her own life -- both the more casual vocals and the stripped-down arrangements fit perfectly. For variety, there are some guest appearances, sometimes from men she was connected with romantically (Stephen Stills, James Taylor), along with the colorful pedal steel of Sneeky Pete on "California" and "This Flight Tonight," and the understated drumming of Russ Kunkel on "California," "Carey," and "A Case of You."

Ultimately, though, it's Mitchell's stories and ruminations that make this album timeless. On the title track, she muses, "You've got to keep thinking you can make it thru 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." She laments, "You got the touch so gentle and sweet / But you've got that look so critical / Now I can't talk to you baby, I get so weak / Sometimes I think love is just mythical" on "This Flight Tonight." On "The Last Time I Saw Richard" she deftly summarizes the life of, one assumes, an ex-lover: "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."

There have been few female pop musicians of the past 40 years more influential than Joni Mitchell. Subsequent stars influenced by her include Jackson Browne, Carly Simon, Rickie Lee Jones, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Shawn Colvin, Joan Armatrading, Suzanne Vega, Jane Siberry, Liz Phair, Prince, Ani DiFranco, and Fiona Apple. Probably all of the above are deeply familiar with Blue.

Steve Holtje CDNOW Senior Editor - June 5, 2001
Copyright © 1994-2001 CDnow Online, Inc. All rights reserved.
 

 L y r i c s 


© 1971 BY JONI MITCHELL/BMI except "Little Green" 1967

ALL I WANT

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be
Oh I hate you some, I hate you some
I love you some
Oh I love you when I forget about me
I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want - do you want - do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on

All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause - life is our cause
When I think of your kisses
My mind see-saws
Do you see - do you see - do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
It's the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
Hmm, Hmm, Hmm, Hmm,
Want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free


MY OLD MAN

My old man
He's a singer in the park
He's a walker in the rain
He's a dancer in the dark
We don't need no piece of paper
From the city hall
Keeping us tied and true
My old man
Keeping away my blues

He's my sunshine in the morning
He's my fireworks at the end of the day
He's the warmest chord I ever heard
Play that warm chord, play and stay baby
We don't need no piece of paper
From the city hall
Keeping us tied and true
My old man
Keeping away my blues

But when he's gone
Me and them lonesome blues collide
The bed's too big
The frying pan's too wide

Then he comes home
And he takes me in his loving arms
And he tells me all his troubles
And he tells me all my charms
We don't need no piece of paper
From the city hall
Keeping us tied and true
No, my old man
Keeping away my blues

But when he's gone
Me and them lonesome blues collide
The bed's too big
The frying pan's too wide

My old man
He's a singer in the park
He's a walker in the rain
He's a dancer in the dark
We don't need no piece of paper
From the city hall
Keeping us tied and true
No, my old man
Keeping away my lonesome blues


LITTLE GREEN

Born with the moon in Cancer
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who've made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to California
Hearing that everything's warmer there
So you write him a letter and say, "Her eyes are blue."
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you
Little green, he's a non-conformer

CH0RUS:

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow

Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you are sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You're sad and you're sorry, but you're not ashamed
Little green, have a happy ending

CHORUS:

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow


CAREY

The wind is in from Africa
Last night I couldn't sleep
Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here Carey
But it's really not my home
My fingernails are filthy, I got beach tar on my feet
And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy French cologne

Oh Carey get out your cane
And I'll put on some silver
Oh you're a mean old Daddy, but I like you fine

Come on down to the Mermaid Cafe and I will buy you a bottle of wine
And we'll laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down
Let's have a round for these freaks and these soldiers
A round for these friends of mine
Let's have another round for the bright red devil
Who keeps me in this tourist town

Come on, Carey, get out your cane
I'll put on some silver
Oh you're a mean old Daddy, but I like you

Maybe I'll go to Amsterdam
Or maybe I'll go to Rome
And rent me a grand piano and put some flowers 'round my room
But let's not talk about fare-thee-welIs now
The night is a starry dome.
And they're playin' that scratchy rock and roll
Beneath the Matalla Moon

Come on, Carey, get out your cane
And I'll put on some silver
You're a mean old Daddy, but I like you

The wind is in from Africa
Last night I couldn't sleep
Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here
But, it's really not my home
Maybe it's been too long a time
Since I was scramblin' down in the street
Now they got me used to that clean white linen
And that fancy French cologne

Oh Carey, get out your cane
I'll put on my finest silver
We'll go to the Mermaid Cafe
Have fun tonight
I said, Oh, you're a mean old Daddy, but you're out of sight


BLUE

Blue, songs are like tattoos
You know I've been to sea betore
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 thru 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


CALIFORNIA

Sitting in a park in Paris, France
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had
Still a lot of lands to see
But I wouldn't want to stay here
It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here
Oh, but California
California I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
California I'm coming home

I met a redneck on a Grecian isle
Who did the goat dance very well
He gave me back my smile
But he kept my camera to sell
Oh the rogue, the red red rogue
He cooked good omelettes and stews
And I might have stayed on with him there
But my heart cried out for you, California
Oh California I'm coming home
Oh make me feel good rock'n roll band
I'm your biggest fan
California, I'm coming home

CHORUS:

Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
Just gives you the blues
Just gives you the blues

So I bought me a ticket
I caught a plane to Spain
Went to a party down a red dirt road
There were lots of pretty people there
Reading Rolling Stone, reading Vogue
They said, "How long can you hang around?"
I said "a week, maybe two,
Just until my skin turns brown
Then I'm going home to California"
California I'm coming home
Oh will you take me as I am
Strung out on another man
California I'm coming home

CHORUS:

Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
More about the war
And the bloody changes
Oh will you take me as l am?
Will you take me as l am?
Will you?


THIS FLIGHT TONIGHT

Look out the left the captain said
The lights down there, that's where we'll land
I saw a falling star burn up
Above the Las Vegas sands
It wasn't the one that you gave to me
That night down south between the trailers
Not the early one
That you can wish upon;
Not the northern one
That guides in the sailors

Oh starbright, starbright
You've got the lovin' that I like, all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight

You got the touch so gentle and sweet
But you've got that look so critical
Now I can't talk to you baby
I get so weak
Sometimes I think love is just mythical
Up there's a heaven
Down there's a town
Blackness everywhere and little lights shine
Oh, blackness, blackness dragging me down
Come on light the candle in this poor heart of mine

Oh starbright, starbright
You've got the lovin' that I like, all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't hove got on this flight tonight

I'm drinking sweet champagne
Got the headphones up high
Can't numb you out
Can't drum you out of my mind
They're playing "Goodbye baby, Baby Goodbye,
Ooh, ooh, love is blind"
Up go the flaps, down go the wheels
I hope you got your heat turned on baby
I hope they finally fixed your automobile
I hope it's better when we meet again baby

Starbright, starbright
You got the lovin' that I like, all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight


RIVER

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I made my baby say goodbye

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on


A CASE OF YOU

Just before our love got lost you said,
"I am as constant as a northern star."
And I said, "Constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar."
On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
With your face sketched on it twice
Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I would still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid
I remember that time you told me, you said,
"Love is touching souls"
Surely you touched mine
'Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time
Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
Still, I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said,
"Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed"
Oh but you are in my blood
You're my holy wine
You're so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet


THE LAST TIME I SAW RICHARD

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

He put a quarter in the Wurlitzer, and he pushed
Three buttons and the thing began to whirr
And a bar maid came by in fishnet stockings and a bow tie
And she said "Drink up now it's gettin' on time to close."
"Richard, you haven't really changed," I said
It's just that now you're romanticizing some pain that's in your head
You got tombs in your eyes, but the songs
You punched are dreaming
Listen, they sing of love so sweet, love so sweet
When you gonna get yourself back on your feet?
Oh and love can be so sweet, love so sweet

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

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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