DOUGLAS LAMAN GETS A TUNE-UP
ENTRY #5: Blue by Joni Mitchell
Douglas Laman Gets A Tune-Up is a new weekly series wherein Douglas Laman listens to an album of music he's never fully listened to before (though he may have heard one or two songs from it) and writes up his brief thoughts on it.
Why was she so good at these kind of songs? Chalk that up to her vocals. Joni Mitchell has this singing voice that her punctuating moments of intense sadness with these high notes that make you feel every inch of her pain. By contrast, her instances of using more restrained vocals have this similarly devastating quality in how they convey so much intensity in a softer tone. She's got a real gift for singing tales of sorrow and agony, a fact made all the more clear by the excellent work she puts into the various tracks of Blue, though the album does show she can do more than just downtrodden tracks. To wit, the playlist starts out with All I Want, something that's got one of the more peppier melodies of the entire album.
Right after that comes a more reflective piece of music, My Old Man, that establishes the kind of wistful melancholy that'll inform many of the tracks in the album. Though this one's got a slightly happier disposition to it than many of the tracks that would follow it, it's still got plenty of moments of sobriety that allow Joni Mitchell to excel as a vocalist. The way she's reminiscing about the time spent with her husband has this charming quality to it, you can immediately read the level of passion she has for this guy in Mitchell's vocals. That's something that becomes quite clear throughout the entire album, Joni Mitchell has a real gift for conveying powerful emotions by way of her distinctive voice.
With the exception of a handful of tracks like Carey, the rest of the album is primarily comprised of the sort of downbeaten songs that Joni Mitchell can sell as naturally as a fish takes to water. The song that inspires the title of the album, Blue, appears midway through the album and it's easy to see why it stuck around in Mitchell's mind enough to become the inspiration for the album's name considering what a transfixing piece of music it is. As she harmonizes to the color itself, a light piano accompaniment solidifies the muted atmosphere Joni Mithcell's vocals are bringing to life. It's one of the highlights of the album for sure but the best three songs of the entire endeavor are yet to come.
One of the last tracks found on the album, River, has an opening instrumental section that sounds like Jingle Bells, making for a solid segway into its Christmas-themed lyrics. It's maybe the best track in the entire collection, thanks to its quietly devastating lyrics chronicling a woman who's lost everything and wishes for a river that would take her away from her tragic circumstances while traditionally cheery Christmas imagery is described in the lyrics as a way contrast with her grim disposition. It's a beautiful track that just reeks of authentic anguish, one whose sense of agony at first emanates from feeling trapped in a small town before further terrifying circumstances are revealed, creating a gradually escalating sense of sorrow that truly hits the listener with a major wallop. This one's going to be on regular rotation come this holiday season whenever I start getting the Christmastime blues, that's for certain.
Right after that musical masterwork comes A Case Of You, where Mitchell is solely accompanied by light guitar playing, letting her aching vocals take the spotlight while this soft guitar accompaniment reinforces the somber tone of the piece. It's another haunting song all about Mitchell reminiscing about the past and that's a theme that continues in the final track of the album, The Last Time I Saw Richard. This tune details a particularly trying back-up between a man (Richard) and a woman (Mitchell sings the song from the woman's perspective) that ends with the woman in question noting about her exes current circumstances that are more fortunate than her own.
What's interesting about The Last Time I Saw Richard is how it uses that narrative lyrics recurring motif of the album, since its lyrics are heavily concentrated on a sense of detail-oriented storytelling with portions of the song dedicated to Mitchell musically vocalizing exact relays of conversations between the woman and Richard as well as going into detail on what kind of living conditions Richard is engaging in right now. The details themselves are so vividly written that, by the end, you can practically see the woman herself sitting in a booth in the cafe alone, with the winding down music coinciding with the lights fading out in this cafe, leaving the woman in darkness. It's a beautifully realized somber way to end this terrific album.
Next Time On Douglas Laman Gets A Tune-Up: The Clash by The Clash
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