It would feel like the deepest of betrayals to write about Blue in a way that wasn’t deeply personal.
When I was a kid, around ten I think, my dad gave me his old iPod, I think we were going on holiday to France or something and I needed some distraction for a long trip. That iPod laid a pretty strong foundation for my musical taste that wasn’t the metal my older cousin was introducing me to at the time. Some highlights included The Velvet Underground, Fiona Apple, Suzanne Vega, The Magnetic Fields, and Joni Mitchell. I discovered quite a bit later that the Joni Mitchell was from my mum’s old CDs (he’d never given them back to her after the divorce), and even when we stopped talking that much in my big depressive phase/early transition, putting on some Joni would always be a way I could connect with her.
Joni doesn’t perform any more, she hasn’t in over a decade, and has been pretty ill lately. I started writing this on the 50th anniversary of the release of Blue, which is one of the greatest works of art ever created. It’s so beautiful, at times light and fleeting and at times the richest, deepest sadness.
As a kid my favourite was always The Last Time I Saw Richard. It still might be, I think its one of the best examples of storytelling through lyrics out there. I’d add an example but there isn’t one, every line is perfect.
As a teen I played my girlfriend Little Green on the guitar (also, in hindsight that relationship based on musical theatre, Sylvia Plath and Joni Mitchell was actually quite gay even if I was a girl who hadn’t realised she was a girl pretending to be interested in a girl to avoid being gay). I couldn’t figure out how to do it while singing, and I only got it right every other time so I recorded my best attempt and played it back through my phone’s tinny little speaker.
It was around this time that we learned that Glee had licensed River to be performed in its season 3 christmas episode, to be sung by Lea Michelle. This was controversial amongst Joni fans for fear it’d be butchered and amongst Glee fans at the time as one presumed that it would be yet another breakup plotline. But in the end, she just sung it as a beautiful song to perform. I’m not saying it’s a great version, and I’m not going to go and listen to it instead of Joni’s, but that sequence felt right.
The two albums on my dad’s iPod, and therefore the only two Joni albums I listened to for several years, were Blue and The Hissing of Summer Lawns. If I had to pick a favourite now? Probably Clouds (it’s the one I listen to the most), potentially Ladies of the Canyon, maybe Hejira, although I secretly know it’ll always be Blue. Nothing comes close.
