blue

Joni Mitchell released the quintessential breakup album with this stark and sublime confessional magnum opus. She composed most of the songs for 'Blue' during a vacation in Europe after her breakup with Graham Nash. The jazzy alternative tunings and augmented chords are deceptively complex and accentuate the poetry of her achingly beautiful and deeply moving tales of love and loss and wanderlust and homesickness.

"The 'Blue' album, there's hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either."

http://jonimitchell.com/

'All I Want'

"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"

'My Old Man'

"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"

'Little Green' concerns the daughter that Mitchell gave up for adoption in 1965 and was reunited with in 1997.

"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 your sorry, but you're not ashamed

Little Green, have a happy ending"

'Blue'

"Everybody’s saying that hell’s the hippest way to go out

I don’t think so

But I’m gonna take a look around it though

Blue, I love, I love you

I love you"

'California'

"Oh it gets so lonely

When your walking

And the streets are full of strangers

All the news of home you read

Just gives you the blues"

'This Flight Tonight' has Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel guitar

"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."

'River'

"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"

'A Case Of You' 

"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"

'Blue'
full album:




A1 All I Want ----- ---------------------------0:06
A2 My Old Man -----------------------------3:40
A3 Little Green -----------------------------7:15
A4 Carey ---------------------------------- 10:41
A5 Blue ---------- -------------------------13:46
B1 California ----- ------------------------16:54
B2 This Flight Tonight -------------------20:46 
B3 River ------ ----------------------------- 23:38
B4 A Case Of You ------------------------27:37
B5 The Last Time I Saw Richard ---- 32:07