Label: A&M Studios
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: US
Released: 1971
Genre: Pop
Style: Acoustic, Ballad, Folk
The album, released in 1971, is a magnificent culmination of her piano and guitar talents, this time adding the simplistic and almost exotic beauty of a lap dulcimer. The album was written while she was living in Europe after her breakup with fellow musician Graham Nash, in a cabin with no electricity. The album's tones are highly personal; loneliness, homesickness, confidence, excitement, and deep sorrow. Joni's always been a terrific poet (some fans might be surprised to learn Joni never attended the songfest that inspired the oft-covered "Woodstock"), but Blue is the first album that leaves behind any of the cuteness or just-not-true-enough songs that diluted Ladies of the Canyon ("Morning Morgantown" "The Circle Game"), Clouds ("Both Sides Now"), and pretty much all of Song to a Seagull. (Note: It's not that these songs aren't good, but her talent is not perfected as it is in this album.) "All I Want," "Carey," "California," and "This Flight Tonight" are all songs of desire to go home, being lonely, being slightly, if not very, detached. "My Old Man" is a special tune, if not just for the actual aural document of Joni's ringing soprano, which she lost as she got older. "Little Green" is her "The Circle Game" perfected (and sadly, a very personal account of her giving up her daughter), and "Blue" is in yet another ballpark. "Blue" and "A Case of You" are Blue's truest gems. "Blue" is a sad song, but somehow alluring (I think she even ends the song on a major chord, but I could be wrong), a bit about the probable plight of the Cool: "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 going to take a look around it though". "A Case of You," one of the most beautiful songs e'er written, which this reviewer struggles to write about lest she bruise its delicate existence, is the best song on the album. A truly sad, melodic, heartwrenching piece. (In trying to find a lyric to share, they are so perfect they cannot be set apart!) "The Last Time I Saw Richard" is our favorite. In true Joni fashion, it's poetry in motion -as lyrics- and it's some of her best work. Hardly a breath where it doesn't belong, she tells a story of friends (or lovers) growing apart. The hardly-blemished Blue is a masterpiece, and will be a classic UNTIL THE END OF TIME.
Review by nobunka
Password: heart
Thank you my friend
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