Joni Mitchell’s Blue Period | Vinyl Monday

what's your favorite joni song? (mine might be cactus tree and blonde in the bleachers? it's so hard to choose.) comment below!

You’re in my blood like holy wine …you taste so bitter and so sweet.

Someone tell Abbie that she does have young viewers

thank you for swallowing the universe

Fuck – just really nice work . Your expression your passion

Great video, can you do a vinyl Monday on Ralf und Florian by Kraftwerk please 🙏

I love your voice so much 😭💐

“I love you when I forget about me.” One of the best lyrics! 😢😮

So…I was introduced to Joni's blue period by the Shadows & Light album; which was probably the second "perfect 10" record I ever heard (the first was King Crimson's Discipline ). I've always been a little bit afraid of Blue for no reason other than that so harsh image on the cover, but it has been leaking into my life over the last couple of years as I have begun to experience the age of long goodbyes, deaths and departures. I first heard RIver at Christmas after a long-term private yoga student died of cancer just weeks before. It's tough to avoid a cliche when you are literally living in it 😉 but that's probably my winner for this record. Overall though, Hejira speaks to me the most consistently, with its themes of self-imposed exile and constant seeking. I too, aim to be "a defector from the petty wars that shell-shocked love away," and yet. (and also, please, it is not pronounced Heh-Jee-Ra).

Hey, brilliant review 🙂 There's one or two things that crept into my sleepy head while listening to this look at one of my favourite albums of all time, and I'd like to put my thoughts across on it.

One of the things that really jarred me about your take on this record is the way you categorise Joni's experience of that as her as a woman – 'what woman hasn't known what it feels like to be 'too much?'' and the comparison to Taylor Swift, who's music is very firm in it's placement of marketed and appealing to young women navigating relationships. One of the things that I love about Joan's music, and that I think feminism often finds troubling about her, is that she in no way ever saw herself apart in spirit and being from her male contemporaries. She grew up playing with and being one of the lads, and she projects raw empathy in her songs in a way that as a male listener, I kind of feel like she understands the experience of being male better than most male writers. She never belittles, talks down to or devalues her male audiences. There's rarely if ever a 'men are pigs' moment in her writing, she's just better than that. She's never writing from a gender, and she never bashes men in her lyrics – even though as a woman in the 60's she'd have had a huge right to complain about the way she was treated and type cast as a woman.

One of the things I find complex about loving Joni is that she engaged in domestic violence towards Graham Nash – something totally left out of this episode, but I think is deeply relevant. Isn't this more relevant to the break-up than a booze cruise? I've never heard Joni play the blame game, or see herself as a victim in her relationships – even though in many ways she would have the right to claim that title should she wish. Not only is she cellophane on this album, but like she said she could see through other people too. 'The Last Time I Saw Richard' captures perfectly the cynicism and depression of a lost man, 'A Free Man in Paris' captures a man trapped in the world of business, 'Strange Boy' captures a young skater boy navigating poverty, 'Rainy Night House' captures a young police looking for meaning outside of a sterile rich upbringing. Joni loves men, she sees us in ways few other female writers do – although she also characteristically captures the female experience in other songs – she never picks a side in the gender war. She's an even handed narrator. Taylor Swift seems to write with almost the opposite idea, of almost brute force lack of empathy. I can see why Joni might gently disassociate from this woman, for whom the only comparison seems to be aesthetic to both my mind and ears.

You mentioned that feminists find Joni problematic sometimes. Joni has been on the record disavowing that label, for the sole same reasons that I as a man who wants deeply to be an ally of women finds that label a difficult and complicated one to connect myself with. As much as I'm sure Graham Nash's misdeeds were many, Joni recollects violence and cruelty to her partner, if she can acknowledge it so readily, why can't we? What human hasn't known what it feels like to be too much? In a world where men are constantly unceremoniously forced to mask their emotions, Joni sees them and heals them across decades – she certainly has done more for me than counselling did. I think that Joni would love the review, but resist the framing that leans into her gender and sanitises her mistakes.

Thanks, and sorry to be critical, there's so much to love about this too. As a critic yourself, I'm sure you can understand the value of another persons perspective 🙂

Thank you…well done.

Acoustic version of “both sides now” “all I want” “Carey” “a case of you” 😊😊😊❤❤❤

Get ready to start crying your eyes out if you are not ready for what is on that record …. Though most Mitchell stuff is Perfection and uniquely emotional ! Oh dear where to begin