Joni cast a spell on us all through her music. Decades after its release, Gen Z is still listening and relating to the 1971 album.
What exactly makes Blue so irresistible and universal? Its melancholy, power, or frantic lyrics, at times seemingly so random? Or perhaps it’s a rustic and authentic sound? And why does that appeal to Gen Z? Maybe because we crave rustic sounds and something real? Trying to find the answer to this question is like trying to decipher the recipe for Coca-Cola.
Rolling Stone ranks it third on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, just behind Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, and surpassed only by The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. The magazine writes:
“From its smoky, introspective cover to its wholly unguarded approach to songwriting, Blue is the first time any major rock or pop artist has opened up so fully, producing what might be the ultimate breakup album and setting a still-unmatched standard for confessional poetry in pop music.”
Rolling Stone
Perhaps the album’s strongest point is its honesty, not only lyrically, but also in its instrumentals. A guitar that’s both fierce and welcoming, accompanied by Mitchell’s feverish octaves. Adding the icing on the cake is a dulcimer, which Mitchell used to compose much of the album because it was “light for backpacking.”
The stories of freedom and easy living talk to a generation that wants to reach that spontaneity, that authenticity. Joni’s language is immortal because it’s genuine, and that’s why we can relate to what seems like a distant world. Even though she was already ghosting situationships through telegrams in the ’70s.
The word “dulcimer” comes from the Old French doulce mer, which derives from the Latin dulce melos; dulcet “sweet”+ melos “song”. Sweet melody. A prophecy, almost, fulfilled and completed thanks to the singer-songwriter and the stories she tells us. Her life and experiences are a love letter to failed romantic relationships, to the difficulties of life, and to her future self.
And this is exactly what Mitchell herself says when asked what Blue is about by Rolling Stone:
“I went, ‘Oh, my God, a lot of people are listening to me. They better find out who they’re worshiping. Let’s see if they can take it. Let’s get real.’ So I wrote Blue. 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. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either.”
Joni Mitchell/Rolling Stone
The album can be found online and on all streaming platforms, with all of the artist’s repertoire. So let’s try to read some of my favorite love letters from Blue together, one by one.
Album Side A
“All I want“
The album opens with one of the most bittersweet lines possible:
"I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be?
Oh, I hate you some, I hate you some, I love you some."
Joni wastes no time; from the start, it’s clear that a journey is unfolding, far from the physical, almost spiritual, one that includes pain, growth, and emotion, but above all, freedom. Because that’s what “All I Want” wants to express: the freedom to choose one’s own path and accept the consequences of that choice, even if painful.
“I wanna have fun, I want to shine like the sun
Wanna be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Wanna write you a love letter”
Mitchell’s voice lulls and soars, with the lightness of someone who knows they’re on a great adventure, and the tender uncertainty of not knowing whether they’re at the beginning or the end of that adventure. The desire to share, to have fun, and the banality of wanting to knit a sweater for the person you love, to write them a love letter, because what is life, after all, if not wonderfully banal?
“My Old Man“
The underlying theme of freedom continues in “My Old Man,” a song about a love that rejects the institution of marriage and anything that might represent constraint. And Joni embraces this concept in a song that leaves no room for doubt as to its message.
At the time, her old man was Graham Nash, who attempted to propose to the singer-songwriter. Mitchell’s unfortunate response was: “If you hold sand too tightly in your hand, it will run through your fingers,” in a 1970/1971 telegram to end their relationship. Sent all the way from Greece.
“And he tells me all my charms
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”
The music changes, and the melody is uneven, decisive yet surprising, probably as Mitchell’s telegram might have seemed to the unfortunate Nash. Constant ups and downs, but no doubt in their execution. The singer is a sword executing its thrust and, needless to say, hitting its target.
“Little Green“
There’s no way to listen to this song without crying.
“Little Green” is perhaps such an open and unfiltered window into Mitchell’s private life that it almost feels like a violation to listen to it and sing along with her. It speaks of the daughter she gave up for adoption, and how the singer-songwriter feels for this little creature she brought into the world but doesn’t know how to support. We feel her pain, her relief, all those emotions that contradict and cancel each other out, that make no sense to coexist, and yet, here they are.
“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 you're sorry but you're not ashamed
Little green have a happy ending”
But the emotion that shines most through this song and its heartbreaking melody is forgiveness. Forgiveness for Mitchell and Green’s father, both inexperienced and young. She is a child without guilt, introduced to a world that rarely stops to show compassion. An abandonment that revels in love, missed caresses, all expressed through song.
Sacrifice, forgiveness, and sorrow, sorrow, sorrow…
Album Side B
“California“
One of those songs that needs no introduction. We were talking with a friend a while back about how wired earphones are coming back into fashion. Of course, the truth is that they’re the most affordable way to listen to music while walking. Anyway, we were talking about how some albums only make sense with wired earphones. A bit like listening to albums on a turntable, and how that analog, almost crackling sound enhances the listening experience.
Blue is definitely one of those albums. And “California” specifically, so intertwined with its sense of belonging, home, and nostalgia, adds something indescribable and romantic to the whole thing.
Not that bittersweet feeling of forced distance, but that emotion when you have a one-way ticket home, where everything stays as you left it, and you let yourself be defined by the people who watched you grow up. They don’t know who we are now, but we play along patiently, because in the end, they still give us warmth.
“This Flight Tonight“
This song is a frank stream of consciousness, hard to follow, hard to sing, and hard to interpret. I recently sang it at a Laurel Canyon-themed concert, and the lyrics are so crazy I completely forgot an entire verse and started scat-singing over one of Mitchell’s craziest guitar tunings. Awesome.
The song is about an impulsive, instinctive decision, which explains why the lyrics and instrumental make us feel like we’re falling off a hill. Mitchell abandons a lover on a plane, and recalls shared feelings, plans made together, and promises, now betrayed, exchanged by both.
“Oh, starlight, star bright
You've got the lovin' that I like all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't have gotten on this flight tonight”
Words full of regret, which follow a specific rhythm that reminds me of slam poetry, and which I certainly won’t forget very easily now.
“A Case of You“
The opening notes of “A Case of You” are the melody that plays at the end of summer. When we say goodbye, we hug, and we try to mentally calculate when we’ll see each other again. Mitchell’s voice, as always, sweet and unquantifiable, speaks of something ending. A relationship, but also an introspective journey that has gripped us so intensely, it almost broke us.
Mitchell sings of intoxicating and addictive love. The kind that changes the dynamics of our brain, of what we sacrifice for it, but also of what we gain. In an album that speaks of heartbreaks, heartshakes, and travels, “A Case of You” is the last stage of grief: acceptance.
“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”
To sum it up
What else can I add that the author hasn’t already said? Blue is for anyone who finds comfort in this masterpiece when life is too chaotic and painful. And that will never go out of style.
Gen Z will listen to what Mitchell has to say, because she says it so directly and genuinely; it’s impossible not to. And the antidote to chaos and confusion will always be sincerity, which my generation is slowly realizing.
So perhaps we need to listen to these words today more than ever. To carry with you, in your day and in your life, the final words of the album, from the song “The Last Time I Saw Richard”:
“Hiding behind bottles in dark cafés, dark cafés
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And I fly away, only a phase
These dark café days”
