..."Clouds" is one of the most sublime albums I've ever had the fortune to have stumbled across.

All I've really known about her is that "Blue" is supposed to be her big artistic breakthrough, and I once checked out a copy of "Hissing of Summer Lawns" from the library and liked it enough to buy it on CD.

But this week I watched one of the "Dick Cavett: Rock Icons" DVDs, and one of the episodes had Joni singing two songs from the "Clouds" album...she was just amazing. She had such control over her voice and her instruments (she played guitar on one song and piano on another), and she was so graceful. Wow. Goosebumps.

So I checked out the album, and it's what I've always wanted to hear in a Joni album..."Blue" is a little too melancholy for me, and as much as I like "Hissing", I've gotta be in a '70s L.A. kinda mood to really get into it. "Clouds" is just very simple and well-performed music. I especially love "Chelsea Morning" - nobody could explain better how nice a good morning feels. Yummy.

Anyone else a fan of this album? And if I like this one, what else should I check out?

Anx said:

Yes, I totally love it. Her remake of "Both Sides Now" from a few years ago will absolutely rip your heart out.

If you like this one, I would highly recommend the albums that fall on either side, Song to a Seagull or self-titled and Ladies of the Canyon. These 3 capture her full-on folkie days before she started incorporating more pop, jazz and avant-garde into her music. I think they represent Joni at her most pure and sweet. Definitely get the remasters if you can.

I'm totally busting out some Joni today. Thanks for making me think of her.

Check out the DVD "Woman of Heart and Mind". It tells her life story from her birth up until the "Travelogue" CD. It is really well done with lots of clips from old TV-Shows and live performances that are heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
I think this is a must-have for all fans.

theplejades said:

i'll see if it's on netflix, thanks!

Welcome to Joniland, Anx!!! Just a warning -- you'll never leave!

One word: Hejira. If you want serenity, introspection, wonderful lyrics and haunting melodies, you can't miss this one.

It was the album immediately folliwing Hissing, so the mood is somewhat similar, if more solitary. And it's not quite as slick and "jazzy" as Hissing. Or as -- I dunnno... maybe "jaded" -- as the subsequent Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. It's good travel, thinking, falling asleep and dreaming music.


[Edited 4/26/06 19:11pm]

Lammastide said:

okee doke...downloadland, here i come again...!

Anx said:

yooooo did you check out the Dick Cavett John & Yoko DVD????

CinisterCee said:

no, but that's on my queue...have you seen the rock icons one? the bowie interview was almost painful to watch, ol' dayvid was so coked out.

Anx said:

It's on my "to rent" list.

Anx said:

It's on netflix! I saw it because of netflix, and I knew very little about Joni before watching the doco, and I loved it! And I am a picky MF!

Anx said:

I am an avid Joni Mitchell fan. Her mid-70s work is by far my favorite (nothing beats the trifecta of Hissing-Hejira-Don Juan, imo) but she's got great material from all points of her career. She's one of the few artists who really had no 'low' period to my ears.

If you really enjoy Clouds for the simple yet sublime folk performance of it then "Ladies Of The Canyon" is the closest your going to get for an encore. It takes the most interesting aspects of Joni's folk/classical period and shows them off to perfection.

Hejira, as someone else mentioned, is a classic album but it makes Blue seem like a Valentine's day card, imo. lol

blue happends to be in one of my top ten most favorite albums..i enjoy little green and carey the most..does anyone know what carey is about?

weepingwall said:

Carey was inspired by Joni's time with a hippie group on the island of Crete and about Carey Raditz in particular - a cane-carrying character with bright red hair, or so the story goes.

BTW, Little Green is about the daughter she, then, secretly had and had to give up for adoption, in case you didn't know.

jtfolden said:

oh crap,i didnt know about the little green..thats bad... i mean how women were treated in the past.

theplejades said:

Ditto, thats a great DVD

heheh, thats back when she had a soft voice. She's a brut nowdays, LOL.

Anx said:

Gonna go check it out now

while i have a bunch of her albums, i always do back to:
court and spark
hejira
shadows and light

weepingwall said:

Joni put little messages in her songs through out the years, perhaps partly to ease her own guilt and partly that her daughter might one day know she was loved.

"Mitchell remembers giving birth in a Toronto hospital, where "one of the barbaric things they did was they bound the breasts of unwed mothers to keep the milk from coming," she says. Complications, she adds, kept her in the hospital for 10 days with her child. During the early years after the adoption, Mitchell told the Times, she "worried constantly" about the child’s health because her pregnancy diet had been "atrocious." In an interview on CBC Newsworld’s Pamela Wallin Live - broadcast, by coincidence, on Feb. 19, 1996, [her daughter's] 31st birthday - the singer explained that she had no recourse but adoption. "I didn’t have a penny," she said. "I had no money for diapers, or a room to take her to. There was no career on the horizon. Three years later, I had a recording contract and a house and a car, but how could I see that in the future?"- Joni Mitchell's Secret

Lyrics to Little Green:

Born with the moon in cancer
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who’ve made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to california
Hearing that everything’s warmer there
So you write him a letter and say, her eyes are blue.
He sends you a poem and she’s lost to you
Little green, he’s a non-conformer

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the northern lights perform
There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there’ll be sorrow

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

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the northern lights perform
There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there’ll be sorrow

She reunited with her daughter, I think it was around 98 or so.

Tom said:

Pretty close, 1997.

jtfolden said:

That is some seriously harsh karma.

jtfolden said:

OK, OK, I have to admit Hejira is a bit melancholy, not unlike Blue. But at least she's yearning, pensive, searching for somethin, and still hopeful. In Blue, as much as I love that album, she sounds devoid of all hope -- two steps away from opening up a wrist!
[Edited 4/27/06 20:23pm]

GangstaFam said:

I read something else that said, basically, the trauma of giving up her baby fuelled her creativity and once she was reunited with her daughter, she felt at peace and stopped making music.

Now that's fate.

I wonder if her daughter was even a fan of her, or felt some connection with her music before she found out Joni was her mom. Or maybe she thought her music was a major bore and couldn't stand her, LOL.

I still like Court & Spark the best. She seems to have come into full flower here, but the music is very accessible. The music is serious, but I wouldn't call it depressing.

For the Roses is a nice transition from Blue to Court & Spark. Still folky, but beginning to show a richer musical side than her folk stuff.

Clubkid said:

i put it on the top of my queue and it's supposed to arrive tomorrow!

One of my favorites...I just don't have hardly anything by her (My friend gave me like everything in MP3)

Court and Spark is amazing. It's when she was starting out on the Jazzy trip...

After that her music tends to get really deep and out there.

You should really pick up Hits and Misses...great Best of compilations.

"Oh, my favorite song," she said
And it was Joni singing, "Help me, I think I'm falling..."