•
Rating: To the now seasoned (vintage 1943) Canadian songwriting superstar, fate has unfortunately dealt a nasty and premature old age: five years ago, a brain aneurysm seriously impaired her physically and mentally, thus definitively ending her very long, almost fifty-year career as a composer and performer. And painter.
With the stubbornness of the toughest ("I defeated polio at nine years old… this is just another, yet another battle in my life!"), the blonde keeps holding on and has progressively regained her lost speech, while regarding mobility issues, the wheelchair still hasn't been put out of use, but she's working on it.
This album dates back to the end of the last century and formally marked Mitchell's entry into the long "senile" phase of her career. It was followed by a slew of collections, recyclings, reinterpretations, and recoveries, all graced by only one unique album of new material titled "Shine" from 2007, which was superb.
"Both Sides Now" indeed comprises, for its ten-twelfths, very personal covers of light jazz standards from the sixties, fifties, forties, and even thirties. The album is completed by two reinterpretations of her early classics, the famous one which also provides the title of the work, and then the slightly less known "A Case of You."
The album has two peculiarities: firstly, the omnipresence of the large orchestra, arranged and conducted by the highly professional Vince Mendoza and recorded at London's Air Studios, the late Sir John Martin's, the one linked to the Beatles.
And then Mitchell's voice itself: gone! Two out of the four octave range as well as the round and clear timbre have been lost along the way, replaced by a dark and husky delivery, breaking where once it was strong and steady.
It’s due to the cigarettes… Three packs a day, since she was a kid! Of course, she vehemently denies it, as only ardent smokers know how to do, preferring to blame it on the late aftereffects of the past polio attack, on the fact that after fifty the voice always deteriorates (tell that to Al Bano, if you dare!). In reality, her youthful soprano pipes, exhibited with spectacular but often verbose results in the first four/five albums, had already transformed into that, definitively fuller, mobile, and interesting mezzo-soprano by the full seventies. The loads of smoked tobacco continued to take their toll and in the eighties, she performed as a contralto, yet still "clean" and wide-ranged, until the nineties when the hoarseness and increasingly evident strain towards the highs began.
All this to conclude, however, that Joni Mitchell's singing has improved over the years! Physiological limitations have been counterbalanced by experience, knowledge, expressiveness, clarity of purpose and means, infinite megalomania with a consequent pursuit of perfection in channeling her sensitivity into notes, vocal trills, and words. I much prefer this mature, breathless, and limited but sexy Joni Mitchell to that kind of exaggerated nightingale she was as a girl, continuously flying over the sound of her acoustic guitar without ever landing. The low, whispering tones of this elderly Mitchell, her sharp and sometimes almost verbal phrasing, the infinite nuances of her throat, are a blessing for my taste, and also… true stimulation to my sexual sphere! Just listen to the same "Both Sides Now", sung three tones lower than the original and at the same time three times more evocative, in its slow and melancholic pace that gives the lyrics full meaning.
It is not a rock album and not a folk album, it is fifty very retro minutes of voice plus orchestra. Certainly not for every day, but Joni is, even on this occasion, and more than ever, my favorite female musician of all time; and her voice gives me chills, even when tackling these antiquated pieces by Richard Rodgers, Mack Gordon, Harry Warren, Howard Stept, Charles Tobias, David Mann, Vincent Youmans, Harold Arlen, Reuben Bloom… half of Broadway's golden years, in short.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 You're My Thrill (03:53)
You're my thrill
You do something to me
You send chills right through me
When I look at you
'Cause you're my thrill
You're my thrill
How my pulse increases
I just go to pieces
Every time I look at you
I can't keep still
Nothing seems to matter
Here's my heart on a silver platter
Oh where is my will
Why this strange desire
Flaming higher and higher
Every time I look at you
I can't keep still
You're my thrill
Oh where's my will
Why this strange desire
Flaming higher and higher
Every time I look at you
I can't keep still
Oh you're my thrill
04 You've Changed (05:00)
You've changed
The sparkle in your eyes is gone
Your smile is just a careless yawn
You're breaking my heart
You've changed
You've changed
Your kisses now are so blasé
You're bored with me in every way
I can't understand
You've changed
You've forgotten the words I love you
And the memories that we've shared
You've ignored all the stars up above you
I can't realize that you ever cared
You've changed
You're not the angel I once knew
No need to tell me, I know we're through
It's all over now
You've changed
You've forgotten the words I love you
And the memories that we've shared
You ignore all the stars up above you
I can't realize that you ever cared
You've changed
You're not the angel I once knew
No need to tell me, I know we're through
It's all over now
You've changed
06 A Case of You (05:53)
Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar
On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
With your face sketched on it twice
Oh you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I would still be on my feet
Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid
I remember that time that 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
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet
I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed
Oh but you are in my blood you're my holy wine
You're so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet
09 Don't Worry 'Bout Me (03:49)
Don't worry 'bout me
I'll get along
Forget about me
Just be happy my love
Let's say that our little show is over
And so the story ends
Why not call it a day the sensible way
And still be friends
Look out for yourself
That should be the rule
Give your heart and your love
To whomever you love
Darlin' don't be a fool
Why do we cling to this old faded thing
That used to be
So if you can forget
Then you don't worry 'bout me
10 Stormy Weather (03:06)
Don't know why
There's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather
Since my man and I ain't together
Keeps rainin' all of the time
Life is bare
Gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather
Just can't get my poor self together
I'm weary all the time
All the time
So weary all of the time
When you went away
The blues stepped up and met me
If he's gone to stay
That old rocking chair's going to get me
Every night I pray
That the Lord above will let me
Walk in the sunlight once more
I can't go on
Everything I had is gone
Stormy weather
Since my man and I ain't together
Keeps rainin' all of the time
Keeps rainin' all of the time
12 Both Sides Now (05:46)
Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
and feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way.
I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
from up and down, and still somehow
it's cloud illusions I recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.
Moons and Junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way that you feel
as every fairy tale comes real; I've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show. You leave 'em laughing when you go
and if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.
I've looked at love from both sides now,
from give and take, and still somehow
it's love's illusions that I recall.
I really don't know love at all.
Tears and fears and feeling proud, to say "I love you" right out loud,
dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they say
I've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.
I've looked at life from both sides now,
from win and lose, and still somehow
it's life's illusions I recall.
I really don't know life at all.
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By Grasshopper
This is the caption I would put under this image, and I would also associate it with this indecipherable record, which has the power to trigger a conflict between ear and mind within me.
A paradoxical record, well-made and precious, but perfectly useless, like a beautiful luxury ornament.
