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Joni Mitchell emerged in the music world as a true and captivating oddity: not only for being one of the few true singer-songwriters of those years but above all for her unique style, an artistic folk, refined and very distinctive. This Canadian girl, musician, painter, and poetess by vocation, tenacious, strong and tempered by life, is truly an artist for whom terms like influential, seminal, and experimental can be used with justification and without the risk of hyperbole: always in a continuous musical exploration, never static, never fitting into a precise genre. Her journey begins with the early albums, "Song To A Seagull" from 1968 and "Clouds" the following year, and the music world immediately takes notice of her: the established Judy Collins successfully interprets "Both Sides Now," a young and emerging Jennifer Warnes makes "Chelsea Morning" her own. The style of these early albums is perhaps still a bit immature and occasionally challenging, but Joni demonstrates from the start her ability to write captivating and hypnotic melodies, with an entirely personal taste, especially in "The Pirate Of Penance" and "Roses Blue."
So we arrive at 1970: "Blue" is now on the horizon, and the album that precedes it, defining its coordinates, is "Ladies Of The Canyon," which is also the album of the singer-songwriter's full maturation. Despite many points of contact between these two records, there are notable differences as well: "Blue" is a simple, direct, instinctive, brilliant album that immediately circulates; "Ladies Of The Canyon" is not; it requires more time, patience, and attention: it is intimate, reflective, the emotions are more rarefied and "savored" compared to its highly acclaimed successor, which, however, it has absolutely nothing to envy in terms of overall quality: not that "Ladies Of The Canyon" lacks light and fun episodes, just think of the very rhythmic "Big Yellow Taxi", full of cheerfulness and irony but also important environmental messages, or a real, wonderful gem like "Morning Morgantown", almost a musical transposition of the pictorial art so dear to the Canadian artist, where the brush is Joni's sweet and charming voice, the two main instruments of the album, piano and acoustic guitar intertwine forming the canvas and the final result is a delicate and dreamy fresco; a song like the energetic and urgent "Conversation" at first listen seems almost a draft of what will be "Carey" and "California," but by paying more attention, one realizes that, for its instinctive, spontaneous, and torrential songwriting style, for the colloquial style it is much closer to "The Last Time I Saw Richard," of which it is almost a lively and rhythmic alter ego. However, the core of the album is made up of reflective, autumnal ballads, beautifully designed by the piano, sometimes imbued with sweetness, such as "Willy" and "For Free" or darker and more restless, "Rainy Night House", "Blue Boy", and "The Priest", hypnotic, ambiguous and shadowy.
Many episodes of the album are true demonstrations of what Joni Mitchell is capable of doing with her voice: a voice that I define as the most human and earthly there can be: it is extraordinary, mutable, capable of embodying infinite states of mind, thus far from a banal, cloying, and stereotypical angelic voice; angelic voices, in 90% of cases, are mere frauds and diversions: Joni Mitchell is not an angel: she is a real Woman, in flesh and bone, a Woman born with the gift of being able to transform her feelings into art, using just as much the brush to paint, as the pen to write her lyrics, as her voice to sing. Her hypnotic tone and her elegant vocalizations give the title track "Ladies Of The Canyon" an indefinable, airy, subtle, almost mysterious atmosphere: a transposition into music of the most intimate and profound female essence; in "The Arrangement", a sort of invective against superficiality becomes sharp as a knife, reaching almost lyrical tones in a bitter and tormented climax, well supported by the piano, and in the mysterious, allegorical, and intriguing "Woodstock", where the electric piano makes its appearance, her choirs are essential to create an almost imperious cadence, as indefinable and fascinating as the song of the sirens.
As the final seal, as the last and definitive theatrical coup, comes finally the song most strictly definable as folk from "Ladies Of The Canyon," namely "The Circle Game": imbued with serenity and velvety lightness, accompanied only by acoustic guitar and backup choirs in the chorus, giving it an even more bucolic and contemplative flavor, this song is a beautiful poem sweetly set to music; perfect for closing in the best possible way the first great masterpiece of this singer-songwriter, an artist who with her music has always adopted a very "pictorial" approach: figurative, instinctive, direct, improvised, one perceives this constantly in "Ladies Of The Canyon" despite the extreme care and refinement of the sounds and style: Joni Mitchell is truly an artist through and through, born with art in her blood, who lives and breathes it in all its forms in a pure, honest, personal manner: in my opinion, this is the essence of Joni Mitchell's charm, an essence that in albums like "Ladies Of The Canyon" has expressed itself in all its fullness.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
03 Conversation (04:26)
He comes for conversation
I comfort him sometimes
Comfort and consultation
He knows that's what he'll find
I bring him apples and cheeses
He brings me songs to play
He sees me when he pleases
I see him in cafes
And I only say, hello
And turn away before his lady knows
How much I want to see him
She removes him, like a ring
To wash her hands
She only brings him out to show her friends
I want to free him
Secrets and sharing soda
That's how our time began
Love is a story told to a friend
It's second hand
But I'll listen to his questions
I'll give my answers when they're found
He says she keeps him guessing
But I know she keeps him down
She speaks in sorry sentences
Miraculous repentances
I don't believe her
Tomorrow he will come to me
And he'll speak his sorrow endlessly and he'll ask me why
Why can't I leave her?
He comes for conversation
I comfort him sometimes
Comfort and consultation
He knows that's what he'll find
05 Willy (03:00)
Willy is my child, he is my father
I would be his lady all my life
He says he'd love to live with me
But for an ancient injury
That has not healed
He said I feel once again
Like I gave my heart too soon
He stood there looking through the lace
At the face on the conquered moon
And counting all the cars up the hill
And the stars on my window sill
There are still more reasons why
I love him
Willy is my joy, he is my sorrow
Now he wants to run away and hide
He says our love cannot be real
He cannot hear the chapel's pealing silver bells
But you know its hard to tell
When your in the spell if its wrong or if its real
But you're bound to lose
If you let the blues get you scared too feel
And I feel like I'm just being born
Like a shiny light breaking in a storm
There are some many reasons why I love him
06 The Arrangement (03:34)
You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard
While you still have the time you could get away and find
A better life, you know the grind
Is so ungrateful
Racing cars, Whisky bars
No one cares who you really are
You're the keeper of the cards
Yes I know it gets hard
Keeping the wheels turning
And the wife she keeps the keys
She is so pleased to be
A part of the arrangment
You could have been more than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a consumer
Lying in some room trying to die
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard
You could have been more
You could have been more
You could have been more
07 Rainy Night House (03:24)
It was a rainy night
We took a taxi to your mothers' home
She went to Florida and left you
With you father`s gun, alone
Upon her small white bed
I fell into a dream
You sat up all the night and watched me
To see, who in the world I might be
I am from the Sunday school
I sing soprano in the upstairs choir
You are a holy man
ON the FM radio
I sat up all the night and watched thee
To see, who in the world you might be
You called me beautiful
You called your mother - she was very tanned
So you packed your tent and went
To live out in the Arizona sand
You are a refugee
From a wealthy family
You gave up all the golden factories
To see, who in the world you might be
08 The Priest (03:40)
The priest sat in the airport bar
He was wearing his father's tie
And his eyes looked into my eyes so far
Whenever the words ran dry
Behind the lash and the circles blue
He looked as only a priest can, thru
And his eyes said me and his eyes said you
And my eyes said, let us try
He said, "You wouldn't like it here
No it's no place you should share
The roof is ripped with hurricanes
And the room is always bare
I need the wind and I seek the cold"
He reached post the wine for my hand to hold
And he saw me young and he saw me old
And he saw me sitting there
Then he took his contradictions out
And he splashed them on my brow
So which words was I then to doubt
When choosing what to vow
Should I choose them all-should I make them mine
The sermons, the hymns and the valentines
And he asked for truth and he asked for time
And he asked for only now
Now the trials are trumpet scored
Oh will we pass the test
Or just as one loves more and more
Will one love less and less
Oh come let's run from this ring we're in
Where the Christians clap and the Germans grin
Saying let them lose, crying let them win
Oh make them both confess
10 Big Yellow Taxi (02:15)
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hotspot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to seem 'em
Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Hey farmer, farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
I said
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
11 Woodstock (05:29)
I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me...
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
And try and get my soul free
Chorus*
We are stardust
We are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who l am
But life is for learning
*
We are stardust
We are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
*
We are stardust
We are golden
Caught up in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
12 The Circle Game (04:55)
Yesterday, a child came out to wander
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful, when the sky was full of thunder
and tearful at the falling of a star
and the season's they go round and round
and the painted ponies go up and down
we're captive on the carousel of time
we can't return, we can only look
behind from where we came
and go round and round and round in the circle game
then the child moved ten times round the seasons
skated over ten clear frozen streams
words like "when you're older" must appease him
and promises of "someday" make up his dreams
and the seasons, they go round and round
and the painted ponies go up and down
we're captive on the carousel of time
we can't return, we can only look
behind from where we came
and go round and round and round in the circle game
sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
cartwheels turn to carwheels through the town
and they tell him, "take your time, it won't be long now
'til you drag your feet to slow the circle's down"
and the seasons, they go round and round
and the painted ponies go up and down
we're captive on the carousel of time
we can't return, we can only look
behind from where we came
and go round and round and round in the circle game
so the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
though his dreams have lost some gandeur coming true
they'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams, and plenty
before the last revolving year is through
and the seasons, they go round and round
and the painted ponies go up and down
we're captive on the carousel of time
we can't return we can only look
behind from where we came
and go round and round and round in the circle game
and go round and round and round in the circle game
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