Joni Mitchell
Shine

These days, it's well known that there's little room for contemplation. Beset by countless problems, mortgages to pay off, jobs to defend with all one's might, and fighting for a scrap of recognition. Frustration is the most experienced feeling in this hectic world, which doesn't hesitate to trample you if you aren't able to tame and ride it. For decades, some have been proclaiming that Art is dead, that humanity has fallen into an abyss of creative sterility whose only future lies in recycling old ideas. This reasoning may be partly true, but Art has never died; it has only begun to flow through hidden channels, becoming elusive, requiring us to seek it out and learn to recognize it.

It is in this context that Joni Mitchell, whom by modern standards should be deemed a dinosaur from another geological era, releases an intense and committed album, a languid portrait of a decaying society governed by arrogant men. The title of this new work, the first of new material since the passable Taming the Tiger (1998), is Shine. It's an important release for the world of Music, definitely less so for the industry's profits. But Joni Mitchell has long been accustomed to going unnoticed.

The album starts with an instrumental track titled One Week Last Summer, built from the notes of a piano played by Mitchell herself. Sheppard’s alto saxophone serves as the ideal narrating voice. It's a dreamy, floating piece that becomes beautiful after several listens and remains the most relaxing and joyful song until the end of the album. With the last notes of One Week Last Summer, we move to This Place, where Mitchell's rediscovered voice makes its debut. It's a far cry from that lilting voice of her beginnings, far from the sophisticated voice of her jazz period, but we shouldn't despair. Years of smoking have given these splendid vocal cords an enviable depth, a tone perhaps even more seductive and incisive. It's touching to listen to the words of This Place, a sad song dedicated to our Earth torn apart by economic greed and wars. At the end of the third verse, we hear the phrase: "When this place looks like a moonscape / Don't say I didn't warn ya...". How can you not agree with her? She warned us back in the sixties about the bad turn this world would take, about environmental disasters and climate change. Here emerges the frustration, the feeling of not having been heard, of having spoken so many words in vain. Even sadder and more biting is If I Had a Heart, where Mitchell melancholically declares that "if I had a heart, I'd cry". The sound is delicate and as always evocative, without unnecessary catastrophic fanfare. Especially beautiful are the piano passages, so expressive and hypnotic that they could almost do without Mitchell's voice.

In this Shine, we also find a new version of Big Yellow Taxi, perhaps the artist's most well-known song. This ecological anthem has managed to weather nearly forty years of history and fits perfectly with the themes of the album. It's impossible not to sigh at the prophetic words "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone" (Isn't it always the case? That you don't know what you have until it's gone). Two other songs stand out for their elegance and beauty, Strong and Wrong and If.
As one might imagine, Strong and Wrong is directly inspired by the figure of George W. Bush, whom Mitchell does not hesitate to call a murderer, selfish, and a religious fundamentalist. One may agree or disagree with this message, but it would be foolish to deny its weight and the mood it reflects. A man so powerful and yet most of the time so wrong it's frightening. You emerge from this song with a heavy heart and a vague bitterness. The album closes with If, an adaptation of the poem of the same name by Kipling (in Italian Se). This is probably the most successful piece in the entire work. Great rhythm and melody are provided by Mitchell's omnipresent guitar and the bass of ex-husband Larry Klein. The album ends with the subtle optimism present in Kipling's (revised) verses. Mitchell invites us to find strength, once more, perhaps not everything is lost.

Shine is probably one of Joni Mitchell's most accessible and easy works. The apparent accessibility should not be misleading, for this is not a throwaway album. The songs are easily absorbed, but the melodies unfold slowly and through multiple listens. Despite the heaviness of the themes addressed, the album is neither difficult nor excessively dark. Many will probably lament the golden days of this great artist, and many will snub her umpteenth effort to stay relevant and make her voice heard. Going back to the initial point, Art must be sought out, and those who take the trouble to do so will receive more than they expect. Few enlightened artists withstand the passage of time, and very few emerge. Like her old friend Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell has decided that it's time to pick up the guitar again and show the world that the time is approaching when we can no longer remain silent or turn our heads to avoid looking into the abyss into which we all, whether we admit it or not, could soon plunge. Those who have ears to hear...

Tracklist

1. One Week Last Summer
2. This Place
3. If I Had a Heart
4. Hana
5. Bad Dreams
6. Big Yellow Taxi (2007)
7. Night of the Iguana
8. Strong and Wrong
9. Shine
10. If