Joni Mitchell’s Blue may have been released one summer seven years before I was born, but it’s a winter album that conjures memories of me, my mom, and my little sister.
There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes / And sometimes there’ll be sorrow.
In the height of the 1980s, when we were living in Eagle Heights married student housing in Madison, Wisconsin, where my mom was studying for her master’s in speech pathology, she would put the album on the record player. When we moved back to the Ozarks for the ’90s it came with us, along with one of those oval braided rugs that always found a spot in our den, all worn and fuzzed out in a muted brown palate. She only played Blue when my dad was out of the house. Joni’s high clear voice, and maybe her unabashed confessionalism, grated on his nerves. Saturday afternoons, all the curtains pulled up to let the sunlight drench our tiny apartment or our modest rental house—there were so many in my childhood—my mom swept the hardwood floors and made chamomile tea with honey for me and my sister. “Carey get out your cane, and I’ll put on some silver. Boy you’re a mean old daddy but I like you,” my mom would sing swinging our arms as she sprayed down the bookshelf with Pledge.
It’s coming on Christmas / They’re cutting down trees / They’re putting up reindeer / And singing songs of joy and peace / Oh, I wish I had a river / I could skate away on.
Maybe it’s a winter album for me because of “River,” in which the opening piano melody references “Jingle Bells,” in a minor keyed slowed down lilted ballad sort of way. When my sister moved out to Portland, Oregon, after high school the distance brought us closer. I put “River” on one of the many mixtapes we exchanged, all decorated with magazine page collages and maybe some sparkly hello kitty stickers.
We’d not been all that close in high school. She was the rebel in the alternative “school within a school” program—all combat boots, sneaking out through the window after our parents went to bed, and cigarettes, booze and other illicitness. I was in all the AP classes I could sign up for, the lit mag staff and the school choir. Though we seemed opposite there was some common ground, mostly in our love of singer-songwriters, and especially Joni Mitchell’s Blue.
I want to knit you a sweater / Want to write you a love letter / I want to make you feel better/I want to make you feel free
It’s 1 a.m. on the eve of Thanksgiving and this is the first time I’ve written in months. My husband and two-year-old daughter are asleep, this is the only time I can steal for myself, and I can hear the bass line and drunken shouts from the nightclub next door. The trees so recently ablaze now show off their nakedness, some studded by bunches of mistletoe dangling on the highest branches, taunting me to try and climb up so I can snip off some of that winter magnificence. I was planning to make pie crusts, but instead I am writing this. I’ve made so many pie crusts, carefully flicking tablespoons one at a time of ice cold water or juice—apple works well—onto the flour cut into breadcrumb sized bits with decadent butter. The alchemy of pie, particularly the crust, is the closest thing I ever get to meditation. Although I need some of that stillness now, I am writing about Blue because this is the time of year when it calls to me the most and because there is always something other than writing that I’m supposed to be doing. And here I am thinking of frost bitten pinkies, instant hot cocoa with miniature marshmallows, the Christmas stocking my now dead grandma made for me not long after I was born, adorned with a sequined image of a girl in her bed dreaming of sugarplums. My grandma loved the holidays, was the holidays—the cheer, the gifts, the family around the fireplace, the huge Thanksgiving dinners of thirty members of the extended family. After she died of cancer, only in her fifties, holidays weren’t the same. The sheen of the metallic garland dinned, the family dinners shrunk and turned into boxes of take-out.
Everybody’s saying / that hell’s the hippest way to go / Well I don’t think so / But I’m gonna take a look around it though / Blue, I love you.
Bliss, melancholy—Blue is both at once, just as the holiday season is for me. Unabashedly sentimental, devoid of irony, Joni Mitchell tells stories of love and loneliness and somehow manages to keep her songs simple, pure and unadorned. When I listen to Blue I am alone. I am also a kid again, dancing and singing along with my mother and sister. I am the fragile twentysomething constantly getting her heart broken. I am the new mother trading in sleep for a solitary moment to write. I am at once shattered and glowing.
16 responses
So love that you sat and wrote about this album. Her music has always gotten to me in a way that nobody else’s ever has. “I am at once shattered and glowing.”
This is almost as beautiful as the album itself. Lovely work.
I enjoyed reading this. Blue is absolutely my favorite Joni Mitchell album as well as one of my favorites of all time. I still remember the first time I heard it and how it affected me.
“All I Want” is one of my all-time favorite songs. This is a fantastic, just superb album. Lovely stuff you’ve written here.
Thank you for this. A gentle reminder to slow down and meditate to Blue.
“When I listen to Blue I am alone.” You’re right on with this–when I think of artists like Joni Mitchell I think how she put her art first–so many other women artists don’t (like yourself I suspect–“there’s always something other than writing I should be doing”). But there’s isn’t always something else you should be doing–just something else that needs to be done. . . . listen to Blue and remember that! Lovely article.
Danke all of you for your sweet words. I felt an urgency to write about this album. Kate, you are so right. Thanks for the reminder.
Enjoyed this very much. For more insight on Joni and what went into BLUE, I respectfully submit… http://www.girlslikeusthebook.com and http://www.girlslikeusthemusic.com .
This is so beautiful!
Thank you, Katy. I so feel you coming through in this. I vote for more personal essays from you.
Sheila, I’ve seen your book and have really wanted to read it. Will go seek it out! Danke!
Beautiful essay. Love, love Blue. Joni’s best. I once heard John Doe say it was one of his favorite albums which made me love him even more. Wouldn’t you love to hear The Knitters cover Carey.
Loved reading this, so evocative and poignant.
this album is an emotional primer. thanks for unpacking your experience, so exquisitely.
I first listened to “Blue” when an older friend mentioned she had ‘worn a groove in’ her copy back when it was released. I knew it must be special, and it’s become dear to me. It’s nice to hear others share the same sentiment. How she can make us so sad, so happy, so many versions of ourselves at once is artistic bliss. And I feel you on the pie crust,too 🙂
Try listening to this album in its entirety, lights off, alone. It makes me weep, but somehow, I never tire of the experience. I can’t think of an album that rivals the emotional impact of Blue.
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