The album Joni Mitchell wrote in her “emotionally disturbed period”
Folk legend Joni Mitchell has one of the most distinctive songwriting styles in music history. Her creations are easy to pinpoint, generally made up of delicate strums or keys and vocals that wander just as much as the content of their words. However, the most defining aspect of her approach to songwriting is the vulnerability of her lyricism, the way she lets her feelings and thoughts spill into studio records without ever compromising on poeticism.
Nowhere is this more evident than on her fourth studio record, Blue, which arrived on record store shelves in 1971. True to its title, the album is steeped in feelings of loneliness and longing, of homesickness and hurt. “Blue, I love you,” Mitchell sings on the titular track, leaning entirely into her sorrow through song.
It’s a record that feels completely drenched in the depths of Mitchell’s emotions and experiences, from her struggles with the music industry to her desperate need to return to California. There are elements of the album that lighten it, the playfulness in her delivery, her dreams of freedom, but it is, ultimately, an intensely devastating listen.
‘Perhaps this is because Mitchell was in her own blue period when she penned it. Speaking with Mojo, in an interview archived on her official website, Mitchell stated that she wrote Blue in what she called her “emotionally disturbed period,” which was also when she made the decision to infuse her songwriting with honesty and vulnerability.
“I wanted everything to be transparent,” she declared. “I wanted to present myself as I was. To continue [as a songwriter], I had to show what I was going through.” This certainly came through on Blue, which opens with admissions of loneliness, with confused declarations of “I love you” and “I hate you”, with flippant urges to rip her tights up in a dive bar.
From there, Mitchell entirely leans into this newfound commitment to honesty. ‘Blue’ details dependencies on acid and booze to fill empty spaces, while ‘Little Green’ charts Mitchell’s decision to part with her daughter. Almost every entry on the album aches with emotion, often on the sadder end of the spectrum, as Mitchell entirely opens herself up to listeners.
This is precisely what makes Blue shine, and it marks it as Mitchell’s magnum opus. Through her powerful words and tender folk soundscapes, it’s easy to feel exactly how Mitchell felt in each moment she details. Beyond this, it’s the perfect accompaniment in those times of sorrow, whether you’re looking to wallow or take comfort in the promise that another has experienced your sadness.
Beyond Blue, Mitchell would commit herself to this vulnerable style of lyricism throughout her career. Her follow-up record, For the Roses, was just as stark in its emotional displays, charting difficult romances and struggles with addiction. Court and Spark pulled in newfound jazz influences but maintained honesty in its lyricism, with hopeless declarations of love on ‘Help Me’.
Though her lyrics never quite surpass the level of honesty and emotional devastation packed into 36 minutes on Blue, that commitment to honestly and openly sharing her emotions through song would completely come to define Mitchell’s songwriting. They would come to embolden countless other women with guitars to take the same approach, to pour their hearts out over folk soundscapes, and to comfort their listeners as a result.
