Joni Mitchell's in My Blood Like Holy Wine

preface:
Joni Mitchell has always appealed to me for one reason alone: my mother cannot stand her music due to a bad roommate experience in college. What better thing could a fourteen-year old beginning his rebellious years do other than buy the album his mother used to hear on repeat when she was attempting to study? Apparently the roommate would 'hook' the arm of the record player over the LP Court and Spark--like this--and it played the record over and over and over. Court and Spark certainly has a fond place in my memory, but all joking aside, I feel a connection to Joni. When Emma Thompson's character in Love Actually says that "Joni Mitchell helped [her] to feel", I teared up. What better artist to choose for an historical analysis?


historical analysis & meta-critique:
Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943. Although most people frame Mitchell as a singer, she views herself as a visual artist, dabbling in photography and painting, then as a musician. She released her first album, Song to a Seagull, in 1968. Her follow up album Clouds (1969) contained much of her early work played on tours. She went on to release around 20 albums until the present day containing new material and some previously released material. She collaborated with many famous musicians including Chaka Khan, Charles Mingus, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Jaco Pastorius. According to allmusic.com, Joni Mitchell may be the most influential female recording artist during the late 20th century because of her willingness to experiment with her artistic identity and challenge what constitutes pop music.

A comparison of two albums highlight Mitchell's eclecticism: Clouds (1969) and Both Sides Now (2000). Although both are very similar in terms of subjects--love, loss, and the notion of modern romance--they differ greatly in terms of presentation. Clouds is at first glance a traditional folk/pop album whereas Both Sides Now producer Larry Klein (also Mitchell's ex-husband) writes in the liner notes of the album: "[It is] a programmatic suite documenting a relationship from initial flirtation through optimistic consummation, metamorphosing into disillusionment, ironic despair, and finally resolving in the philosophical overview of acceptance and the probability of the cycle repeating itself". Tracks are all written by Mitchell on Clouds have sparse accompaniment whereas Both Sides Now features fully orchestrated jazz or pop standards including two of Mitchell's own "A Case of You" and "Both Sides Now", which have even become standards of their own accord.

Unfortunately, Mitchell's career is so expansive it is quite difficult to choose what the engaging parts are of her career. I feel it must be quite similar to how Dr. MacFarlane engages with the Beatles on such a level. There's just so much I love about Joni Mitchell, I get carried away and could go on for days. So many things are worth mentioning and discussing further with Mitchell's career, and a legend such as Joni Mitchell deserves a little more discussion than just a brief historical overview. Maybe what I am articulating is that an historical analysis has its shortcomings in that we only get a limited or skewed version of the work. This especially speaks to Dr. Ferrara's idea that one should implement an electic analysis of a work rather than just using one form of analysis.

references:
imdb.com
wikipedia.org
allmusic.com
rollingstone.com