Joni Mitchell’s album “Blue“, released when she was only 27, turned 50 years old yesterday. A bit more on that tomorrow, but let’s listen to one of the many great songs on this album: “A Case of You“. This was recorded live in London in 1983. I regard it as one of the best “rock” albums of all time, and Mitchell as the best solo singer-songwriter of my generation.
The only other musicians playing on the recorded version are James Taylor on guitar and Russ Kunkel on drums, neither of them in this performance.
Agree: Blue is one of the best ever recorded. That Joni could deliver (and write) a song!
Every woman with whom I’ve had a serious romantic relationship going back to college has owned a copy of Blue and considered it one of her favorite albums (as, come to think of it, have most of the ones with whom I’ve had a more casual relationship). All I’ve ever asked is that, just once, they say “You’re a mean old daddy, but I dig you.” 🙂
I’ve had a copy of Blue since it came out and love it, too.
One of the few hardcopy CDs I have retained. (Everything is converted to MP3s and backed up many times. Used to have something like N=1500 CDs.)
There was a really good rundown on this album in the NYT about a week ago. Includes commentary on each song from several of her contemporaries.
I’m featuring that NYT article in the Hili dialogue tomorrow.
Yes, great song – I posted a Grauniad link to tributes from James Taylor, David Crosby, and many other musicians below the line of yesterday’s Hili. For those who may be interested, here it is again: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/22/joni-mitchell-blue-my-favourite-song-james-taylor-carole-king-graham-nash-david-crosby-kt-tunstall-birdy
Thank you for the refreshing mid-day art appreciation.
Well now I’m finding myself tripping thru old recordings from various artists.
Thanks for this, I had not seen this performance before. Joni is the best singer/songwriter of my generation, without a doubt.
Just lovely. Thanks! I can highly recommend two movies – documentaries – that look at the Laurel Canyon and SoCal music scene in the 60’s-70’s and show what a charmed and unique time that was for popular American music as well as for English musicians who came to CA. The first is Echo in the Canyon, hosted by Jakob Dylan and the second is Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time by Alison Ellwood. Both are terrific.
How long before no one alive knows what the blue TV screen light actually is?
Along those lines, try explaining the concept of a phone “party line” to a 30-something…
Yes, thanks for this. I booted up Spotify in the car and listened to the whole album. That’s a great song and so was pretty much all the rest of her stuff.
A really good version of this song is by Heart’s Nancy Wilson from her solo album, “Live At McCabe’s Guitar Shop.” That one is one of my favorite albums.
I got chills when I saw this post’s title. One of the greatest songs of all time, in the upper half of my personal top ten.
For years, I thought that the line at the beginning of the last stanza was “I met a woman, she had a love like yours…” Only a few years ago did I realize that it is “I met a woman, she had a mouth like yours.” It was like ripping off a bandaid, and forced me to relisten to the song with new ears. What a gift that was!
I love the ambiguity, or at least double meaning, of “mouth”: is it the physical mouth, or is it the words spoken? For Mitchell, there’s always this tension between the physical and the inner life of words, intent, and communication.
Joni is undoubtedly one of the great singer-songwriters of this age. But this version of A Case of You by the incomparable KD Lang, outshines Joni’s take on this beautiful song IMHO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzf6rI567HA
To equal Joni is a big ask; to surpass her, impossible, even if kdl gives her rarebit.