Blue is an album. Blue is a color. The color of calm ponds and the rain that falls during the most tempestuous of storms. The color of teary rivers flowing from likewise dismal blue eyes straight into calm and sage blue seas. Blue is a boat journey through it all. Blue is a story, told by a woman. A poet. A myth. The understated legend of the 60s, unfortunately and unfairly obscured by the dust of oblivion.
The commencement of the aforementioned journey is a feeling of passion and desire, so typical of young fruits of love and affection. These sensations are evoked by “What I Want”, the first song we get to hear. One might argue that red color would be more becoming of such an emotion, but it serves as a foreshadowing element. Words: ‘Do you see how you’re hurting me baby?’ sung in the company of a lonely guitar and an Appalachian dulcimer, a rare and radiant folk instrument, already introduce us to the melancholy we can assume we will experience throughout our trip. But for quite some time, everything seems to be going fine.
“My Old Man” carries on in transmitting that feeling of security. We can hear warm notes of a piano and a melodious voice claiming that My Old Man is keeping away the blues. However, we quickly learn that ‘when he’s gone, me and the lonesome blues collide’. It makes us wonder, what will happen if this relationship will not work out the way the narrator wishes it to. Yes, we feel the most happiness we possibly can, but how long can this last? Do you really think we don’t need a piece of paper from the city halls to keep us tied and true?
I don’t know your answer to that question, but “Little Green” does answer another one. Specifically, what happens once the Old Man is gone forever and we are stuck with a child that we can’t provide for. Through the virtuosity of folksy fingerpicking on her guitar, lyrical mastery and emotional voice Joni Mitchell conveys the terrible feeling of having to forever part with your own child and give it up for adoption. ‘You’re sad and you’re sorry but you’re not ashamed. Little Green, have a happy ending’. This is definitely a highlight of our journey, perhaps even more so once we learn that it’s autobiographical and completely true. She had to get through that experience. But even if we assume that the “author is dead” the emotional resonance of surrounding despair is still impeccable.
Working through the unimaginable is certainly not easy. But the worst thing a person can do is to try to run away from it and hide within the simple pleasures and romances, to try to cope with their life and never again confront any other hardships. Maybe that is why “Carey” is probably the weakest and the least interesting part of the voyage? Its concept is not the best advice that can be given to somebody. But then again it’s much easier to digest and more prone to become a hit. The last line of defense for this song is that the narrator is aware that what she’s doing is not right; ‘you know it sure is hard to leave here Carey, but it’s really not my home’.
The titular track is a perfect explanation of why you should never cope with difficult feelings in such a way. While listening to its soft piano and vulnerable delivery of lines you can almost feel like you’re the one who is struggling with your inner desire to both come back to the beloved person and to run away from them and never look back.
“California” and “This Flight Tonight” are very similar in terms of their character. Both are presenting to us the world in which the narrator is slowly getting over their heartbreak. They find some new meaning in life and attach themselves to it. Whether it is politics, traveling, partying or anything else. At some point in life, we do seem to realize that there is no point in pretending to be somebody else. ‘Will you take me as I am?’, the question rings in our ears and for the first time in a long time can provide us with hope for the future, despite ‘bloody changes’. That is due to our protagonist realizing that she is important and noteworthy no matter what others think. We continue to accompany her as she finally reaches for the fading, but still shining, starlight, representing the new purpose of their life that is not based on evading pain of heartaches. That doesn’t mean that we’ve achieved tranquility and that we won’t make any more mistakes, ‘I shouldn’t have gone on this flight tonight’, but that we are no longer afraid of making them. Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves.
In spite of being able to mostly carry on with living, there are certain lonesome moments in life when we are faced with our greatest adversary – our own mind with memories of what might have been. We blame ourselves for all of the chances we’ve lost; ‘I’m so hard to handle, I’m selfish and I’m sad. Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby that I’ve ever had’. The moments that the words don’t reach with suffering too powerful to name. The moments when we just want to ‘skate away’ from everything. Skate away on the “River” that we simply don’t have anywhere near us.
All of these harrowing points in time, however, cease to exist when we realize that the point of our life after the heartbreak is not to keep trying to run away from the past, but rather, to embrace it. To stand up to the ghosts that have been haunting us for so long. To stand up and to overcome them. To realize that we could drink “A Case of You” and still be on our feet. To accept that the hardships we endured created the person we are now, and as such we should be proud of them, just like Nietzsche said.
The epilogue of this story is contained within “Last Time I Saw Richard” which is truly a fantastic open ending. When we learn how to cope with our past sufferings we finally get to decide for ourselves, without their intervention, on what we will do with our lives. Do we end up as cynical drunks in dark cafés? We can clearly see ourselves in the character of Richard, who has probably gone through every calamity we have discussed up to this point. But are we really doomed to end like him?
The beauty of all art is in the fact that it’s open to interpretation. If you don’t like too many thoughts, words or ideas in your folk music you should definitely stay away from Blue. But if you’re not afraid of ambitious writing, on the same level as the best of English-language poets you should definitely check it out. Blue is an album. But Blue is also a story. A story of womanhood. A story of humanity. A story of all of us. And only an insane being would try to review eternity. I have witnessed perfection and seen it flawed.