Hejira

by

Joni Mitchell

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By 1976 Joni Mitchell was something of an American singer-songwriter legend, and with good reason. In the previous nine years she had released some of the most critically-acclaimed albums of the rock era, and was certainly the most prolific female singer in the world. Her popularity increased in the mid-Seventies, and peaked with the release of her No.2 hit album "Court And Spark," which received several Grammy nominations. The folk sound that had dominated so much of her earlier was gradually receding with each album, so that by 1976's "Hejira," she was making music that many people saw as being more jazz/blues, when in actually fact it was nothing like it. It was Joni, pure and simple.

Now I have been listening very intensely to Joni Mitchell's music in the past four weeks, and I have to say she is the most honest and truthful voice I've ever heard. As Q-Tip stated on Janet Jackson's 1997 Joni-samping hit Got Til' It's Gone, "Joni Mitchell never lies!" The passion in her delivery is unrivalled, her persistence, her determination to get her point across, the range in her voice, her lyrics suspend me in a state of disbelief when I really listen. This woman painted with her voice and words. Hejira is easily my favourite album by this legend, and definitely one of the best albums I've ever listened to. If there is one album you should take on a road trip, it's this one! I can just imagine driving down the long, straight roads that carry on for hundreds of miles in the middle of nowhere and having this album as my constant companion.

The album opens with "Coyote," probably the most upbeat song on the album. It's a perfect opener and quite positive in tone. The lyrics in this work so well and I love the way Joni weaves them all together in such an untraditional way. The percussion makes this song quite light and is a great way to easy yourself into the beauty to come. Joni's voice is beautiful and I love the way she sings, "He's got another woman down the hall and he seems to want me anyway!" The bass on this song is brilliant and the rhythm guitar works well as an underbelly to the percussion. "Amelia" is a song loosely based around Amelia Earhart, the female pilot who set off on a flight in July 1937 never to return or be found. Joni is compelled to sing about her after seeing six jet planes leaving vapor trails across the bleak terrain sky as she drives down the burning desert. The imagery on this song is absolutely stunning and the sparse guitar work opens it up to expansive proportions. I love the lyrics because Joni can gently lull the listener into a state of peace and tranquility, "And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust. I dreamed of 747's, over geometric farms. Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms." This song was the first one that really stood out when I listened to the album for the first time. I still adore it, but I don't think it's my favourite of the nine songs on the album.

"Furry Sings The Blues" is definitely a contender for my favourite song on the album. I'm not even sure if I'd want to put the songs in any sort of order because it just works so well as an overall piece of art. Yes, art! Music like this can be described as nothing but extreme, high art. This song features the legend Neil Young playing the harmonica flawlessly. He makes this song what it is, along with Joni's voice of course. The lyrics are melancholy and sparse, about an old man who sings the blues for anyone who will listen. The imagery created in this gives me chills. It's old and its dated in the way something gets finer with age. "Ghosts of the darktown society come right out of the bricks at me. Like it's a Saturday night, they're in their finery, dancing it up and making deals. Furry sings the blues. Why should I expect that old guy to give it to me true?" The harmonica outro peaks into the night sky, gently growing more distant. "A Strange Boy" has taken quite a while to grow on me but it features some of the most memorable lyrics from the whole album, such as, "We got high on travel, and we got drunk on alcohol." The lyrics are just amazing, I can hardly say anything more. She knows exactly where to come in with the next line, exactly which instruments to put more emphasis on so that the meaning of her words resonates more with the listener, everything, she's just amazing.

The title track, "Hejira," is next and is another superb song. This song features the beautiful tone of a clarinet that adds a dark melancholy to the song. It would be perfect for driving down the desert in the middle of a rainstorm as bleak clouds gather above. It's almost seven minutes long and has some really beautiful lyrics, such as, "I'm porous with travel fever, but you know I'm so glad to be on my own! Still sometimes the slightest touch of a stranger can set up trembling in my bones! I know, no one's gonna show me everything. We all come and go unknown. Each so deep and superficial, between the forceps and the stone." Joni's voice is beautiful as usual, although sometimes I find it a little bit whiny on this song. It's just her heartache coming through, and it works brilliantly, but sometimes it grates a little on me. "Song For Sharon" is the epic masterpiece of the album around which everything else orbits. It's almost nine minutes in length, and will keep your attention for every single second. The guitar work is superb and has this spiralling effect that appears out of the darkness frequently. It's one of the most evocative, powerful things I've ever heard on record and they come in at just the right moment to emphasise the beauty in Joni's lyrics, especially right after she exclaims, "But all I really wanna do, right now is find another lover!" Joni also has her own voice as background vocals in a high-pitched Indian-American yelp that yodels over and over in a beautiful rhythmic pattern.

"Black Crow" is another fantastic song but probably my least favourite on the whole album. That's not to say that I dislike it, because I love it, it's very powerful, but I considered the rest of the songs and they were all slightly better than this one. It's a rather short song at just over four minutes in comparison to most of the other six/seven minute ones on here. In this song Joni sings about feeling like a black crow flying in a blue sky as she drives down the highway. The song also opens brilliantly with the guitar being rather dirty and more rhythmic than anything else on here. Joni's voice is also incredible especially when she sings, "I feel like that black crow flying in a blue sky!" A great song, which is followed by the gentle "Blue Motel Room." The entire album is a road trip for Joni, and this song represents a part of the journey where she is staying in a motel for a night or two. This is the most jazzy song on the album, and it's absolutely beautiful. The bass of this song just puts me in another world, and the acoustic guitar is very old-fashioned. In other words, the kind of song Norah Jones would dream to have written and recorded. Around the second minute Joni's voice becomes distorted and you can sense a real depth and atmosphere in the song.

The album closes with the awesome "Refuge Of The Roads." This is probably my favourite song on the album. I've listened to it so many times and I am just in awe of the musicianship. I broke down in tears last week when I listened to this early one morning last week because I just thought it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever experienced in my life thus far. Joni's voice is quite melancholy, and the lyrics are so evocative and vivid. I love it when she sings, "I pulled off into a forest, crickets clicking in the ferns. Like a wheel of fortune, I heard my fate turn, turn, turn." Horns are used to superb effect on this song especially towards the end. What really catches me is that this song is about the end of the journey, there's such a sense of completion, of sorrow and happiness all at once. It closes with one of the most beautiful lyrical verses I've heard: "In a highway service station, over the month of June, was a photograph of the earth, taken coming back from the moon. And you couldn't see a city on that marbled bowling ball, or a forest or a highway or, me here least of all. You couldn't see these coldwater restrooms, or this baggage overload, westbound and rolling, taking REFUGE in the roads."

OVERALL GRADE: 10/10

This album has blown me away, and it's nearly 30 years old. If music this old can do that to a young 18 year old like me, then it must be something special. How many people my age are into music like this? I'd like to bet not many. Joni Mitchell is a musical legend because of music like this and her legacy is preserved for eternity. As far as songwriters go, I don't think there's a better female in the history of music, which is why Joni is far and away the most important female artist of the 20th Century. It will be a sad, sad day when this woman dies but albums like this will be instantly set in stone for generations to come. I suggest you buy this now because you'll set off down that jet-black highway on your travels and never look back.