Fifty years ago Joni Mitchell recorded her album Blue. A fabulous and very autobiographical album it was too. Here’s a link to a very good BBC Radio programme celebrating the album.
And here’s a link to a Guardian article in which famous people tell us which is their favourite track from the album.
Some of those famous folk were also her lovers at some point in their lives. As David Crosby put it:
“Joni went out with me, Graham Nash, James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Leonard Cohen.”
There’s a lovely innocence in his saying “Joni went out with me” and I imagine them going to the pictures and sitting hand in hand on the back row of the cinema. Instead they were all in Laurel Canyon writing songs and playing music, among other activities.
I love this comment by Graham Nash: “In 100 years’ time, people will remember the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Joni.”
I would add Leonard Cohen to that list. Oh, and maybe Paul Simon.
We all get a bit attached to the music of our youth and No doubt today’s young people would quote singer-songwriters of today who they think will be eternal. But it’s quite significant, in my opinion, that our 23 year old granddaughter counts Joni Mitchell songs and Paul Simon songs among her favourites.
Ah! Nostalgia!
In the present day, my Italian teacher and friend is spitting Sicilian feathers about the continuing restrictions on travel. And now Italy itself has turned on her and said that people travelling from our Delta Variant-infested country will have to quarantine if they visit Italy. All she wants to do is visit her family in Sicily … and have a bit of guaranteed sunshine. Oh, to be able to count on waking up to blue sky and sunshine and not have to wonder whether the temperature has dropped again overnight - that’s the way her thinking is going. If this difficult travel situation goes on, pretty soon her Sicilian summers will be just a nostalgic memory!
Out running this morning, I stopped to chat with one of my dog-walking acquaintances, who confessed to having switched on the heating in her house yesterday! I reassured her that we had done the same in the late afternoon, summer solstice or not! But today the blue sky and sunshine came back … at least they did briefly while I ran round the village. Since then they have been intermittent.
There’s little chance of rain, however, according to my weather app. So when I go out later I should not get wet at any rate. My granddaughter, the 23 year old, has a hospital appointment and needs to catch a bus to the hospital. She is a mass of worries and anxieties, part of which manifests itself in a serious reluctance to use public transport. It’s not really lockdown-related but the lockdown and working from home have not helped. So after much discussion and persuasion, she has agreed to travel on the bus of I accompany her. I suppose that is what family is for.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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