Blue and Blood on the Tracks

I love 'Blue' and 'Blood on the Tracks' just about as much as any one person can love a couple of albums. I've loved 'Blood on the Tracks' since late 1996 and 'Blue' since early 1999 and I have never gone off either in any way whatsoever. 'Blue' is my favourite Joni Mitchell and either my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th favourite album in the world. 'Blood on the Tracks' is my favourite Bob Dylan album and either my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th album in the world. Others come and go. These two remain.

I am, in general, more of a Bob Dylan fan than a Joni Mitchell fan, though. I sometimes feel quite conflicted about that, but can't change it. In fact "quite conflicted" is an understatement. It's as if, for some weird reason, whatever soul or conscience I have remaining has made its chosen battleground the comparison between Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. Guiltily, as if I'm some grotesque, narrow-minded bore (heaven forbid), I find myself relentlessly defending the honour of Bob Dylan's art against imagined people made of straw (or the ghost of David Crosby) who wish to elevate others within popular song to his equal or superior. That's usually Joni Mitchell, sometimes Leonard Cohen - those are two most comparable, it seems, but it can be anyone. "This knocks Dylan into a cocked hat", they say. 

There is a long-established take that Joni Mitchell does not get her due, but, believe me, from the people I'm arguing with in my head, she does ...

It doesn't help my soul in its eternal conflict that the Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan themselves exist in some kind of unknowable animus, some issue of disrespect and minor slights (publicly from the former, who knows about privately).

My soul finds peace with 'Blue' and 'Blood on the Tracks', thankfully. These two albums are friends and companions. It is no concern to me - well, not much concern to me - which is better. Dylan loved 'Blue' and Mitchell loved 'Blood on the Tracks'. 'Blood on the Tracks' may even, rumour has it, be inspired by 'Blue'.

Both albums are singular masterworks in their creator's catalogues. They both have other masterworks, but these are masterworks which they did not try to replicate. Joni was never the Joni of 'Blue' again, Bob never the Bob of 'BOTT' again.

They are both described as "confessional". They both have pain and loss at their heart. They are both made up of 10 songs, 2 sides of 5 songs each. 'Blue' is an exquisite, concise, perfect 36 minutes, 'BOTT' a slightly more rambling 51 minutes. I used to think of 'Blue' as a little more "perfect", in as much as every single song is a highlight, whereas 'Meet Me in the Morning' and 'Buckets of Rain' seemed like spacefillers, but I have developed great affection for those two songs, particularly the latter. I can't imagine 'Blood on the Tracks' without them now.

An interesting thing is that they both, on initial impressions, sound like they describe one long great love affair, particularly 'Blue', but closer listens and more background info helps you understand there are lots of different strands, lots of different men from different stages of Joni Mitchell's life, and it's better seen as a reflection on her own adult life thus far, rather than a "break-up album".

Both have an element of travel, of multiple locations, though a difference is that 'Blue' feels - of its era - current, whereas 'Blood on the Tracks' is outside time, or certainly of the past, somewhat. Dylan is also, though more "confessional" than usual, more allusive, with at least two songs that aren't in the first person. Indeed, 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts' might seem an entirely different entity to everything else, yet somehow doesn't.

Joni Mitchell's performance on 'Blue' is impeccable, but nevertheless can be harrowing, especially on the title track, or heart-breaking, as on 'Little Green' and 'River'. Dylan is quite charming on a couple of tracks, full of fury on 'Idiot Wind' and sounds probably the most wretched he ever did on 'You're a Big Girl Now' and 'If You See Her, Say Hello'. Indeed, I'd say it is the vocal performances that really elevate those two songs.

'A Case of You' was the one grabbed me most on 'Blue', whereas on 'BOTT' it was 'Idiot Wind' - which (I know it's a song some people hate) gives you a bit of every aspect of Dylan - some great singing, some wild singing, some scorn, some late empathy, some incredible lines, some less good lines, some idiosyncratic phrasing, some perfect phrasing. There are few things I love more than the line "smoke pouring out of a box car door" and how he sings it, and also "ee-yeah-dee-ut wee-und, blowin lak a suckle around ma skuhl, from thee grand couli dam to tha capi-tuhl", or whatever that is.

It might make sense to end with a "Best of the Two Combined" but I think I won't ...

just to say, there are several songs on both albums that I could write a lot about, that are part of the whole but also distinct and beautiful in their own way. Listening to both albums lately, I had a real flashback to when 'Shelter from the Storm' seemed an eerily all-consuming song (having not really thought about it for 25 years), while something like 'The Last Time I Saw Richard' just grows and grows in my estimation. 

No particular reason for writing about these two albums- I've written about them both loads before, but you know, they're good.