Morning Morgantown
I feel like there’s a bit of symmetry to this album’s opening and closing songs – they’re different subject-matter wise, but the simplicity of Joni’s finger-picked guitar, the light piano coming in on the chorus, and the sweet high notes that she hits in a few spots give it a very homespun, slice-of-life sort of feel, with just a tinge of melancholy to it. Joni finds a sense of excitement and maybe even a bit of childlike wonder here, in the everyday goings-on of a smalltown somewhere in rural America (there are a lot of Morgantowns back east, apparently, with the most notable one being in West Virginia). Where it is doesn’t matter so much as the fact that it’s not the big city – it’s a place Joni can just sort of disappear into, become part of the scenery, and observe it as a fly on the wall without being the center of attention (which at this point she probably couldn’t do if she were out and about in Los Angeles). It’s one of the many hints, even this early on in Joni’s discography, that the trappings of fame and fortune weren’t entirely for her. And it feels like an elaborate arrangement even though it’s just her voice and two instruments – she might have recorded a few acoustic guitar tracks which are being overlaid, and she’s definitely doing her signature self-backing harmony thing in the chorus. It’s not a big, attention-grabbing performance, but it’s quietly sublime and I love it for that.
Ladies of the Canyon
The title track has to be one of the most perfect songs of its era. While there isn’t any conflict here, or even really much of a story beyond each verse being dedicated to one of the unique and offbeat women Joni met during her time in Laurel Canyon who brightened one another’s lives with their arts and crafts, their baking, and their creative instincts in general, it feels like a little window into the sort of idyllic community I’d imagine a lot of artists – or heck, just people in general – would feel fortunate to call home. This is another song that doesn’t really have a verse/chorus structure to it – of course the huge vocal layers that Joni deploys in between each verse function as a chorus, and they’re so enchanting that I didn’t stand a chance at resisting falling in love instantly – but they’re really just repeating a verse melody that somehow manages to remain engaging throughout the entire song. Joni’s rich fingerpicking helps a lot, too – a lot of folk songs that just default to a basic strum pattern without as much thought put into the arrangement tend to run out of gas when they just loop through the same simple chords over and over. Taking simple things and making them magical is one of the things Joni does best on this record – I get such vivid and colorful pictures in my head listening to this one that it’s easy to imagine the exact scene before her eyes when she sings: “Colors up the sunshine hours pouring music down the canyon”.
Big Yellow Taxi
Y’all know this one, right? Big happy acoustic guitar strung, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”, background vocals chiming in with a bunch of “Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop”s? I don’t know if I’d refer to it as Joni’s “signature” song – I’d probably go with something more contemplative like “Both Sides Now” that still seems to be widely known – but it’s definitely her most popular song, having been covered by about a bazillion other artists (I first heard it from Amy Grant in the 90s, and I’m sorry for those of you who may remember that awful Counting Crows version from the early 2000s) and being pretty much instantly recognizable as a protest anthem about our general carelessness toward the environment. It’s weird how much of a feel-good vibe it gets off, despite it being a lament for lost innocence and for too-late realization that we can’t easily put things we’ve destroyed back the way they were. It’s also weird that the thing it’s named after, the big yellow taxi, doesn’t show up until the final verse of the song, when it carries off Joni’s “old man”, a line which has been the subject of much debate and which seems detached from the song’s otherwise climate-related concerns. The sentiment that “You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone” is certainly a universal one, so I can see why the song is so popular in terms of its relatability. And I’ve always enjoyed it. What’s weird is that the original album version of it seems so carefree and quickly tossed-off that I almost wondered if I was hearing a demo at first. The whole thing blows by in just over two minutes, and there are a couple goofy moments near the end where Joni seems to be doing a deliberate outtake, stretching her voice beyond its natural range and then giggling at herself. I suppose that adds to the organic appeal of the song – it’s like night and day compared to the rest of the album in terms of its “un-meticulous” sound. Joni just captured lightning in a bottle and left it as is (though I suppose there were later live versions and single re-releases that elaborated on the original a bit, not to mention the covers which obviously had more of a calculated appeal). If you were listening to this album not knowing “Big Yellow Taxi” was on it, the sudden mood change when it finally shows up would certainly catch you off-guard.
From: https://murlough23.wordpress.com/2025/02/26/joni-mitchell-ladies-of-the-canyon-we-got-to-get-ourselves-back-to-the-garden/
