Roses and Kisses

by Penny Valentine
Sounds Magazine
February 17, 1973

"I am on a lonely road and I am travelling
Looking for the key to set me free . . ."

So Joni Mitchell wrote in 1971 for "All I Want". Two years later -- on the inside sleeve of "For The Roses" -- she stands naked and unshackled, her only companions the natural wildness of rock and breakers.

It's the photographic key to Joni's physical freedom -- a huge facet of her make up that has come through both her songs and her conversation. A need that she has never had any trouble in expressing or fulfilling.

"I took my dream down by the sea
Yankee yachts and lobster pots and sunshine"
("Banquet")

"I am looking way out at the ocean
Love to see that green water in motion
I'm going to get a boat
And we can row it"
("Lesson in Survival")

That key to her freedom is hers for the taking any time she wants it. And for the two years between "Blue" and "Roses" she went back to the Canadian forests and mountains and waters, and took it. But the key that she is ultimately in search of is to her emotional freedom. A path that has led her through self- exposure, gentle despair and endless insecurities.

In that respect alone Joni Mitchell is the voice of woman, just as Dory Previn is the bitter conscience of woman.

Although, on the surface, the comparisons between Mitchell and Previn would seem to be that of light and dark, I still think those comparisons exist.

Both in their own way perceive perhaps more than is good for their state of mind, question more than is good for their state of mind. They represent the chasms and traps that befall all women searching for a good way out. for love to go hand-in-hand with self-knowledge without one killing off the other.

Perhaps the only real marked difference in attitudes between these two women -- who represent the best lyrical clarity and descriptive power of any contemporary songwriter -- is that they have emerged from their encounters with slightly differing attitudes.

For Dory the path has lead through hell, fire and torment, emerging at first embittered and with a sort of resigned self-knowledge. Joni's scars are closer to the surface, her despair not as black although her self-scrutiny as strong, she has emerged hopeful. Looking like some child before a Christmas tree -- for love with no games and pure joy with no limits.

"Oh I love you when I forget about me...
Oh jealousy, the greed is the unravelling.
It's the unravelling,
and it undoes all the joy that could be."

Both have the art to look back on relationships and see where their own outlook could have ruined them. Both remember words said and their effect. Both see their lovers as individuals, and as individuals perhaps not aware of their own motivation and its ultimate reaction.

In Joni's fight for freedom she has left herself open -- in and out of love, seeing herself alternately a free spirit and a caged animal. On "Blue" this feeling began to pervade nearly all her songs.

"But, when he's gone, me and them lonesome blues collide.
The bed's too big,. The frying pan's too wide."
("My Old Man")

"I'm drinking sweet champagne.
Got the headphones up high.
Can numb you out.
Can't drum you out of my mind."
("This Flight Tonight")

"You laugh, he said, you think you're immune.
Go look at your eyes, they're full of the moon.
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you all those pretty lies."
("Last Time I Saw Richard")

By the time "For The Roses" emerged, Joni's inbred emotional outlook was even more deeply etched. Her two years of physical freedom had not alleviated the search for the emotional way out -- and the expression of this knowledge surged through most of her material. Razor sharp her words came out as if the interim period had given her an unpleasantly accurate hindsight.

So that while she wraps her emotions in a kind of freedom imagery . . .

"I run in the woods,
I spring from the boulders like a mama lion.
I'm not ready to change my name again."
("See You Sometime")

. . . Joni's emotions are still caught in their own trap of wanting and being wanted. But through it all she can perceive the game and what it does to her -- how easily she loses her identity, how she hates it:

"Maybe it's paranoia, maybe it's sensitivity.
Your friends protect you, scrutinize me.
I get so damned timid.
Not at all the spirit that's inside of me."
("Lesson In Survival")

And while there may be a touching optimism in her final analysis -- the open- armed welcome to love even after the knowledge -- Joni's real struggle is as a woman on that well worn battlefield. The pre-destined role of mother/wife fighting with the release of her spirit as an individual . . .

"I get that strong longing
and I want to settle and raise a child up with somebody.
But it passes like the summer.
I'm a wild seed again.
Let the wind carry me."