Product Description

Between the stark, confessional singer-songwriter format ofBLUE and the artful, streamlined jazz-pop of COURT AND SPARK, Joni Mitchell released this excellent transitional album.Located firmly between these stylistic poles, FOR THE ROSESlooks to Mitchell's folky beginnings with wistful, piano-driven ballads like "Banquet" and the acoustic guitar lilt of the title track. At the same time cuts like "Cold Blue Steeland Straight Fire" push toward the unconventional melodies and rhythms--heavily influenced by jazz--that she would explore more fully on albums like HEJIRA.
"Electricity" and "Let the Wind Carry Me" blend singer-songwriter styles with jazzy flourishes (as on the saxophone accompaniment and swooping wordless vocals on the latter), while the record's hit single, "Turn Me On I'm a Radio" is breezy, harmonica-driven pop. But while the styles diverge, Mitchell's lyrics are sharp as ever, exploring human relationships with a storyteller's eye for detail and a poet's feel for phrasing and image. The sense of painful, incisive honesty that comes across on BLUE is here as well, contributing to this exceptional, often overlooked gem in Mitchell's discography.

Track Listing

1. Banquet
2. Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire
3. Barangrill
4. Lesson In Survival
5. Let The Wind Carry Me
6. For The Roses
7. You See Sometime
8. Electricity
9. You Turn Me On I'm A Radio
10. Blonde In The Bleachers
11. Woman Of Heart And Mind
12. Judgement Of The Moon And Stars (Ludwig's Tune)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1013 in Music
• Released on: 1987-10-02
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Sandwiched between the solitary, heart-on-her-sleeve confessions of Blue and the ravishing pop of Court and Spark, 1972's For the Roses captures Joni Mitchell in a deceptively subdued period of transition. Still hewing to a spare sound, Mitchell ventures beyond the elegant folk sources of earlier records to explore her love of blues and jazz-based harmony, writing as much on piano as guitar; thematically, the earnest reveries and heartbroken dirges of before give way to a more detached, even journalistic perspective and darker, grittier settings, most strikingly on "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire". "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio" was the set's nominal hit, yet in hindsight the keepers here are found in evolutionary pieces like the jazz-tinged "Barangrill", the rock-infused "Blonde in the Bleachers" and in more sober meditations like "Woman of Heart and Mind"--testaments to her restless growth and signposts to the more mature music ahead. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Join Mitchell, a must for lovers of REAL music.
If you have ever seen any of the footage of Joni in concert in 1970 you will not need telling how amazing she was, just her, her instruments and an audience, and LIVE, not modern day "fake live" like bluffers such as Kyle Minogue with her weak, nasal and heavily processed vocals, dub - layered over her partially live vocals.
The "Hissing of summer lawns" and "For the roses" are two albums I could never be without, there are a few good female artists about among the vast pond of dross but none can hold a candle to the Joni of the 60's and 70's. I think she went a bit too experimental and self involved by the late 1970's and her political hang ups superseded the music in importance (just my opinion) and the music became quirky and sparse with only tracks like "My secret place" and her version of "cool water" standing out for me.
"For the roses" is a complete work, the tracks seem to follow perfectly, even though they have no obvious connection, and the same is ever truer for "The hissing of summer lawns"
Listening to her music virtually saved my life in the mid 1980's when personal circumstance caused me to seriously question the point going on, I came upon "For the roses" in a second hand shop, on vinyl, and it gave me such a lift (even though it is a melancholic album) that I literally lived just to listen to her after work, I have Joni Mitchell to thank for a great deal.

Deep, dark, navel gazing marvel
I love this album. I had it on vinyl years ago but have only recently rediscovered Joni Mitchell. I was put off by Blue which I think is a rather over rated album. It doesn't grab me in the way For The Roses and Hissing of Summer Lawns do. For the Roses is complex and deep but rewards with perseverence. It really grows on you (bad pun, sorry). Her lyrics are so poetic and still original. Some, like Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire are hard hitting, about the abuse of Heroin (I think), 'Red water in the bathroom sink, Fever and the scum brown bowl' she sings in a plaintive, sweet voice. Others, like Banquet, have a social conscience edginess, 'who let the greedy in, who left the needy out'. A lot of the songs deal with losing a lover and the agony of separation. Could these have been aimed at David Crosby?. In Blonde in the Bleachers she sings 'She tapes her regrets to the microphone stand, She says, 'You can't hold the hand of a rock and roll man very long''. In the last song she seems to explain all that has gone before in the lines 'Condemned to wires and hammers, Strike every chord that you feel, That broken trees and elephant ivories conceal'. It's an angry, frustrated album but, at the same time beautiful and touching.

Her nervous breakdown album
Mitchell worte this material largely in social solitude after the success of 'Blue. Increasing self revelation in her work left her feeling 'naked' and led to a year away from society in the Canadian back-bush without running water or elctricity. The result? Some of the best work she ever produced. The poetry is stunning and incisive. Musically it was another one of her seemingly endless transition periods. No hippy minstrel here. The dulcimer gone (it only appeared on Blue) , piano and guitar are backed by Tom Scott ( he of the LA Express whose collaboraion would continue in successive works) and some of the finest session musicians of the period. It is stark at times and deeply personal but the fight back is clear in her tone. The naked picture ( see line one above) appeared in inside of the gatefold version of the record album as opposed to the cover as it was suggested that she would 'not be happy with the price sticker on her ass' in stores. She was criticised for comparing herself to Beethoven in the final track also known as 'Ludwig's Tune"