Monday, April 15, 2013

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

So here we are at Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. I'm a huge fan of the song Dreamland.

The rest, not so much. It's experimental, and experimental invariably means self-indulgent and incomplete and tiresome. It works OK as background music for a hipster coffee shop.

The songs/experiments are extremely forgettable. Mitchell was only 34 when this was released, but had been a pop star for ten years and probably figured she deserved to be a little self-indulgent. This is the first album Mitchell released that had no input from Crosby, Stills, Nash nor Young. Although Glenn Fry of the Eagles does backing vocals on "Off Night Backstreet" for one last sliver of California rock presence.

Apparently Dreamland was originally going to be on Hissing of Summer Lawns, which would have been amazing. I discovered this early version with kazoo solo(!) from the Summer Lawns sessions on Youtube.