Hejira Reviews

Written during a road trip from Maine to California, Hejira (an Arabic word meaning ‘journey’) is the last in an astonishing run of six albums to come from Joni Mitchell’s most fruitful and creative period during the seventies. Filled with her weird and distinctive chords, layered and haunted backing vocals and explorations into folk-jazz-pop-rock, Hejira could be seen as the summarization of her work throughout the seventies. The transitional album from her earlier singer-songwriter/folkie period to the latter day jazz-rock weirdo, Hejira still has enough artistic merit and worthwhile songs to recommend it on its own and as just some historical artistic document.

Here, more so than on any previous effort, Mitchell has forsaken melody and typical song structure for a more musical variation of poetry/language accompanied by music. Because of this it’s harder to talk about each song as an individual piece of work when they clearly are just a small unit for a cohesive whole. To put it more bluntly: this is an album, in the true sense of the word. There’s no easy to define single, no big pop-rock ditty that seems destined for radio presence. Naturally, it did well critically but disappointed commercially. But what could you expect from an album which features a song about a protagonist driving across country and praying/empathizing/sympathizing with Amelia Earhart that constantly shifts between two different chords? Or an album that features a song as languorous, smoky and lived like “Blue Motel Room” to almost close out the album?

But there must be tremendous kudos paid for Mitchell continually painting some varied and kaleidoscopic portraits of a woman’s reality. Sometimes they’re clearly autobiographical and other times they’re purely works of fiction. Or perhaps they’re based on people she encountered along the way and created entire stories and emotional problems for them. “Song for Sharon” is ambivalent and features a protagonist who must choose between personal freedom and domesticity. Welcome to life post-Summer of Love and post-feminist movement. On the front cover Mitchell looks like the Mother of the Roads. Dressed in black with her long blonde hair blowing to the side and standing against a frozen landscape with an empty and long stretch of highway imposed on her torso, Mitchell knows and understands your loneliness and conflicts. On the back she is ice skating, but all of her long black clothing gives the impression that she is a raven flying away from it all. She’s been there with you. It’s a dark, complicated but very rewarding listening experience. DOWNLOAD: “Amelia”