“Blue” is the title track to Joni Mitchell’s groundbreaking 1971 album. This song alone should key you into the kind of intense feeling Mitchell was working through at the time of this album’s release.
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In this song, in particular, that intense feeling manifested itself in a romantic partner–another musician. Below, find an analysis of the meaning behind this staple Mitchell track, including which musician it’s dedicated to.
Behind the Meaning
Blue
Songs are like tattoos
You know I’ve been to sea before
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
“Blue” being about James Taylor is more a rumor than an expressed opinion from Mitchell. Like any great artist, Mitchell keeps her opinion out of the public discourse and lets the song ultimately become the listeners’. Nevertheless, there are a few key moments that point to the “Fire and Rain” singer.
Taylor has publicly gone through several bouts of depression and subsequent hospitalization. Moreover, his drug use in the late ’60s was rampant and also public knowledge. That being said, it makes sense why Mitchell would give him the brand of “Blue”–universally acknowledged as the color of sadness.
Well, there’s so many sinking now
You gotta keep thinking
You can make it through these waves
Acid, booze, and ass
Needles, guns, and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs
Mitchell makes even more blatant references to Taylor in the chorus. Acid, booze, and ass / Needles, guns, and grass, she sings. “Its references to a drug addict’s ‘needles’ and…proffering a seashell to her lover…make it fairly clear that ‘Blue’ is about James,” biographer Sheila Weller wrote in Girls Like Us.
Everybody’s saying that
Hell’s the hippest way to go
Well, I don’t think so
But I’m gonna take a look around it, though
Blue, I love you
Despite her coded references to her relationship issues with Taylor and the musician’s personal issues, Mitchell ends the song on a hopeful note: Blue, I love you.
(Photo by David Redfern/Redferns)
