People liked it when Joni Mitchell changed. She had always changed. The Hissing of Summer Lawns made sense in that way, as a kind of departure that didn’t feel like escape. It was praised, mostly. Artistic growth. Personal evolution. That sort of thing.Then Hejira came. It was less loved, but still understood. There were broader structures, jazz textures, lyrics that became less declarative. Mitchell was turning inward. That was the signal. The listener had to follow, or not.Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter is the sound of getting lost. Or staying lost. A double album that wanders. The songs are long, some more than ten minutes. There are chords struck and held, left hanging like unsent letters. She sings over them. Not quite melody. Not quite meditation. There is Jaco Pastorius. Wayne Shorter. John Guerin. Their job is to find shape in the murk. Sometimes they almost do.The lyrics are impressionistic. That word is polite. What they really are is scattered. Images with no center. Ideas that don’t argue, just drift past. The poet has rights, they’ll say. Poets can do anything. But this isn't poetry, not really. It is a kind of posture. An affect. Something performed.She touches on things that matter. Weariness. Freedom. Sex and age. But nothing connects. No hooks, no phrases you remember later. No way in. What she offers is not music in the usual sense. It’s art. That’s the claim. The capital-A kind. And the paradox is that she loses the craft in reaching for it.There was a time when she was precise. When she built songs that held. But now the line between artful and arty is crossed and blurred. She’s among those who’ve come to believe their importance entitles them to indulgence. Lennon. Yes. Others.It is not failure. But it is not connection, either.
