Song To A Seagull Review

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Song To A Seagull ReviewThis album has so often been deprecated by fans and critics of the great Mrs. Mitchell. Too verbose and sophomoric! Too gloomy! Poorly-recorded! Stuck in its era! Or, the damning-with-faint-praise, It held forth the promise of what was to come! Well, admitting a partiality to her early work (pre-"Don's Juan Reckless Daughter"), I would rate this as the third-best Joni album (out of 17 in her career) behind only Blue and Ladies of the Canyon. Yes, it's even better than the great Court and Spark, or even its most-comparable competitor, Clouds.
Musically, Song to a Seagull is grand in its simplicity - the vast majority of the songs feature Joni's fascinating guitar work as the stark support for her piercing, soaring soprano. While Joni's vocals are schooled and formal, they are nonetheless heartbreakingly beautiful, and the looseness afforded by the spare instrumentation (not to mention "producer" David Crosby's love of cavernous echo) gives this a stormy romanticism reminiscent of Tim Buckley's Happy Sad. As for the song selection, it would seem that in response either to what was popular at the time, or to Joni's personal outlook and mood as the album was assembled, she eschewed the many of her songs already made popular by other artists - "Both Sides Now," "Urge for Going," "Circle Game," "Chelsea Morning," "Eastern Rain," etc. - in favor of several that consistently featured fairy-tale or nautical imagery. The lyrics, in all of their fanciful, Byzantine Tolkienisms, can be taken or left - I, for one, embrace them! And so will anyone else who appreciates colorful escapism.
What carries the day here, though, is the wistful, melancholy, fiercely free and lonely mood created in the themes of these stories of being stung in life and love - and of stinging others ("Cactus Tree") - by Joni's singing of her haunting melodies. "I Had a King," with its arppegiated "tenement castle" dismissal of the former Mr. Mitchell and the oppression of traditional marriage, has long been my favorite, but there's so much else to appreciate here - "Sisotowbell Lane," "The Dawntreader" (which makes interesting use of the smoky low end of Joni's range - the only range she can use anymore!), the much-ballyhooed anthem "Cactus Tree," and especially the woefully underrated title song. Freedom, dreaminess, and lonely sorrow. I believe that Song to a Seagull (the album, but especially the song) is a personal crie de coeur for the loss of innocence - and a despairing of the possibility of ever finding a soulmate or making a relationship work. And yet there is a retained innocence in the stark openness of Joni's writing and performance. It captures a Joni Mitchell that was not before, and would never be again.
This album is so often condemned for being stuck in its time, but those aspects which date it the most are its very appeal, to these ears at least. It takes a certain charming naivete to engage in the hippy-dippy imaginings of some of these lyrics and the Loreena McKennitt-esque antiquarian vocal formality. If you like Nick Drake, Renaissance, Denny-era Fairport, or Astral Weeks, you should love this classic.Song To A Seagull OverviewNo Description Available.Genre: Popular MusicMedia Format: Compact DiskRating: Release Date: 10-MAR-1992

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