From two former residents of Topanga Canyon to a third…
I loved Blue at first, and came to you for direction on where to get more like that. You directed me to Ladies of the Canyon. This one left me indifferent at the time, and nearly stopped me ever buying another Joni Mitchell record — until I read that the later-period stuff (ha! by "later period," I mean 1974 to 1979, after which I lost track) marked a change in direction, both musically and lyrically.
It doesn't sound so bad now, and, Willy aside, there's less of that cloying confessional tone. Still, let's nail one holy cow first. Big Yellow Taxi set the precedent by which all eco-songs had to be trite and glib. Pave paradise, put up a parking lot. Please. At least After the Gold Rush, dippiness notwithstanding, has something Other about it.
As for Woodstock, well, it probably helped if you were there at the time. Obviously we weren't — and neither was Joni, in literal terms. But, in spirit, she was up to her thighs in it.
But the record sounds fantastic, as so many from the early days of multitrack analogue recording do. I like the songs at the start of Side Two, Rainy Night House and The Priest, they have some of that Otherness that I think of with bands like Espers and The Decemberists now (though I'm only a passing acquaintance with either).
I didn't hear until sometime in the last ten years or so that the guy playing the clarinet who inspired For Free is alleged to have been the great Lol Coxhill. Somehow that "fact" gives the song more weight.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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