Court and Spark (AM10)
Artist: Joni Mitchell
Released: January 1, 1974
Producer: Joni Mitchell, Tom Scott
Length: 36:58
Tracks: 1) Court and Spark (2:46); 2) Help Me (3:22); 3) Free Man in Paris (3:02); 4) People's Parties (2:15); 5) The Same Situation (2:57); 6) Car on the Hill (302); 7) Down to You (5:38) 8) Just Like This Train (4:24) 9) Raised on Robbery (3:06) 10) Trouble Child (4:00); 11) Twisted (2:21)
Players: Joni Mitchell – vocals, including background;
acoustic guitar; piano; clavinet on "Down to You"; John
Guerin – drums and percussion; Wilton Felder – bass; Max Bennett –
bass on "Trouble Child"; Jim Hughart – bass on "People's
Parties" and "Free Man in Paris"; Milt Holland – chimes on
"Court and Spark"; Tom Scott – woodwinds and reeds; Chuck
Findley – trumpet on "Twisted" and "Trouble Child" Joe Sample – electric piano, clavinet on
"Raised on Robbery"; David Crosby – background vocals on
"Free Man in Paris" and "Down to You"; Graham Nash –
background vocals on "Free Man in Paris"; Susan Webb – background
vocals on "Down to You"; Larry Carlton – electric guitar; Wayne
Perkins – electric guitar on "Car on a Hill"; Dennis Budimir –
electric guitar on "Trouble Child"; Robbie Robertson – electric
guitar on "Raised on Robbery"; José Feliciano – electric guitar
on "Free Man in Paris"; Cheech Marin – background voice on
"Twisted"; Tommy Chong – background voice on "Twisted"
Court and Spark is nearly embarrassing to listen to with
other people; so personal that it feels like a private
conservation. On the title track Joni describes her narrow escape from a
bad relationship with candor: "He seemed like he read my mind/ He saw me
mistrusting him and still acting kind/ He saw how I worried sometimes/ I worry
sometimes." She successfully (if depressingly) resists the temptation to make
too much of a casual affair, yet in the following song, "Help Me,"
she reverses herself - the strength is gone and love becomes a threatening
force one copes with rather than surrenders to. Throughout, no thought or emotion is
expressed without some equally forceful statement of negation; an emotional physics. The lyrics lead
us through concentric circles that define a Zen-like dilemma: the freer the
writer becomes, the more unhappy; the more she surrenders her freedom, the less
willing she is to accept the resulting compromise. Court and Spark is a perfect
10 based on concept alone.
The album achieves its ethereal and lyrical quality with
even more orchestration than any of her other recordings. On "Car on
the Hill" she changes tempo and inserts choral passages between verses
using voices that indeed sound like ladies of the canyon. Within it she waits
for a lover hours late; reflecting on the impermanence of infatuation,
recalling how "it always seems so righteous at the start,/ when there’s so much
laughter,/ when there’s so much spark," though Mitchell's vulnerability
never evokes pity. It makes you wonder why the dude kept her waiting, and
does it beautifully. "Down To You" is every bit as intricate and intimate.
As good as the melody, vocal and instrumental arrangement are, the lyrics
overshadow them, with intimations of the album's opposites: "Everything
comes and goes... You're a kind person/ You're a cold person too..." The final song in the suite, "Just Like This Train" is the last escape, expressing the leaving that many of us must endure, whether physically or spiritually.
Joni's boldest fears come out in songs about madness, the
last two on the album. Her own "Trouble Child" and the
Lambert-Hendricks-Ross penned "Twisted," deal with it in strikingly
different ways: the former is tragic, the latter comedy with a punch line that
plays on the very notion of schizophrenia. Together they flirt with insanity
from a distance safe enough to show she can control even so threatening a
concern, or try to.
It's as if Joni lets the wind catch her voice as she
guides it through the Laurel Canyon to the Sunset Strip, across L.A. to
the Palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills and the beaches at Malibu.
The songs defy categorization, blending folk, rock, progressive, country,
jazz, pop and classical influences in a single track. It's exhausting
just to list the elements, but they are all there. Tempi, keys
and arrangements change randomly and frequently. It should be a mess, but
instead it ends up mesmerizing.