Song To A Seagull

Released: 1st March 1968

Track Listing

Part 1

I Had A King - 3:37

Michael From Mountains – 3:41

Night In The City - 2:30

Marcie - 4:35

Nathan La Franeer - 3:18

Part 2

Sisotowbell Lane - 4:05

The Dawntreader - 5:04

The Pirate of Penance - 2:44

Song To A Seagull - 3:51

Cactus Tree - 4:35

Album from: https://www.discogs.com/user/Dobshizzle

£7.50.

Song to a Seagull (also known as Joni Mitchell) is the debut studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Produced by David Crosby, the album was recorded in early 1968 at Sunset Sound and released in March 1968 by Reprise Records.

The album was recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, California.^[8] David Crosby was assigned as producer as part of the deal with Reprise Records, following meeting Mitchell in October 1967.^[8] Crosby wanted Mitchell to sound pure and natural, so he asked her to sing into the studio grand piano, and set up extra microphones to capture her voice reverberating off the strings; unfortunately the set-up captured too much ambient noise, resulting in excessive tape hiss, which could only be removed post-production at the cost of the high sounds in the audio range, which gives the album a flat feel.^[9]

From Wikipedia

Joni Mitchell paid her dues in a more traditional manner than Leonard Cohen, folk clubs and personal tragedy set her up for her career. Also, unlike Cohen Judy Collins took nearly ten years to cover one of her songs. But she had built a reputation and had top level support on this with David Crosby producing.

I think I’m going to find Joni the most challenging of the three artists I’m currently exploring. I find her style rather strained. She always seems to be singing at the limit of her voice. It is very much in an English folk style, which can feel rather contrived at times too. However the subject matter of the songs often feels quite urban, cityscapes, grotty apartments and dockside bars. She’s being a storyteller here, many of the songs feature characters in a narrative.

It’s split into two parts ‘I Came To The City’ and ‘Out Of The City and Down To The Seaside’, so perhaps the intention is to convey a sense of arrival and departure, or maybe constraint followed by freedom. Is there a looser feel to the way the songs are sung on side 2? Maybe. ‘Michael From The Mountains’ paints a dreary, rain-soaked picture of the city, alleviated by the warmth of an outsider. Nathan La Franeer also features a quite harrowing banshee wail courtesy of one Lee Keefer, of whom there is little further trace on the world wide web. She accompanies herself in a conversation in ‘The PIrate of Penance’, talking over herself as she plays the parts of both Penance and The Dancer.

It foreshadows quite a lot of what she would become recognized for. Like Cohen, some songs start and you can’t quite place which one it is and where you’ve heard it before, because the similarities with other work is so strong. It is a compelling album though, and the two-sided structure and overall concept works well in capturing a sense of time and place.

The title of the album on the sleeve is an object lesson in why it’s important to plan ahead.