On this image the original album cover art design is positioned at left. The black background was extended to cover the remaining space at right and the artist's name and album title were
cut and pasted over it. "Blue" was enlarged to emphasize the word but was toned down in order to avoid contrasting too much with the artist's image which had been posterized
in order to obtain the desired contrast - to set the blue apart from the black and the white - and to calibrate the different levels of blue from each other.
As the title song goes . . . , "songs are like tattoos" and "you know I've been to sea before."
The image was also applied with angled strokes in order to obtain the desired patterns, as the song goes . . . , "Hey, Blue, there is a song for you.
Ink on a pin, underneath the skin, an empty space to fill in."
"Crown and anchor me - or let me sail away." "There is your song from me." Blue
Here is the Blue original album cover art design.
No. 11, Entertainment Weekly, The 100 Greatest Albums Ever; No. 24, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000;
No. 30, Rolling Stone; The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 40, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Art direction by Gary Burden, photo by Tim Considine. Album produced by Joni Mitchell. Reprise 1971.
There’s an awful lot of hurt in Blue. If I had to summarize the album in a single word, it would be “Fergilicious.”
If I had to summarize it in two words, however, those two words would be “beautiful pain.”
In a 1979 Rolling Stone interview with Cameron Crowe, Mitchell said of Blue:
"There’s hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses.
I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets
from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the
advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either." Full article
No. 30, Rolling Stone; The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 40, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Art direction by Gary Burden, photo by Tim Considine. Album produced by Joni Mitchell. Reprise 1971.
There’s an awful lot of hurt in Blue. If I had to summarize the album in a single word, it would be “Fergilicious.”
If I had to summarize it in two words, however, those two words would be “beautiful pain.”
In a 1979 Rolling Stone interview with Cameron Crowe, Mitchell said of Blue:
"There’s hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses.
I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets
from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the
advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either." Full article
(A) All I Want - My Old Man - Little Green - Carey - Blue
(B) California - This Flight Tonight - River - A Case of You - The Last Time I Saw Richard
(B) California - This Flight Tonight - River - A Case of You - The Last Time I Saw Richard
"Blue" audio with lyrics and pictures from Hannah Green on YouTube.
