Joni Mitchell – Hejira

Hejira is the eighth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. The songs on the album were written during a series of road trips in 1975 and 1976, and reflect on events that occurred during those trips, including several romantic relationships she had during that time.

Featuring lyrically extended songs, as well as the amazing bass playing of Jaco Pastorius, whom she had just met, Hejira continued Mitchell’s journey beyond her pop work into the freer, jazz-inspired direction she would follow in her later recordings. Some of the songs were written while Mitchell was traveling as a member of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour, performing the album’s opening track “Coyote” and with the Band on their farewell concert, The Last Waltz.

The album did not sell as well as her previous albums, peaking at No. 22 in her native Canada, No. 13 on the Billboard 200 pop album chart in the United States, where it was certified gold, and No. 11 in the United Kingdom, where it was certified silver. The album was generally well received by critics, and was considered one of the highlights of Joni Mitchell’s career.

She described the album as truly inspiring, with a restless feeling and the sweet loneliness of a solitary journey throughout. She added that many of her songs could have been written by many people, but the songs on Hejira could only have come from her.

The album’s title is an unusual wording of the Arabic word usually rendered as Hegira or Hijra, meaning “departure” and referring to the migration of Muhammad and his companions from Mecca to Medina in 622. He later stated that when he chose the title, he was looking for a word that meant “to depart with honor” and found the word “hejira” in the dictionary.

The front cover portrait of Mitchell was taken by photographer Norman Seeff and the others by Joel Bernstein at Lake Mendota, in Madison, Wisconsin, after a snowstorm, with figure skater Toller Cranston appearing on the back cover.

I select the opening track “Coyote,” a track that tells the one-night stand with a man speculated by several biographers to be Sam Shepard, whom Dylan had hired to write the script for a film based on the events of the Rolling Thunder Revue. Let’s enjoy it !!!

Tracklist

1. Coyote 5:00
2. Amelia 6:00
3. Furry Sings The Blues 5:03
4. A Strange Boy 4:15
5. Hejira 6:35
6. Song For Sharon 8:30
7. Black Crow 4:20
8. Blue Motel Room 5:03
9. Refuge Of The Roads 6:37