Somewhere along the way, Mitchell's reverent audiences convinced her that her every thought is profound. Having concentrated on herself for so long. Mitchell's discrimination has eroded; she can't separate out the trivia anymore. Her intimacy has become exhaustive—she tells all, every flicker of ambivalence, every last rationalization, seemingly anything that pops into her head. You feel like you're drowning in her stream of consciousness. Her perceptions of the outside world are clear and neatly expressed—only between her head and heart do things get muddled….

Where she takes on larger concepts, Mitchell over-writes. "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter," a meditation on the divided self, explains itself endlessly, beating to death a lovely network of images: eagle / airplane / woman // "clarity" vs. snake / train / man / "blind desire." Lines like "We are all hopelessly oppressed cowards / Of some duplicity / Of restless multiplicity" weigh the song down with literalness. I prefer the...