Joni Mitchell continues to demonstrate that she is not only an actress-singer but a composer of considerable power: her … album "Blue" … is an unqualified success on both counts. It is a collection of what once were called "torch" songs, but Miss Mitchell adds an extra dimension to her "my man's gone now" theme by introducing a spare, satirical element that is sometimes directed at herself, sometimes at her partners….

And, if her songs are based on personal experience, she certainly does seem to have had a rough time of it in the Game of Love…. The subject of My Old Man is apparently given to irregular disappearances, thus causing Joni to collide with the blues and to discover that "The bed's too big / The frying pan's too wide." That last phrase (think about it) is a genuine image, provocative and palpable. There are others like it running all...