Music Review: Joni Mitchell: Blue 1971

This is on You Tube.  Joni Mitchell put out this album in 1971 when she was 27.  She wrote most of the music as she traveled through France after leaving a relationship.  She starts with the song "All I Want."  I like this sentiment from the song. 
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you

Isn't that what we should focus on in relations, making each other better.  

California starts out as peace anthem, but is more Joni singing about coming home to California.  It was in California where she recorded this album.

Sitting in a park in Paris France
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had
Still a lot of lands to see
But I wouldn't want to stay here
It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here
Oh but California

California I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
California I'm coming home

However the highlight of this album is "River."

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

This theme is repeated several times throughout the album.  In referring to baby, it appears to be talking about a love, but may be a veiled reference to her own baby who was adopted by others when Joni was young.