Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell (1974).

This lush album has so much to offer, musically, lyrically, and in an overall mood that no collection should be without it.  Mitchell has such a sophisticated confessional style that I sometimes cringe at the intimacy in her lyrics.

"People's Parties" is a favorite of mine, describing the various scenes at a gathering, with "Jack behind his joker and stone-cold Grace behind her fan, and me in my frightened silence thinking I don't understand." I didn’t know women felt this way until I heard this song. (And even then I had to hear it dozens of times before I caught on.)

"Car on A Hill" is also brilliant, describing a woman waiting for her "sugar to show," pondering his personality and wondering why he's late ("He makes friends easy, he's not like me.  I watch for judgment anxiously.  Now where in the city can that boy be . . .").

There's an overall richness to Mitchell's voice—in every sense of that word—on this album that is very striking. Her voice as a songwriter is both introspective and universal. I suppose that every song may be about something literal in her life, but since they’re also about literal things in MY life, I have to believe she has something larger than self-indulgence in mind. Her voice as it’s recorded is also wonderful. Her previous album, Blue, is filled with better songs. But the production of Court and Spark allows the remarkable steadiness of Mitchell’s voice to ring through.

This album should be issued to adolescents before they contemplate maturing so they know what they’re in for, for better and worse. The best and brightest of them would plow ahead. The devil take the hindmost.