Mitchell’s second album was a major leap forward, with a new emphasis on rhythm, sophisticated arrangements, elaborate harmonies and complex, unusual chord voicings. In other words, the “Joni Mitchell sound” as we know it begins here. The strident “Chelsea Morning,” written prior to the recording of her first album, was a hit for Judy Collins, but Mitchell’s version laps it, dispensing with Collins’ dreamlike interpretation and replacing it with a taut, confident gallop. Elsewhere, Mitchell’s liquid phrasing on songs like “I Don’t Know Where I Stand” and the “The Fiddle And The Drum” is artful and effortless. The album concludes with the magnificent “Both Sides, Now,” still one of Mitchell’s finest songs. The argument has been made that the subject matter of “Both Sides, Now” would have been more convincing sung by a woman at least twice Mitchell’s age (judge for yourself), but I’d suggest it is Mitchell’s youth (she was 24 at the time) that makes this world-weary song about independence, choices, and a resignation to “life’s illusions” all the more striking. The beauty of this original version lies in the same precocious wisdom that more than one critic has confused with conceit: its youthful narrator isn’t showing off, but merely beginning, cautiously, to grow up.