Joni Mitchell ended her tenure with Geffen Records with the lovely and understated Night Ride Home. The album is a stark contrast to its predecessor, 1988’s Caulk Mark In A Rainstorm, in many respects. The album leans heavily on Mitchell’s jazz guitar phrasings intertwine with coproducer Larry Klein’s 5 string bass. This outing, Mitchell would forgo the use of big name rock players and singers and keep the focus on the songs and her voice. The result of Mitchell’s writing and the sympathetic co-production by Klein is one of the strongest albums is Mitchell’s career. 

The lead off track, “Night Ride Home” paints a graphic outline of the songs to follow. The track, reflecting Mitchell’s wanderlust for travel also is a understated love song to her travel partner, lover and friend Larry Klein. Musically, Mitchell almost paints in abstract with her guitar multi-tracked to provide the main theme of the song while Klein’s bass and Bill Dillon’s pedal steel guitar provide colors. The song is minimalist yet perfect in its construction. The song, “Cherokee Louise” continues the musical theme established in “Night Ride Home” but adds Mitchell confidant Wayne Shorter on soprano sax. Mitchell provides a wonderful lead vocal which is as evocative as the lyrics. Lyrically, the songs is vivid and disturbing in dark contrast with how truly wonderful the song is. The song “The Windfall (Everything for Nothing)”, picks up the pace with drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Klein teaming up for a subtle rock feel. Mitchell provides the real sparks with her guitar and lyrics as sharp as a knife. Clearly Mitchell is not one to be trifled with. “Come In from the Cold” shift the focus back to relationships. Sensual, sensitive and elegant Mitchell touches on the tangible and intangible in relationship and self-awareness. Mitchell made a video for “Come in from the Cold”  and the song was edited for radio play but the song failed to chart. “Nothing Can Be Done” adds a suitable contrast to “Come in from the Cold” with Mitchell  and cowriter on the track Larry Klein hitting a solid rock pace. The song provides tasty, non-preachy social commentary and is added by a guest vocal from David Baerwald from David & David fame ( and who’s album Bedtime Stories Klein produced and Mitchell sang on). Mitchell ends the original release of Night Ride Home with a  track originally recorded for her Wild Things Run Fast album in 1982. The song, “Two Grey Rooms” originally started as a song Mitchell gave to Larry Klein, guitarist Michael Landau and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta just to jam on during the Wild Things Run Fast session. The lyric-less song was rediscovered by Mitchell while she was recording Night Ride Home only this time she quickly wrote lyrics and recorded them over the original backing track.

All four of the Geffen era album when out of print in the 1990’s however when Mitchell discovered this, she bought the masters. Remastered the albums and added a bonus track on each CD. Night Ride Home, rereleased in the Complete Geffen Series in 2003 contains a stellar cover of Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” but only on the CD version of the release.

Night Ride Home is a perfect prelude to Mitchell’s first post Geffen Records outing, the Grammy winning Turbulent Indigo in 1994.