The title of Joni Mitchell's new album for Reprise Records is "Blue." But don't you believe it. This latest collection of Joni Mitchell songs indicates that the lady from Canada has never felt better in her life.

And that's the feeling you have after listening to "Blue." A good feeling, because the album is a gem. Possibly the best work in Miss Mitchell's recording career. There is even a good feeling about the sad songs.

Miss Mitchell writes some of the most personal music being turned out these days. Personal and totally uncluttered. One cannot say for a fact that she has lived the experiences of "California" or "This Flight Tonight" or "Carey," since tight security covers Miss Mitchell's ramblings, but her songs all have the ring of Truth.

It is all to [sic] personal to doubt when Miss Mitchell sings about sitting in a Paris cafe, reading the news from back home, which is all bad because they won't give peace a chance (but that was just a dream we once had), yet itching to get back to California and hear a good rock 'n' roll band because this town is too old and set in its ways.

Not that autobiographical content is all that vital - unless you have become hooked on the game we learned to play with the music of James Taylor. What counts is that Miss Mitchell is a charming story teller and a skilled musician. She writes songs that are disarmingly simple on the surface, yet totally unique in construction and execution.

"River," for example, is a simple song of lost love, except that Miss Mitchell says the same old things with a brand new point of view.