What is your favorite Joni Mitchell song?

I think it's probably "The Hissing of Summer Lawns", but I also love "Carey" and "Raised on Robbery".

There are so many great songs to choose from. It may be a pedestrian choice, but I think for personal reasons my favorite is 'Help Me'.

Sorry.

Shitty

Another for Help Me. Her music brings back so many fond memories. Court and Spark. Cat Stevens too.

Daun Juan’s Reckless Daughter

"Free Man in Paris" for me, followed by "Big Yellow Taxi."

Down To You and Blue. By Far.

Love Joni.

Amelia.

Urge for Going.

[quote]"I get the urge for going/But I never seem to go."

Sums up my entire life in one lyrical line.

"The Circle Game" seldom fails to reduce me to a blubbering, sobbing mess, whether by Joni or Tom Rush (my imprint version). My favorite albums—for Joni was such an albums artist, I hardly know the names of individual songs—are Court & Spark, s/t, Ladies of the Canyon, and Hissing of Summer Lawns.

You're asking us fervid fans to make Sophie's choice, OP.

Raised on Robbery

A Case of You, River, Circle Game, Raised on Robbery, All I Want and California are some of my absolute favorites.

I second Robbery...

I've been a fan for many, many years.

Of her first four albums, really the point where she was at her most folkish singer/songwriter era: Willy, I Don't Know Where I Stand, Rainy Night House, Urge for Going (a B side), The Arrangement, The Priest, and pretty much every song on Blue.

In her middle period, which to me was the richest - from For The Roses to Hejira? It would be hard for me to pick a single song from Court and Spark or Hissing of Summer Lawns. There is some really experimental stuff on Hejira but a few stone cole classics like Coyote, Amelia, Hejira and Song for Sharon. For the Roses has several classics: Blonde in the Bleachers, Let The Wind Carry Me, Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire, and the amazing Judgement of the Moon and Stars.

Her later work was marred by a tendency to lecture the audience and some production issues, but you can't go wrong with almost any song on Turbulent Indigo. Her duet with Peter Gabriel, My Secret Place, is amazing, and her song written from the perspective of a gay man, Two Grey Rooms, is also a classic. Other good ones: Nothing Can Be Done, Man from Mars, Ladies Man, Moon in the Window, Man to Man, Tea Leaf Prophecy, Harlem in Havana.

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter has Off Night Backstreet and Silky Veils of Ardor.....but again, lots of experimentation. Mingus is interesting but perhaps the hardest nut of hers to crack.

If you like classical music at all, the re-recordings of her work with an orchestra can be deeply moving. I weep every time I hear the opening notes of the orchestral version of A Case of You. Something so beautiful and sorrowful yet hopeful.

Ask me next week and I'll probably say something different! LOL

Stunning song, stunning video.

A favorite from my distant youth...

One of her masterpieces, of course, notably covered by CSNY.

She recorded this three times - the early, slower folk infused version, a slightly rockier/jazz version on Miles of Aisles....and then this. my favorite recorded version.

This felt like an elegy, as if she was already mourning the "garden." As if the chance to change it had already slipped away. That's what I hear listening to it now, anyway.

Even on the every-note-is-perfect Court and Spark, this is a standout.

Haven't found one yet.

I know it’s cliche to say it but I love this 2000 performance of Both Sides Now. I love the gravity of her voice and all of the wisdom and life behind it. It’s an absolutely breathtaking performance.

"A Case of You" stands by itself.

Amelia

People's Parties/Same Situation

R21 clearly Does Not Know Where They Stand.

I’m a long time fan as well. While not my favorite, “Yvette” is a near perfect little song...

Anything from Blue but especially The Last Time I Saw Richard

Another vote for 'Same Situation' - and my heart will always have a place for 'Big Yellow Taxi' (but was it a taxi or a police car - they were yellow in Canada then - and was 'my old man' her father or her partner)

Anyway, really brilliant songwriter.

I worked at a record store when Nightride Home came out. It was truly special, and I still enjoy it immensely after all these years. As mentioned above, she really was an album artist, she understands mood, tone, layers, foreground, middle ground, background. She translates classical principles combined with jazz, and easily moves between visual art, writing, music, history. A true Renaissance woman, can you even name another woman like her? There are so many other great talents, but I can’t think of one quite like her. She’s almost like an EGOT of folk. She pushed boundaries in so many ways too, she was a pioneer. Are there no new artists like this right now? I think they’re out there, but harder to find because there are so many indie artists not recording with labels. So unless you’re reading music mags, you won’t easily find them.

I'm afraid "The Circle Game" always sounds to me a bit too much like a Christian campfire song.

Blue is uniformly good. I have trouble picking favourite songs from Blue, Court and Spark or The Hissing of Summer Lawns.

She uses some really weird chord progressions sometimes, which are delightful to listen to. The sort of keep you on your toes as you listen.

R19, interesting interpretation! I can hear the mourning too, but I always interpreted it as her mourning her inability to get to Woodstock.

Either a Case of You or Refuge of the Roads.

Joni doc....

What? No votes for “Paprika Plains”?

She's one of those artists that were slightly before my time but have always heard about and wanted to look into more, but never have.

Paved Paradise is the only song I think I know - and that's because it was redone by Counting Crows.

I feel like I've done myself a disservice not looking into her albums.

[quote]Paved Paradise is the only song I think I know - and that's because it was redone by Counting Crows.

Ew. Is it as fucking awful as their "Big Yellow Taxi" cover?

R35

Start with 'Court and Spark', then 'Blue' and 'Hissing of Summer Lawns'. "Blue' came out before 'Court and Spark', but experiencing 'Court and Spark' is a good way to get hooked.

I have too many favorites to list, but Urge for Going and Little Green are heartbreaking and beautiful.

[quote]Daun Juan’s Reckless Daughter

While lyrically interesting, I always thought that song sounded like a retread of Coyote.

[quote]What? No votes for “Paprika Plains”?

If you like someone banging at random on a piano for what seems like all day, then that is a great song.

A Case Of You is perfection.

And her heart is full and hollow...

[quote]A Case Of You is perfection.

I prefer the older version she did. Same with Both Sides Now.

Those songs seem more poignant from someone who has lived longer.

I could string together lines from so many of her songs to tell the story of my inner life.

“Why does it come as such a shock to know you really have no one...only a river of changing faces looking for an ocean.” (Trouble Child)

“There’s comfort in melancholy...when there’s no need to explain...it’s just as natural as the weather in this moody sky today.” (Hejira)

“Behind my bolt locked door, the eagle and the serpent are at war in me...the serpent fighting for blind desire, the eagle for clarity.” (Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter)

“I am not some stone commission, like a statue in a park...I am flesh and blood and vision...I am howling in the dark.” (Come in from the Cold)

There are many more.

Yes she is a poet. Amazing lyrics, R44.

In the words of Yeats...

The one that played when the music stopped....

R35 R36 You're talking about the same song.

Big Yellow Taxi includes a lyric "They paved paradise/and put up a parking lot"

I'm encouraged to see that some of Joni's lesser known songs are mentioned here too!

[quote]I feel like I've done myself a disservice not looking into her albums.

You have. Start with Court & Spark.

Yes, Court and Spark is the intersection where all of Joni's best attributes meet. It's also her most accessible record.

The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines

R52 I fucked a Dry Cleaner in Des Moines once.

For her singing, I live her re-recording of Both Sides Now. Her whiskey voice and the new arrangement make the song forlorn as it should be.

For others singing her work, I like Bette Midler singing For Free at the Continental Baths. I’m assuming it was a Barry Manilow arrangement and it takes the airy-fairy sound out of Mitchell’s song.

Wouldn't that venue have preferred airy-fairy, r54?

[quote] Wouldn't that venue have preferred airy-fairy, [R54]?

LOL. Not in their music. Those 60s and 70s gays had taste. They couldn’t shake their asses at the dance clubs to Joni Mitchell’s sound.

The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey is haunting...wonderful use of wolves as backups...

Some of us preferred Joni to Bette, r56.

Joni's work is rarely covered well or correctly.

Judy Collins' version of Both Sides Now gets the tone wrong.

The Counting Crows' version of Big Yellow Taxi (or as it was referred to upthread, Paved Paradise) was so fucking terrible, as was the ubiquitous covers of River that came along for a few years. I wanted Congress to pass a law forbidding any more shitty covers of her work.

*3* GIRLS *3*

[quote]Judy Collins' version of Both Sides Now gets the tone wrong.

Judy's was my imprint version of "Both Sides Now." I missed the Clouds album by several years, so it was some time before I heard it by Joni. As a result, I prefer what to me is the authenticity of Judy's version, just as l do Tom Rush's version of "The Circle Game."

I think her best cover was Bonnie Raitt’s version of “That Song About the Midway”...

I think it’s hard to choose. I must say I’m not a deep fan but I do love her most wonderful songs:

Help Me

Free Man in Paris

Both Sides Now (but definitely Judy’s version)

When I heard BSN at the end of “Hereditary” it sent a chill through me. The Circle Game

I forgot the mention The Circle Game, which actually makes me emotional, not something that actually happens much anymore.

I loathe Judy Collins and her vile version of Both Sides Now.

Sorry.

Talk about a f*cking Sophie's Choice! Joni has written a song for almost every mood at every stage of life. On any given day, the favorite song will change.

Last week it was "Car On The Hill." Today it is "The Sire of Sorrow (Job's Sad Song)."

[quote]Some of us preferred Joni to Bette, [R56].

If you like airy-fairy music, then so be it. I don't like Bette's attempts to be Janis Joplin, but this arrangement is much better than Mitchell's.

What kind of word is schoo-els?

Did you hear it before or after Joni's version, r65? Judy's version was my only exposure to the song when it came out in 1967, and I loved it. Would I feel differently if I'd heard Joni's version, which came out in 1969, first? I don't know. It's a great song, and I think I'd've liked it regardless of who put it out first.

R66 Yes, that song is just beautiful. A sort of bookend in many ways to Judgement of the Moon and Stars.

I don't like her voice very much before "For the Roses."

It tends to be too shrill, squeaky, and high.

Plus, I loathe folk music, which her earlier albums sounded more like.

I love the songs on Blue, but her voice is still too high.

Come in from the cold.

Dog Eat Dog, I feel is underrated. Yes it sounds unmistakably 80ish but so what she sounds great.

I LOVED all those singer-songwriters back then. Listening to them now, Joni, Laura Nyro Harry NIllson, others- are all very self-indulgent. Now all I hear are squealing vocals from all of them. Especially after a couple albums. No one was going to tell them how to sing or arrange a song!

Woodstock is my favorite overall, but only performed by her. I despise the more popular cover versions.

I love A Case of You. The lines "I remember the time you told/You said, 'Love is touching souls'/Surely, you touched mine/Cause part of you/Pours out of me/in these lines from time to time" brings tears to my eyes when I hear them sung. I love the original and I love Tori Amos's melancholic cover, which is how I first heard the song.

I love Hejira:

You know it never have been easy

Whether you do or you do not resign

Whether you travel the breath of extremities

Or stick to some straighter line

It's pretty swell, r62...

River will always be my favorite. It's not really a Christmas song (just set in that time) but now gets a lot of play at Christmas. The melancholy feeling always gets me.

Free Man in Paris is always fun, making me think of Geffen chasing boys abroad in anonymity, decades before he finally could come out.

R59, have you noticed how River keeps showing up on so many Christmas albums in the past couple decades? The word Christmas in the lyrics does not a Xmas song make. But hey, whatever. It's a fine song, but it has gained traction as a "contemporary" cover for your holiday album.

Both Sides Now can make me cry. Another anti-Judy-Collins vote here. Just doesn't do it for me.

There's a reason Help Me was her biggest hit. What a terrific tune, sound and production. kd Lang's cover version is beautiful, too.

Joni & James

River opens with bars of "Jingle Bells" played on piano and they're woven through the song as a motif. People don't just gravitate to it during the holidays because she sings "it's coming on Christmas."

I can't stand "River."

He never like you either.

Joni & Joan

I like Joni's River but not many of the covers.

They either sing it so faithfully they may as well have lip synched it, or they do what James Taylor did, which was change it to major chords, which changes the entire feeling of the song. His version is pleasant enough, I don't mind it, but it's kinda not what was originally written.

One that doesn't get mentioned a lot is "Conversation" from Ladies of the Canyon. Such a fun little song!

John Kelly

John & Joni

The John Kelly stuff sounds a bit odd when I first read it in print.

But when I saw him do Shadows and Light, I wept for a good five minutes after it was done. It was lovely, in a way I cannot even put into words.

Ben Platt’s version of “River” is absolutely the best...

All of "Blue" is perfect, but "California" never fails to move me.

“For the Roses” is a terrific album but I remember it being criticized as being too “inside,” meaning that many of the songs were about the music industry. “Blonde in the Bleachers” is the best example,

My favorite law school assignment was a paper for my legal writing class, assigned by a professor who was a big Joni fan. In the fact pattern, someone had taken a beautiful field, paved it and put up a parking lot, where they parked a big yellow taxi. The facts were filled with other little Joni references (someone who ran off to Paris, etc.) Our assignment was to write about all the legal issues raised by the facts. Much more fun than my typical assignments.

Conversation

She’s a goddess. I absolutely love her.

R92 That is fantastic !! Meanwhile at my law school I had to do several years of Clinton’s fake tax returns. I went to the wrong school.

R92 did you slip a reference or two into the reply?

Probably her most-panned album, and certainly one of her least successful, was 1985's "Dog Eat Dog"...but I LOVE that album. It's one of my favorite albums by any artist, ever.

I think people hated the idea of it. Joni being produced by Thomas Dolby, with lots of electronic instrumentation? Sounds pretty awful and kind of desperate...but I though it was fantastic. It's not like she was trying to do her version of 80's British New Wave. It was still Joni Mitchell, with the complex-but-compellilng melodies, the unexpected chord progressions, the incredible poetry, and that voice. The "electronic" production was actually pretty subtle and unobtrusive.

At the time, I was living in LA and listening a lot to this eclectic station (KUTE 102 FM) that was sort of a precursor to the "smooth jazz" format, but way more adventurous (it's the station that played both Sade and Simply Red a full year before anybody in America knew who they were). Anyway, they played the hell out of that album. At least half of the cuts, probably more, were on their regular rotation for months. I'd always been intrigued by Joni Mitchell and always liked her, but I'd never actually bought one of her albums. "Dog Eat Dog" was the first.

One of the songs that got played on that station was this one: "Ethiopia".

I still find the music mesmerizing, and the lyrics devastating.

Not to disparage "We Are the World", which did its job by selling and making millions for the same cause Joni sang about here, not to mention all the awareness it raised, but in terms of musical artistry, she's on a completely different plane.

R95, of course. I was one of the older people in my law school class, and likely one of the only ones who even knew who Joni was. So I was laughing while many of my classmates didn't even know what was going on.

I got an A+ in the class. Thanks, Joni!

Coyote from The Last Waltz is her best

R96 It felt very overproduced at the time but certainly its strengths have emerged with time.

Tax Free was so ahead of its time.

I think the main issue, if there was one sonically, is that Joni was literally still learning how to work with a synthesizer. By work with I mean - compose, arrange, think and create with that as the main tool.

Chalk Mark and Night Ride Home were much better in that regard. But yes, several of those songs are very strong.

r96, I even like "Empty, Try Another."

Snakes & Ladders

White washed hogs

Chelsea Morning

Minimal talent

Marcie

R96, I've never heard that song yet, but I remember seeing an old stand up routine of Sandra Bernhard where she made fun of "Ethiopia".

I love a lot of her work, but at the moment Little Green is the one for me. Something about the melancholy opening arpeggiated chords, and her wistfully singing "Born with the moon in cancer..." hits my heart.

Joni definitely has a few misses.

And as much as I love her, there were a few vey lectury songs. Ethiopia is one, for sure.

Sex Kills is a song that gets its message by in very clever ways, but not every song of hers is as clever. I have the same issue with some late period PJ Harvey music. Tell the story in an interesting way, nobody likes a lecture.

She takes chances, r108. When asked to comment on some of her contemporaries, Carly said that was the thing she admired about Joni. She also said Bonnie Raitt was a good ol' girl and that Linda had the best white pipes in the business.

[quote] that was the thing she admired about Joni.

that, and their nearly identical taste in fine cock

This thread always makes me laugh

She has some lyrics that just sound so GOOD when you listen to them. I was listening to The Hissing of Summer Lawns album yesterday, inspired by this thread, and was reminded how much I love the way she sings:

"They've been broken in churches and schools / and molded to middle-class circumstance."

That's such a good album. And "The Boho Dance" is such a great comment on a certain kind of attitude around art. I think of it often when a certain friend of mine's husband starts wanking on about how he'll only make a certain type of "real" music.

Edith and the Kingpin...

[quote]They either sing it so faithfully they may as well have lip-synched it, or they do what James Taylor did, which was change it to major chords, which changes the entire feeling of the song.

The song was written in C Major and is mostly major chords.

Good ear. Were you on American Idol?

Just because a lyric is sad doesn't mean the music is in a minor key.

[quote]Probably her most-panned album, and certainly one of her least successful, was 1985's "Dog Eat Dog"...but I LOVE that album. It's one of my favorite albums by any artist, ever.

Dog Eat Dog got attacked because people accused Joni of writing the CD as an attack on Reagan -- like that's a bad thing.

It was also accused of "not sounding like a Joni Mitchell album."

But I love "Tax Free" for mocking Christian Evangelical hypocrisy long before it was safe to do that.

I love it when she's watching a televangelist and says, "Fuck it! Tonight, I'm going dancing with the drag queens and the punks. Big beat deliver me from this sanctimonious skunk."

[quote]people accused Joni of writing the CD as an attack on Reagan

Really? Now I'm interested in listening to it, haha!

The Three Great Stimulants

Joan and Joni hated each other. Probably still do.

Joni's lyrics have always been a strength for her, but that was especially so in Court & Spark, Hissing and Hejira.

"Elvis Costello once praised the record's center, "Shades of "Scarlett Conquering": "This is as good as any writing," Costello said. "That's a whole book's worth of writing and yet it doesn't rely on anybody assuming that's you."

The specific lines he quoted in an earlier interview:

Beauty and madness to be praised

'Cause it is not easy to be brave

To walk around in so much need

To carry the weight of all that greed

Dressed in stolen clothes she stands

Cast iron and frail

With her impossibly gentle hands

And her blood-red fingernails

An excellent doco on Joni which was produced in Canada and later aired on American Masters.

It's a pretty atrocious video, but Marcie from her first album still can't be beat. Lyrically, musically, vocally, with sublime production by David Crosby, the entire album is transplendent.

For The Roses

Down to You is absolute perfection.

Joni's enunciation of "Colorado" on My Secret Place is sublime.

Legend.

The Hissing of Summer Lawns is great for lyrics, I agree, R119. There seems to be a thread running through it of, to me, unerring comments on suburbia.

I was a real lyric-analyser as a teen, all up in Tori Amos' stuff, among many others, working it all out. They were very important to me as a teen. Then, in my 20s, the lyrics got less important and the music was paramount. Which it still is really, but discovering Joni a couple of years ago, brought back my love of good lyrics. She has some corkers.

Night in the City

Fabulous, r122!

I discovered her during the summer after I graduated and fell head over heels.

Chalk Mark was the first album she released after I'd discovered her and "My Secret Place" still gives me goosebumps all these years later. It really is as magical as any of her earlier songs.

[quote]I think people hated the idea of it. Joni being produced by Thomas Dolby, with lots of electronic instrumentation? Sounds pretty awful and kind of desperate

People said the same thing about my disco album.

It was the rare moment Joni didn't produce herself and Dolby does amazing production work, but they just didn't gel.

"Dog Eat Dog" has some great songs but the production is very dated.

[You're So Square] Baby, I Don't Care

R78 Have you actually listened to ‘River’’? It’s more than just lyrics that give it a “Christmas” song vibe.

[quote] ... I'm just getting into Joni.

You and every other man she ever met, OP.

I love Court and Spark sonically but as a song cycle that charts the beginning and end of a relationship it's a fairly bleak dispatch from Me Generation Los Angeles (meet cute, awkwardness when socializing, deeper uncertainties emerge, he flakes on her and the relationship ends, she resorts to a one-night stand to try and get over him, gets sadder and goes crazy, guy gets hit on by a prostitute while watching a hockey game at a bar).

One of my favorite individual songs is Otis and Marlena from DJRD for the vivid invocations of putrefaction:

Marlena under Foster Grants She's undercover from the dawn's advance That girl is travel-drained And the neon mercury vapor stained Miami sky It's red as meat It's a cheap pink rosé

I am not too keen on songs like Help Me or Free Man in Paris

It's been a while, but it's on Hissing of Summer Lawns and it's got something about "Harry" in it.

"Harry's House/Centerpiece", R136

[quote] Joan and Joni hated each other. Probably still do.

Do tell, R118? Assuming you mean Baez and Mitchell, I wouldn't be surprised if you're right -- I've just never heard it before and I'd love to know all about it.

Joni was a prolific shader. Here she is, on both Joan and Judy Collins

Joni did say Linda has the best set of female white pipes.

[quote] [R78] Have you actually listened to ‘River’’? It’s more than just lyrics that give it a “Christmas” song vibe.

It is a sad song of lost love. Which part of it evokes Christmas?

The only Joni Mitchell song I remember is "Big Yellow Taxi"..."pave paradise and put up a parking lot."

I came of age in the '60s and '70s and listened to lots of music my whole life, but I have no recollection of Joni Mitchell singing anything but that one song I listed above. And I was never on drugs. There is just nothing I remember about Joni Mitchell at all. I know she's very famous, and a huge figure in the music industry. I just don't know what she ever sang. I met her at the opening of "Almost Famous," a musical directed by Cameron Crowe that premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego in the fall of 2019. It was kind of nice to meet her. I just don't know her music...well, maybe I do if you hum a few bars, but I don't recall anything off the top of my head.

You sound completely ridiculous R143. Everyone knows Both Sides Now or Big Yellow Taxi or Help Me. A Case of You, Woodstock, Dog Eat Dog, Free Man in Paris and Carey also get a lot of airplay. Forever. Those are not even her best songs. Joni didn't make hit singles, but she set out to make a hit and she did it with You Turn me On. It's a corny song. She did it to prove to prove to David Geffen that she could. Joni Mitchell is a musical and artistic genius. I am not being hyperbolic.

One of my favorite songs of Jonis' is Magdalene Laundries from Turbulent Indigo. I love this period of her voice and songwriting. It is not her most accessible song but very clear and beautiful, a bit defiant and melancholy. Here she discusses how it came into being, if her flat prairie girl accent. Still the same. She speaks abit about her open tuning process of composition and playing. And then she sings it, magically. Joni Mitchell is a great singer - never given enough credit for it because of her wild youthful soprano and subsequent smokey raspiness. But she always knew how to sing within the ability of her voice with meaning and musicality. Very much like Billie Holiday. Joni adapted to her voice changes beautifully. Her music never suffered for it.

You're in for a treat if you've never seen this performance of Just Like This Train. More than 20 years later - she is even more resonant and the song is as GREAT as ever. One of my top five favorite Joni Mitchell songs. She changes it up a bit vocally and melodically, as I discussed above.

Her music has no charm whatsoever, and it's soulless, too.

Hard pass.

I love her song "Carey" . . . "the wind is in from Africa, last night I couldn't sleep" About a brief affair she had with a guy while traveling on the island of Crete. "oh you're a mean old daddy, but I like you fine"

Joni Mitchell is many things. Soulless is not one to them.

I was born in the eighties. Joni Mitchell is a legend. If you want to understand anything about music, you listen to some Joni Mitchell. You don't have to like her. Her music is droll, obtuse, stubborn and emotional. She's like Twyla Tharp. It takes a bit of work to understand and love the work of Joni Mitchell. She happens to be the greatest female singer/songwriter and POET in popular music history. A true and uncompromising artist.

^ I see no lies^ Great post R150.

She's an amazing guitar player too. The woman is gifted beyond measure.

Okay, in addition to Big Yellow Taxi, I do know the Joni Mitchel songs Help Me and Free Man in Paris. I'm trying to place Carey, but it's not sounding familiar. I also know Both Sides Now and Woodstock; I just didn't know Joni Mitchell wrote those two songs since Judy Collins and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sang them, respectively and made them famous.

Joni Mitchell may be a prolific songwriter, but I never liked her soprano or falsetto voice. Not my cup of tea.

R149, she may not be soulless, but her music certainly is.

As others have mentioned, though, she IS a poet, I'll give her that much.

[quote]It is a sad song of lost love. Which part of it evokes Christmas?

The entire intro to River is a play on Jingle Bells, you fucking idiot.

Exactly R156. You can't teach people how to hear. It's always amazing to me how many musical dummies there are on Datalounge. Like that dude who keeps calling Mitchell's music soulless? It's one of the last words I would use to describe her compositions and influence. Inaccessible, maybe. Soulless, never. Do people understand what soul music is, what the word means?

The intro to River is unforgettable. It's not cleverness - she's taken a major chord christmas song and given it some minor chord harmonic grace notes to introduce her own lovely melancholy song. And the melody of that song does evokes skating on a long cold river. But her lyrics just speak of the longing to do so. Joni is a fucking genius. Even she doesn't understand what she created half the time. But she knew when it was done.

R157 confirms that the term "genius" is clearly subjective. Who knew that gay men were so devoted to plain, boring Joni Mitchell?

Amelia.

I only know Big Yellow Taxi from Janet Jackson's Got till it's Gone.

I would love to know where to start on a Joni Mitchell Journey through her music.

r160 Start with the album Court and Spark.

Exactly R161. It's a perfect album and her most accessible. But then - there's so much more.

^ This flight too. Don't miss the road trip of Hejira.

My husband and I got married to A Case of You. Don't laugh, it was beautiful!

It's a dream of a love song R164. Lyrically a drunk romantic gesture - but so melodically gorgeous. That song is a mood. She wrote it for Leonard Cohen, people say. So it was a temporary LOVE. 😍

I think it is Mitchell's most covered song. It's both conversational and grandly romantic.❤️

Everyone feels it a bit different. Enjoy.

R160 just listen to all the albums from Ladies of the Canyon to Hejira. She has good stuff before and after, but that's the core of her great work, and it encompasses her journey from introspective Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter to jazzy experimentation in six short years.

Free Man in Paris for some reason stood out for me from Court and Spark, a wonderful album. It still is a favorite--maybe I like the escape aspect. Who wouldn't want to feel "unfettered and alive"?

I've had "Lesson in Survival" stuck in my head an awful lot over the past several months. For the Roses is such a grower of an album. On top of everything else, she could be a very acute observer of 70s mores.

Why did she use that awful Graham Nash? Like a Lead Pencil on a blackboard, just like Madame Joni

I am Canadian. A musician. Yes, I've met Joni. Twice. Nothing much to report. All good. She likes a good piano player. 🙂

This grand performance was when Mitchell was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. She does show up for most Canadian honours. Even in Saskatoon. I'm not sure that Joni liked this? Hard to tell with her unless she LOVES it. But Measha Brueggergosman gave it a hell of show. A soprano sneak attack. The guitar playing is amazing. It was wonderful to be there, that I know.

I always thought "Court and Spark" could have used one more song. On the vinyl LP, after "The Same Situation," there is a large empty gap the needle goes through before reaching the end of that side. They could have easily fit another song there. It seems a bit wasted. She probably had plenty of songs. Maybe "Song for Sharon" if she had it at that time.

Oh no. Why would Song For Sharon be there R171? That's not her style at that time. She hadn't reached that place. Couldn't write that song then. Court and Spark is Joni Mitchell's Hotel California. I command you to go back and listen to the complete album of Court and Spark. It may not be a concept album, but it has a precise narrative and musical flow. (Twisted is the song that jars to be honest - it's meant too, but still doesn't quite work) Same Situation is exactly what she wanted to sing at the end of an album that started with "Help Me."

Her voice soars up for help and inspiration. Who's there to hear? Send me someone who is strong and somewhat sincere...After all those people's parties into the Same Situation - Joni is L-Ayed OUT! It represents years and a moment.

She never looks back after that, musically or professionally. Song for Sharon comes later for a reason.

Another vote for “Help Me”. Played to death in the 70s, but for me, it still holds up. Relatable lyrics, and that guitar arpeggio at the end is gorgeous.

I also think “Free Man In Paris” is another beauty.

I was curious why Court and Spark didn't win a few Grammy Awards. Not that it would be expected I guess, I wasn't born in 1974? Joni didn't win big awards or top the charts too much.

But at least Joni had some good company that year. Good music was everywhere. Band on the Run, Stevie's third greatest album, some classic Aretha, Anne Murray and even ONJ.

This really cute guy who's in the band "Wings of Pegasus" reviews Joni's Big Yellow Taxi and her guitar method in this video.

Court and Spark is great and everyone is correct in the praise they give it. But for me, The Hissing of Summer Lawns is above that even. I adore that album.

R174 she’s won nine Grammys. Not bad for an artist, outside the classical and jazz fields at the Grammys, who hasn’t had a lot of hits. Joni has always gone her own way and basically said fuck you to the mainstream. True genius.

Barangrill : "none of the crazy you get from too much choice"

[quoTe] People said the same thing about my disco album.

I’m probably the only one, but I actually prefer Judy Collins’ version of Both Sides Now — so my favorite is a Joni song not sung by Joni!

Otherwise Big Yellow Taxi. .

She always looks like a ginormous human ear.

Another for "Edith and The Kingpin"

“Jingle Bells” is not a Christmas song.

I've never cared for her music, but I love that she outed Dylan as the plagarist he is. She was also a huge part of the Laurel Canyon scene and I respect her for inspiring so many other musicians.

Marcie. 60 years in, still incredibly beautiful, still amazingly haunting.

*plagiarist

I've been loving "Moon At The Window" lately.