Joni Mitchell is not perfect, but she is perhaps our best example of a singer-songwriter with a rock ‘n’ roll heart.
She created music, from the start, that challenged expectations, became hits, fearlessly exposed her self (Rolling Stone mocked her sex life, famously and appallingly), and explored relentlessly the world outside herself, which she hoped to inhabit gracefully.
To put it bluntly, if she had had balls she would have put them forward in jeopardy to show that she was serious about her place in the world. The music may have been pretty at times, but the emotions were often as raw as anything else. And usually more so.
As seems to happen often with songwriters I admire, it is a cover that helps me explain Joni Mitchell. That would be Annie Ross’s Twisted.
And a cover of one of her songs, Clouds, that takes it just a bit farther.
My love and respect for Joni is well documented. She is up there with Dylan and the Beatles and Prince and Neil Young on my list of fearless and unflinching artists who will reinvent themselves and their art.
I love guitar crunch as much as anyone, and Joni has none. but, crunch and attitude are not even close to inclusive (“Spirit in the Sky” has crunch, but has the opposite of attitude, as far as I am concerned).
And, fuck “Rollingstone.” I subscribed for ove 30 years, and I did read it before I lost interest.
In retrospect very little of it stuck to me like “Mad Magazine” did (and still does).
Joni has attitude in spades.