By Lydia Firth.
I grew up with my Dad being an ultimate hardcore Bob Dylan fan, to the extent that he claimed he no longer needed to listen to his music as he knew every song and every line (absurd behaviour). I dismissed Dylan’s music as a shambolic attack on the ears made for balding English teachers to harp on about. Cut to several years ago, my two elder brothers joined the Dylan fanbase and proceeded to have long conversations with him about his extensive back catalogue and to wash up after dinner to the dulcet tones of a man with a voice like a revving motorbike. They were completely captivated by him, and I simply did not get it.
Around that time, I was beginning to find my way into the world of 60s and 70s music and I stumbled upon Joni Mitchell. I was immediately mesmerised by her and her music. I spent a year listening almost exclusively to Joni, immersing myself in her rich world. To my family’s delight, I no longer resisted the pull of folk music, but I gave in to its seduction. She became my Bob Dylan.
Joni’s equally colossal discography demonstrates her incredibly versatile talent, starting with her 1968 debut album ‘Song to a Seagull’ which reflects her wistful and elaborate storytelling abilities, contrasting with her later more mature and worldly jazz albums. In 1971, she released ‘Blue’ which has to be the ultimate no-skip album – every song is absolutely sublime. To no surprise, it is regarded by music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. It is intensely personal (‘Little Green’ talks of Joni’s daughter, whom she gave up for adoption in 1965) and yet feels like both an ode to the female experience and a perfectly precise and tragic “break-up album”. The last track on the album, ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’, opens with this verse:
‘The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in ’68
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe
You laugh, he said you think you’re immune, go look at your eyes
They’re full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realize they’re only pretty lies
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies’.
This embodies her hopeful yet embittered personality that we can track throughout her music, a fusion of romanticism and pessimism that I both adore and identify with. In ‘Woman of Heart and Mind’ from the underrated 1972 album ‘For the Roses’, she untangles romance and disappointment:
‘Drive your bargains
Push your papers
Win your medals
Fuck your strangers
Don’t it leave you on the empty side’.
This cutting summary of her ex-lover’s downfalls feels particularly loaded when combined with an f-bomb and sung by a woman who also sings of eyes ‘full of moon’. She really is a woman who can do it all.
Not only does she sing of love and loss, but her lyrics are also steeped with political sentiment. The well-known ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ (1970), despite sounding upbeat, addresses worryingly current environmental concerns, and ‘Sex Kills’ (1994) talks of ‘little kids packin’ guns to school’. It is undeniable that Joni is politically and emotionally perceptive and perpetually current.
So, my Joni obsession began. I became far less resistant to the harmonica-infused tones of Bob Dylan and I was now able to join in with my family’s folk-based conversations and bond with my Dad, who was, and still is, impressed by the Google Home’s ability to play any song you ask for.
Ironically, Joni absolutely detested any comparisons to Dylan, as she was often (sexistly) paralleled as the female equivalent to him. But, for me, she was that female equivalent. I was drawn in by her musical, emotional, and poetic brilliance. She stated ‘We are like night and day, [Dylan] and I… Bob is not authentic at all.’. Whether or not to agree with this contentious statement aside; they are night and day, with Mitchell providing a perfect, and equally strong, antidote to the domination of Dylan in both my household, and the music world.