Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell

I have an obsession with Joni Mitchell.  I have been a fan of hers ever since 1971 when I was in the 10th grade.  My sister just bought the Blue album and friends of hers came over to listen to it. They were in the den and I was invite in to listen with them.  I felt like I had entered a whole new world of adulthood.  I did, however, feel quite foolish when I asked why she wrote a song to her father.  My sister had to explain to me that My Old Man was her lover, not her father.  And with that explanation, all of my confidence of being cool vanished.

In college, I loved the Court and Spark Album.  I played in continuously on my cheap mono stereo. One day, I was stretched out on my dorm bed and I had the album playing.  The stereo arm was extended so the album would play and play and play to my heart's content.  After about the fourth time, someone from across the hall charged in to my room and turned the music off.   She didn't say a word to me and I didn't protest because she made a very good point.

In 1976, I was at the Brandywine River Museum and I heard Song For Sharon, a new song off her Hejira album. I ran out and got the album on my way home.

I found a CD that plays 10 different versions of Big Yellow Taxi.  Each version is so different that I love to hear all ten songs over and over again.  My favorite is the jazz edition.

When I got the Chalk Mark in the Rain Storm album, I immedialtey loved her duet with Willie Nelson.  When I went to work the next day, I wanted to tell my friend Mary Beth, also a Joni fanatic about this new album.  She already knew about it and said, "And you just have to be in love with Cool Water.  Don't you just love Willie Nelson's part?"

Man to Man is a song that spoke to me.  We all have unattainable love, someone who just can't be ours.  I listened to this song so many times, I had to stop before it made me depressed.

One year, two albums were released, Hits came out first. Then Misses was released. It annoyed me that anyone would refer to any of her songs as missed hits.

In 2000, she released her highly orchestrated album Both Sides Now. By this time, years of smoking had reduced her voice to a deeper, more serious octave. And the cover song mesmerized me. 

In 2003, I had a few rough weeks at work.  One of my colleagues wanted to give me something to cheer me up.  So he made me a compilation of Joni covers.  Cyndi Lauper sang Carey. I loved this compilation and listen to it every day for three years.  I lost the CD a few years back and still find myself looking for it from time to time.

I stopped buying CDs around 2008.  I had enough music to last me a lifetime and I wasn't listening to  much of my library.  But I was still buying Joni's music. I purchased her last album, Love Has Many Faces and I paid $50 for the 4 CD packet.  It pained me to pay that much money but it was Joni so I really didn't have any other choice.  However, I hate to play it because I don't want to damage it. So it sits with the rest of my collection which serves as my shrine to the only person who owns so much of my musical interest and heart.