Recommendations of the Editorial team
The best songwriters of all time (9): Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell had made her first attempts in the folk and coffehouse scene of the sixties, but it quickly became the hippie icon of the songwriter colony, which had come together in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles.
She began with songs that – measured by the complexity of her later work – were almost simple. “Clouds”, “Both Sides Now”, “Big Yellow Taxi”.
Her texts were always personal, but increasingly documented an almost aggressive intimacy
Her texts were always personal, but increasingly documented an almost aggressive intimacy. “When I realized how popular I had become,” she later remembered the work for her ’71 masterpiece “Blue”, “I thought :, Then let’s see who you really worship. Let’s see if you can digest this album. Now the chaff separates from wheat.’ So I wrote, Blue ‘ – and many people actually hunted a good horror. ”
It should not stay with the unique affront: her albums from “Ladies of the Canyon” (1970) to “Court and Spark” (1974), on which she perfected her jazzy studio pop, document a phase of her life that can take up in terms of creativity and radicality with all the big big dates.
Joni Mitchell: “Blue”
The emotional gentlelessness with which your texts reflect the sexual revolution not only provide a remarkable time document of those years. But also document the inner struggles of a self -determined woman who tried to follow her inner compass in this situation. “I felt naked and defenseless,” she wrote about working on the songs at that time, “I felt like I was Cellophan on a cigarette pack.”