Morning Becomes Eclectic

Joni in conversation with Liza Richardson


KCRW-FM
February 13, 2015

[transcribed by Lynn Gruenwald]

[recording of "Big Yellow Taxi" plays]

Liza: So, Joni Mitchell, tell me about this project. In your liner notes you say it was a daunting task to distill your body of work onto these four CDs. Tell me what the criteria was, and how does it differ from something like "Hits and Misses."

Joni: Oh okay, well "Hits and Misses" - they wanted to put out a Greatest Hits and I said, well that's kind of, you know - I didn't really have enough greatest hits to fill an album, radio hits. You know I was an FM artist, not an AM artist at that time. But I had like funny hits like "Circle Game" you'd sing at summer camp, right? You know, there were things that were in the culture and popular, but not through the normal avenues. So, I talked them into doing two, and my goal was on the misses, that I was going to make the misses sound like the radio hits that nobody ever attempted to put into that. In the process I was trying to edit 22, I think it is, albums down to one, basically. And all, you know, no theme. By taking love, that's about maybe 50 or 60 percent of - relationships - of my work. At least it narrowed it down some.

Well, I was very ill at that time when the boxed set fiasco for Rhino, the first one, began...and I squelched it. And then, I had all of this editing thing going. And I thought, well, I'll call Jean Grand-Maitre. We did a ballet. A war, an ecological war, ballet that was, within that small world, a huge success. It was very innovative, it was very fulfilling. Our working relationship was delicious. Like my relationship with Henry Lewy, like sometimes you find the right collaborators, and the process of creating is beautiful. Like there's no friction like the stuff that makes bands break up, right?

So he suggested...we went through some themes, I was gonna' do portraits, you know I've got a lot of portraits. And he suggested no, what people need was these love songs. I said, well you know, what the world needs [love] is love sweet love. My songs, my love songs were very unorthodox, it's more the anatomy of the crime. Like they're not songs of seduction, like the normal songs, they're not songs of seduction like the moon, spoon, croon, June...you know, like, walk with me under the stars my darling. You know, they're not that kind of song. They may have a verse like that, but then trouble sets in, right? They're more like little plays.

So I realized, okay, I can do it in four. Even that is leaving a lot of stuff out. I left out philandering I left out "For the Roses" and the ones where you're really suffering, I left out. I thought, give them a nice night out in the theater, don't go too far there. You know, I left in "Troubled Child" and some of them...enough, like, that love has many faces...gives a display of the diversity of changes you can go through in terms of a relationship. But even at that, it was hard to get everything I've written on the topic down to four discs. And my criteria there was that it lead musically, like a - not quite like a symphony 'cause a symphony's all in one key, and some of my songs don't even stay in one key. They change keys in the middle. But that they musically lead, each song sets up the next one.

[recording of "Trouble Child" plays]

Liza: You do Foley and a lot of post-production, you use a lot of sound effects, and do flashbacks within your songs. Did that habit of approaching your songs from a filmmaker's perspective start naturally, or did you do it consciously?

Joni: No no, everything was just intuitive. This is all observations, analytical observations, in putting together the boxed set. Sequencing it was a filmmaker's problem. And I do edit film, so I...the other ballet I did the editing on it, and I've edited all of my feature films. Mainly because they keep the camera on me and they don't know when to cut to the drummer. You know, and also long dissolves on the downbeat. I learned to edit to save myself from bad editing.

Liza: Yeah. Which you've done with almost everything.

Joni: Yeah. (Laughs) If you want it done right you have to do it yourself.

Liza: In fact, you've always produced your own records. Were you advised not to, or encouraged to do so?

Joni: No, no...I - you know, Crosby produced my first album and he's not a producer. And he screwed up the sound terribly. I've got to re-release that album at a certain point, with it corrected. How you could mess up a voice and a guitar I don't know, but he did. And also, he kinda' held court in there you know, like, and he'd go "Shouldn't we get a real piano player, man?" You know, he'd say things and I thought, "No no, I just can't have this."

I'm a painter. So, you know when you're painting, you stand back and you have a smoke. I was listening to David Hockney the other night, and he said the same thing. If you didn't have a smoke, but when you paint you don't smoke. When you stand back, smoke is a clarity drug, right? And you see what you're gonna' do next. So, when you stand back and look at it. I've got a painter's head, which, to produce yourself you have to have an analytical mind, an adjudicating mind, which is intellect and clarity. To perform, you have to have the opposite, which is sensitive and emotional. And you have to be able to switch between those two heads very quickly, which is, I think, why most people don't produce themselves. "I don't know, what do you think?" But a painter knows. You have to, because when you go and make your stroke, you're gonna' bury whatever it is that you're going in on underneath and you'll never get it back. With music, you know you can always kind of retrieve it, the tracks, if you make a mistake. For the most part, unless you erase it, which is more like painting. So, I think a painter is self-adjudicating.

Liza: Most artists can't see themselves critically, I guess most musical artists, but most painters can.

Joni: No they always tell me I'm too hard on myself. They'll say "Oh you're too - " 'Cause I'll come into the studio and I'll make fun of what I just did. Like, if somebody else did that to me, unless they were right...most of the time "Shouldn't we get a real piano player, man?" That's impatience, right? Give me...I'll get it, you know? So I know when to be patient with myself and when it's not working and what to change, very decisively and that's from being a painter.

[recording of "A Case of You" plays]

Liza: Please tell us the story of how the song "The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey" relates to the song "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" from your liner notes. I found it to be a riot, and I would love to hear you tell the story.

Joni: I was playing at a music festival in Berkley, staying in a hotel. All the musicians were staying there. And I'd heard from somebody that Tim Hardin was there. Tim had opened for me in the east quite frequently, so he was a friend. So I went to the desk and said "Could you please give me Tim Hardin's room number?" And the guy behind the desk was, like, really irritable and he went "Can't you see I'm busy?" And I said, "Well okay, when you get un-busy, give me Tim's room number." So I leaned up against the wall.

Just then, across this enormous lobby the doors to the bar opened up. And with it came some music, which I didn't recognize, and the roar of the crowd. And a guy came staggering across the lobby, dressed like James Dean in "Rebel without a Cause." Red cotton jacket, white t-shirt, blue jeans. Singing "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" at the top of his lungs.

So...I like to play with the street, you know, I - I like spontaneous engagement, right? So I drift out into the middle of the lobby and I start singing with him. And we're coming back towards the desk where the guy won't give me Tim's room number.

Around the corner came "The Persuasions," which was a black doo-wop group. And they joined in. So, I started it over, and we did another round, and at the end we laughed our heads off. One thing I didn't put in the liner notes is I took The Persuasions on tour with me. But anyway - so, the song comes to an end, we all laugh, and I turn back to the guy at the desk and I say "Can you give me Tim Hardin's room number?" And the drunk in the red jacket says, "You lookin' for Tim Hardin?" I said "Yes." "He's in the bar, he's on stage." I say "Okay," so I start towards the bar...and the guy in the red jacket, the drunk in the red jacket hollers to me, "Come up to my room, we're havin' a party." And I turned to him and I said "Maybe." And he said, "I've got a tape of some wolves."

Now, this was on a Friday night. On Wednesday night I recorded "The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey" with Don Alias, it was one take; it was just kind of spontaneous. It was on a rented guitar. And I said to Henry Lewy before I left, "While I'm gone, look in the archives at A & M and see if they've got a tape of some wolves, you know I want to put wolves on this track, right? So - out of the blue this guy says "Come up to my room, we're having a party." "Maybe," I say. And "I've got a tape of some wolves." So I stop in my tracks and I go: "I need a tape of some wolves." I mean it was mysterious, right?!

Liza: Bizarre.

Joni: So he says, "Well come up to my room and I'll give it to you." So, I go in the bar. Tim's on stage, you know - He sees me come in and he sings "Hello Joni" like "Hello Dolly," and I sing back "Hello Timmy" like "Hello Dolly." And he says "What are you drinking, Joni?" I said "One white wine." He sings "One white wine," to the bartender, who timidly sings back, "One white wine." And the audience all giggles. And Tim's set is over. And so, Tim and I - I say "This guy wants me to come up to this party and he's got a tape of some wolves. I need a tape of some wolves."

So we're going down the hall of the hotel, we go up some stairs, we're going down the hall. And Tim is very intense and very playful. So, he cooks up this game where I'm a sports fish and he's the fisherman. So I'm leaping down the hall and he's reeling me in. And I'm looking at him and I leap again. Then I run backwards, you know like, and I run forward. We play this game all the way up to the door.

We come into the room, and the drunk in the red jacket is sitting on the floor, with a box full of homemade tapes with white bandaids on them, and writing. And he's, they're piling up around him and he says, "I can't find it. But here, take this." And he hands me this tape, and I look: Elephants...Hyenas...Lions. It's all - I said, "This is all African animals." He said "I know. I can't find it, so take that anyway." So I look again, and I'm disappointed, and the very last entry is Wolves.

So I excuse myself, I go down to my room, I put it on my tape deck - 'cause it was tape in those days - and I put my guitar into "The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey" tuning. And the damn wolves are so compatible I can't believe it! So that night my guitar tech, I had him set up my tape recorder with a microphone in the wings and I showed him - and the tape was cued up - "When I get to this moment in the song, hit this button." Right?

So, these wolves start coming in like they do on the record, like over the music, and you could see on people's faces, "What's going on?" You know? And at the end - it was my last song - at the end of it, they're kind of stunned. Which I find a very interesting response. It took them a minute to know what to do. There was a small smattering of applause and I left the stage; it was my last song. And when I got into the wings, the audience began to howl. And they howled me back on for an encore!

Liza: I love that story, and I love that song.

Joni: Yeah! I mean...I love that story. You know. I like those moments in my life where - the mystical moments - where things you just can't explain happen. He's baiting me to come to this party; "I have a tape of some wolves." It was fantastic!

[recording of "The Wolf That Lives In Lindsay" plays]

Liza: I've always been a Charles Mingus fan and I read that he was always impatient with musicians on his sessions, if they were too married to tradition or too square...and yet, you describe a conflict with him where he's the traditionalist.

Joni: Right.

Liza: Did you end up "out Mingus-ing" Mingus?

Joni: Well, in a way. I mean, not that I see these things as a competition...

Liza: No.

Joni: ...but I'm stubborn when I think what I'm doing is right, when I know why I'm doing it. So, he had told me at the beginning, he wrote these six melodies for me and told me "Don't deviate from the melody. Sing the melody straight."

So on "Sweet Sucker Dance" I sang his note in one place, but in another place - 'cause it sets up the bridges, right? - Ba ba ba bum ba ba bah. Bah is the note, right? In one place I went Ba ba ba bum ba ba bah. And it leads to Ba bum bum bum. So: Ba ba ba bum ba ba bah. Ba bum bum bum. So either one leads, right? So he hears this thing that I'm doing. He goes "You, you singin' the wrong note." And I said, "Well, Charles - your note is kind of Ba ba ba bum ba ba bah. It's kind of resigned. You know, it's kind of melancholy. Ba ba ba bum ba bah. It's kinda optimism, it takes you up." "You singin' the wrong note!" he says. And I say "Well, but it goes with the words. It gives a little variation on it." He said "You singin' a square note." I said, "Well Charles, that note has been square so long it's hip again!" So, he looked at me, he didn't expect - you know - He went "Okay mother---r. Then you sing your note and my note, then you throw in a grace note for God." So I just left it the way it was, and he was a bit annoyed at that. But...who ever heard of a square note?! You know what I mean? I couldn't conceive of a square note.

[recording of "Sweet Sucker Dance" plays]

Liza: My father is a jazz fan and he loves artists like Zoot Sims and Oscar Peterson, very Pablo style.

Joni: Mm-hmm.

Liza: And he thinks Miles Davis and John Coltrane ruined jazz, and we argue about it. So, it's funny how the basic definition of jazz is improvisation and freedom, but it's astonishing how many jazz musicians just couldn't flow with the rules that you broke.

Joni: Well, yeah, well the thing too...now I'm not a Coltrane fan.

Liza: Mm- hmm. Oh!

Joni: You know. At all.

Liza: Okay.

Joni: Like Mingus, I think, Mingus had a song called "If Charlie Parker was a Gunslinger, there'd be a lot of Dead Copycats." You know. Charlie, first they threw things at him because he came outta' left field. My music is perhaps, I never thought of it like this, but perhaps at this point, because I've been in the jazz scene for - I never thought of myself as a jazzer but I've been playing and partying with jazzers for a long time - but my interest in music is limited but diversified. You know? There's Chuck Berry in there, there's Hank Williams in there, there's Debussy, in my dreams in there, you know, the strange, organic, fluid, melodic, unpredictable melodic sense of his that I admire so much. Not that I borrowed or studied or analyzed or took from them, but what I like, I see in their work. Like what I like, I see in Duke's work. You know, like his harmonics in "Subtle Lament" in particular. It is a subtle lament. It's got - it's not wallowing. For instance, Mingus said - I said to Mingus, "Why did you send for me to write your [epitaph], why didn't you get Jon Hendricks?"

Liza: Mm-hmm.

Joni: He said "I did." You know. "On Porkpie Hat. You wanna' hear it?" I said "Yeah." 'Cause I love Jon Hendricks. I mean, you know, "The Hottest New Sound in Jazz," that was my favorite record in high school. So I know all those songs: "Centerpiece," "My Analyst Told Me," - I've covered a few of them. I wasn't allowed by contract to do much coverage but...but I knew all the words and some that I couldn't sing, it was just like cloudburst, you know. You, you - I just couldn't sing that fast.

Liza: Well you did "Twisted" very well.

Joni: "Twisted" I could do but..."Hey baby, I'm gonna' tell you whabadabalabadabadaba." You know when they get like that I'm like -

Liza: They were good.

Joni: So, anyway. I said "Why didn't you get Jon Hendricks." "I did, for Porkpie Hat." So he played it for me. "What do you think?" he said. I said, "Oh my God, it's maudlin." "Isn't it?" he said. "The poor black guy this, and the poor black guy that..." I said, "Yeah, it's a little late to be trading on, you know, like, 'Why did you make slaves of us?'" You know, I mean it, it's 'Well you were slaves in Africa.' You know, it's like, you're just a slave on a different continent. It's just a pocket of bad behavior. You run into them. Right? So - he assailed me with Lester Brown stories...you know, he was the sweetest man.

And then I got in trouble with this one interviewer. This pompous reviewer for some jazz magazine, said, called me pretentious. You know, like, after the Mingus album. I guess because I went from - that was - straight into jazz. Because Mingus's melodies are jazz, right? Established jazz harmony and everything. You know. I said "Pretentious, pretending to be what that I'm not?" And he just was silent, I said "You do know what the word pretentious means, don't you?" I said, you know. "Pretending to be what that I'm not?" You know? So he still didn't say any - I said look, you know, "Maybe the problem is I'm the least pretentious. If you're going to single me out as pretentious, when everybody, no matter what country they're from, is singing like they're a Southern black. That's pretentious!" You know - Englishmen singing like they're a Southern black, Australians singing like they're Southern, you know. That's pretentious. "What's pretentious?" C'mon. You know? He said "Had a porky pig hat on?" I said "Oh, that's pretentious?" I said "Then you gotta' take that up with the ghost of Charles Mingus, because, he went 'Lester Young was the sweetest cat, you know - and he always had a little porky pig hat on.'" And this guy sat there shaking his head, shaking his head from side to side. He said "No, it's a derogatory term referred to..." I said, "Look, if Mingus says it's a porky pig hat, I'm his scribe. I put some of his language into these things, because that's what I was hired to do."

[recording of "Harry's House" plays]

Liza: I find this to be a hard question when people ask me "What are you listening to right now?" or "Who are your favorite things?" But of course everybody wants to know that. And, just speaking of - you know - your legacy...are there any young artists that come to mind, that carry your torch? Or, attempt to?

Joni: If there are I don't really know. People send me records, you know. I love it that my music is being kept alive. There - somebody told me there are 37 annual festivals of my music around the globe. One in Australia I've seen the programs from, and young artists come. And they do them every year and they limit...this year it's "Blue" only. This year it's four, these other four things.

I love it that they're kept alive and occasionally there'll be a performance, 'cause they do these Joni's Jazz Things now here and there. And I've seen one on tape and one in person. And, sometimes they deviate from the melody but they bring something theatrical to it that is really good. And sometimes it's not so good. You have to have really good pitch, really good time; my time is very eccentric. And I back phrase, but if you back phrase too far you drag. You know, it's not easy stuff to perform. So I've seen some great performances of it. An Irish kid who did "Shadows and Light" with all his heart, in the Joni's Jazz Show here in L.A., it was fantastic. Chaka Khan also does really good versions of my work. But sometimes she gets lost in it, but it's completely forgivable 'cause she's so funny and lands on her feet when she does. But,

Liza: Yeah.

Joni: It's very difficult. And also you have to be a pretty good method actor to sing it, you know. Things like "Magdalene Laundries." You have to be able to sacrifice pretty singing, for the emotional read. That's something most singers don't think, you know. Like there was a singer who said "I'm going to do a cover of Magdalene and I'm going to sing it better than Joni." Her daughter told her father, who told me. And I said "Well, she's gonna' sing it prettier. But she's not going to get the drama of it." You know, I know this singer. And she sang it very pretty. But they removed my sus chords which, you know, 'cause they're eccentric and that's where I'm innovative. But they're weird to some people. They removed them, and they lost the suspense in the play.

I have heard good interpretations of my song that really pleased me. Mabel Mercer's version of "Both Sides Now." I went back to tell her so. Went back to the dressing room, you know. She was seventy-something at that time, and I didn't tell her I was the author. You know. Like I formed, there was a little line formed and I said "Your performance of Both Sides Now was incredible," I said, "It takes an older woman to bring - you know, an older person to bring that song to life. It's not an ingénue role." And she went "Huhhh?!" (Laughs) You know? So I had offended her, I called her an older woman. She was in her seventies. So I kinda' slunk outta' there with my tail between my legs, you know?

[recording of "Magdelene Laundries" plays]

Liza: I'm a music supervisor for film and television, and I've worked on quite a few things that you've agreed to let us use your music, kindly. Thank you. I work on "Parenthood" and I worked on Nicole Holofcener's movie "Enough Said." We didn't use one of your songs but it was part of the story. And "The Kids are Alright," the Lisa Cholodenko movie...

Joni: Yeah, that was, that was really funny. 'Cause there's this thing in film that I call "the Joni Mitchell device,"

Liza: (Laughs)

Joni: And it's come up again and again and again. Like "You've Got Mail" where he hates me and loves boats and she hates boats and loves me. Or in "Love, Actually." There must be about fourteen of these things, where my name comes up and the man objects. Well, that one was the longest one I've ever seen. Right?

Liza: (Laughing)

Joni: And there was another one somewhere that was funny that was a film with Queen Latifah, and she's a sports injury masseuse, kinda, right? And she sees her favorite basketball player and he's gassing up at the gas station. She looks in the window of the car, sees a Joni Mitchell album so she goes up to him and she says, "Oh, you like Joni Mitchell." And he goes, "I like jazz." I thought oh okay, here's the Joni Mitchell - evasive. Now in his house, he has a room that's an inner sanctum, where they think he's having pornos and things. And Queen Latifah has a slick-o cousin, who's the good looking, she's the perfect arm girl but she's a gold-digger, right? And she ends up becoming the girlfriend to this guy. So, they managed - and Latifah - he gets injured and she becomes his massage person. And they get into this inner sanctum. Well, surprisingly, all that's in this room is a grand piano with posters...you know, all these posters, around the room. And they sit down at the piano and all you see is "ONI HELL."

(Laughter) Right?

Joni: I thought, jheeze! They're never gonna' let a guy give it to me, ever! You know, it's always gonna' be "Well I like jazz," and "ONI HELL." (Laughter)

[recording of "All I Want" plays]

Liza: You've inspired generations not just musically, or artistically, but you're a style icon as well. Whether it's the bohemian New York folk scene, or the sixties era Woodstock type thing, even though you didn't go to Woodstock. And the whole romance of Laurel Canyon in the seventies. Who are you taking your style cues from, if anyone...friends, actors, films...

Joni: No, no.

Liza: ...anything...designers?

Joni: I was going to be a clothing designer, until I saw Issey Miyake who's a genius. Durable...it packs...you don't have to do any - you can put it in a drawer. And it's like a palette, so you know, you've got all these things. Every once in a while I play dress-up with my old clothes collection. You know, like if I've got an event coming up and I try different things, and I've got all these wonderful components. And - he's the only one that thinks that way. I think that way musically, Issey thinks this way fashion wise. He tapped me on the shoulder in Tokyo. He said he never stopped anybody, ever, on the street that was wearing his clothes, but the reason was the pants and the top were ten years apart. Which is exactly what he wants. His collection was called "Permanente" then. And the whole idea of it was it doesn't date. That's like my music, you know.

Liza: Yeah!

Joni: I try to do it as classic as possible...good quality and it should hold up, it should endure. Without doing trendy stuff that will make it date. Yeah, so...

Liza: I wanted to have a style -

Joni: Once I saw him, Oh, you know...

Liza: "I'm done."

Joni: 'Cause I used to sew and everything before that...and did the same thing he did. You know, I could French tailor, you know sew 36 piece jackets and stuff like that...and then I went back to making my own patterns, so very primitive. When he started doing that I just went oh God, you know, I give up! You know, this guy's got it!

Liza: What year did you discover him?

Joni: The late seventies. I don't know her name, but he had a textile woman who used a lot of - I really love hand woven textiles so, like farmer cloth and ikat, stuff like that - and she directed his collection and it wasn't..."Pleats Please" had not come along yet. And some of the more crazy things like when you find a button on the inside of a skirt and you button it over and it becomes a blouse or a purse or...you know all of that crazy stuff.

[recording of "Love Puts On A New Face" plays]

Liza: One more question since the name of this beautiful boxed set is "Love Has Many Faces." Just a quick question about love. When it comes to love and to relationships, in hindsight it often seems like, it was meant to be brief. You've remained friends and have continued working relationships with men, long after you break up. You don't live in bitterness. In the moment, does one always think, "This is it, forever," or do you think it's easy to approach something new and intense, as a temporary thing?

Joni: Well I think when I was young, because of the way I was raised, that, it was my optimism that I would find my soulmate. I can't say that I really did. But I did enjoy - you know, even bad relationships like Chuck Mitchell. The generation of men, my generation of men...extraordinarily selfish. But when I think about the way my father treated my mother, you know there's a tremendous sense of entitlement and squashing, and to keep them in place, you know? So having lived in that, not really realized 'til I was older that that's what he was doing. I just heard her complaining. But when I realized, oh, I see now what she's complaining about. The relationships, for one reason or another...John Guerin was a wonderful relationship, wonderful. I fell in love with him. He was the first drummer that could play my music.

Liza: And you worked with him later.

Joni: And, you know what he says in the liner notes, you can see how intelligent he was. He's not, you know, 'cause traditionally drummers are thought of as dumb, but then girl singers are thought of as dumb. So it - it was a really good relationship. He had a wonderful mother and a wonderful grandmother who was full of mischief. But he was a Scorpio like me, and very loyal to his old girlfriends. So when he philandered, he went back. And even after he was married, there was a moment where he went "Something's wrong with Joni," as he pulled into a recording session, and he came to check it out, on intuition. So, long after we left there was still a bond.

But, he was a philanderer. And, you know at that age, I found that difficult. But by the time he died and I went to the funeral and all his girls were there...I said to Pixie who was two after me - the one after me was not allowed in, she was outside which was unfair, I was trying to get her in - and I said, you know, this whole wake is ridiculous. Let's - it has nothing to do with John, everybody was like with their thumbs in their lapels, like most funerals are self-serving - let's get all John's girls and form a kick line, you know, "We love you John, We love you John!" But then, the living wife was there and everybody thought that would be disrespectful to her, so we didn't do it, you know?

But, each relationship had some, even Chuck Mitchell, they all tried in one way or another - not John - to exploit me. You know. It's just a male prerogative, right? Chuck Mitchell set up a publishing company for my music. And he held the money, and didn't give me any. I mean you had to beg and plead, even though we were working together, we were [50-50.] It should've been 50-50, he held the purse strings. So, I said this was the only important thing that came out of that relationship...set up two. So I came into the business with my own publishing company, which was the only way I've made any money. I don't make anything to speak of as a recording artist.

As I come into this boxed set, I am somewhere between 60,000 and 120,000 dollars in the hole before I start...because of charges - illegitimate charges - that were billed back to me from the aborted boxed set. So I'm beyond a slave. I'm in a pay-to-play situation. I won't see a dime off this boxed set. So the business is pretty creepy and self-serving and the men that I met were for the most part narcissists and very self-centered. And, I understand enough about male ego and "the good wife" to be somewhat supportive of that up to a point, but there comes a point, "Enough already!" Like, and...then I leave.

Or if I find that I'm in a relationship and it's undermining my self-confidence...which, I watched my father tried to do to my strong Irish Scottish French mother. He didn't undermine her self-confidence to flatten her, but he kept her in that place that way. And made her life kinda' miserable, through undervaluing her. So, as a woman in this business I've had to endure a tremendous amount of undervaluing. A lot of it based on fear because I'm very good! And, you know, like that's why I say in the liner notes I think I'm Jackie Robinson! You know, it's - "What if there are others!?" You know. Like somehow you've infiltrated a man's world.

Liza: I love the enthusiasm of self that you have! Thank you. Thank you.

Joni: (laughing) Right.

[recording of "Both Sides Now" plays]


Printed from the official Joni Mitchell website. Permanent link: https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=3959

Copyright protected material on this website is used in accordance with 'Fair Use', for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis, and will be removed at the request of the copyright owner(s). Please read 'Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement' at JoniMitchell.com/legal.cfm