Oh, Joni Mitchell. The things you say; I don't know why you say them. You've been saying them for awhile now: mean things, harsh things, angry, pretentious, unfeeling things.

In this latest new bit - an interview with Maclean's - you talk about being awed by your own genius. You also besmirch the name of John Lennon, and lament those who try to sing your songs, something that's always been a rash spreading across conversations. Because you're a "legend" and a "cultural treasure" and an "icon," people thread you lots of rope, but you tie that rope to a rock and you throw the rock into the ocean. So mean. So hurtful. And even more pretentious and insecure than ever. Why can't you stop yourself? Shouldn't you be reclining on a velvet divan, smoking and wondering why all of these great things happened to you? Because they did. Here, I'll show you.

Joni Mitchell, I love your records (I am in the majority here). I play them all the time. When my kids were young I parked by the beach along the Georgian Bay shoreline listening to "Court and Spark" on cassette in our old Grand Marquis. The kids sat on the hood eating ketchup chips and I reclined in the front seat listening to the songs and weeping into my hands, which I held to my face so the kids wouldn't see. Another time in the mid-1990s, I sent my parents to see you and Bob Dylan play at Maple Leaf Gardens - the last great concert there - on the same night that I went to see Tom Connors at Massey Hall; a fine Toronto evening, the last great Yonge Street musical march, legends here and everywhere. Later, we compared notes, and talked about what we'd seen and who we'd listened to. My parents and me. Talking music. This doesn't happen a lot, Joni, and you were at the centre of it.

I don't expect gods to answer letters - no one should; it's not the job of people we follow and worship - but there's a blackness about you, Joni, about your way, that is starting to consume and devour whatever light pours from your art. For years, I've tried to ignore your public negativity and scorched earth despondency and haughty exceptionalism. I've returned to the altar, even though there are few blessings now, only sermons from someone whose gifts were bestowed upon us many, many years ago. Old gifts. Timeless, sure, but since then, so much vitriol. It doesn't have to be this way.

Shouldn't you feel lucky or blessed? I know I would. I know most would. Instead, you mock those who celebrate your work

Margaret Atwood just turned 75 and she is a decent person full of conviction and fire. She is kind of the anti-you. Even if she may privately - or not - possess the same measure of general antipathy about the world, she makes her fans feel vindicated for supporting her, or, at least, not conflicted about their allegiance. But when you say, "God, when I hear people cover the song 'River' with a smile on their face - and you can hear the smile - that is so wrong," I wonder about grace and class and how hard it is for you to be kind - simply kind - or to express gratitude that people are out there keeping your music alive, whatever the quality of their interpretation. Shouldn't you feel lucky or blessed? I know I would. I know most would. Instead, you mock those who celebrate your work.

In that same interview with Maclean's, you talk about being in awe of yourself (it must be quite a burden, impressing yourself to this extent). You also take a shot at John Lennon, and in a previous interview, you brand Bob Dylan as "a plagiarist," and that "his name and voice are fake." You also say that musicians of your generation lacked intelligence: "As soon as it hit my era, the intelligence of it dropped considerably." You talk about being a precocious poet at 16, but the only reason people give your poems any weight is because you're now famous, and it's a problem we have in Canada: allowing people a wider birth because of their fame or rank. You say that you ended male bias against female songwriters because you wrote your own material - there's still lots of bias and awful sexism in music - but you reject feminism.

Rock stars - or folk stars, or however you see yourself - don't have to be angelic or friendly. It doesn't matter. But you do a lot of publicity for someone who hates everything, and, it seems, everyone. Ask yourself: Are you lending anything to the greater conversation? You make it seem as if a gilded life of art and success in art is a miserable life, which it's not, because I've lived this life, although not to the extent you have.

Still, music is a gift and the ability to express yourself is a blessing. You've performed so many feats of magic as an artist - such songs, such albums, such remarkable guitar playing and singing - but you've also executed the trick of turning this blessing into a curse. You say that you like wandering alone in B.C. as a way of vacationing, and maybe it's a better idea than you know. Let the art speak for itself, because when you speak, I want to turn the sound off.