LIANE HANSEN, Host: From her debut album, Song to a Seagull, to her most recent release, Turbulent Indigo, the recordings of Joni Mitchell have provided the soundtrack for the lives of many men and women in this country. Whether she is singing about love or loss, the little things or the larger social issues, her lyrics are consistently poetic and penetrating, and her music is always rich and varied. This year she receives Billboard magazine's Century Award. So it is indeed a pleasure for me to welcome Joni Mitchell to studio 4A.

Thanks very much for coming in.

JONI MITCHELL, Singer/Songwriter: Thanks. It's nice to be here.

LIANE HANSEN: We'll have plenty of time to talk, but I'm sure people want to hear some music and you're going to do `Sunny Sunday' from the new album, Turbulent Indigo.

JONI MITCHELL: Yeah, that's right. This is the first song in the album.

LIANE HANSEN: We'll start there.

(`SUNNY SUNDAY' BY JONI MITCHELL)

LIANE HANSEN: `Sunny Sunday' from Joni Mitchell's most recent album, Turbulent Indigo. I know there's a danger in reading too much into a song, but when I first heard that when I was driving in my car, I wondered whether this woman that dodges the light like Blanche DuBois might be that same woman who woke up on a Chelsea morning and let the sun stream in like butterscotch and sticked to all her senses.

JONI MITCHELL: Well, you know, I think the danger is confusing art with the artist. The songs are really designed, and some are autobiographical and some are portraits. Even if they're sung in the first person frequently they're portraits. So, a lot is written from identification, much of this historically. The truth is it's a portrait of a roommate of a friend of mine, a fellow that I paint with. But everything I write I identify with.

And then again too, in this particular art form, even a portrait you can put someone else's eyes in it. You know, it's- like Gertrude Stein, Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein, he put his own eyes in it. She said, `It doesn't look like me,' and he said, `It will.' But I think the point of the songs, I object to a certain degree that the public is more fascinated by the artist than the art form itself, and I think that the people who get the most out of my music see themselves in it.

LIANE HANSEN: I don't think I necessarily saw the woman as you, though. I just saw it as a character.

JONI MITCHELL: Yeah, it's a woman in a frustrated position, and so this is a portrait of a stuck woman who has set herself up this game, a target. You know, every once in a while she shoots at this street light. She always misses. You know, the day that she hits it is the day that change will occur in her life. That one little victory, that's all she needs, so it's kind of symbolic of waiting for Godot. [laughter] For change, you know.

LIANE HANSEN: I also was thinking about it as I listened to it, and then I somehow got in the mind, I guess, the imagery of the sunlight and, you know, a young woman who embraces it and an older woman who-

JONI MITCHELL: -Ah!

LIANE HANSEN: Sort of hides from it, and it- I mean, do you think romantics grow up to be cynics?

JONI MITCHELL: Well, in the- what was the song that dealt with that, `The Last Time I Saw Richard,' one of the characters in that song-

LIANE HANSEN: -Yes.

JONI MITCHELL: -Says to the character that I play, you know, like, all romantics, you know, get that way, cynical and drunk and boring, someone in some dark cafe. You laugh. Look at your eyes, they're full of moons, right? So that characters assumes that it's true, and frequently I'm called a cynic and usually by people who can't look at the truth. And there may be a tone when I'm delivering something that resembles cynicism, but a lot of times the things I'm saying when I'm called a cynic are factual.

I'm reading a book on Van Gogh right now, and much of his discourse is taking place also at the brink of a change of a millennium, and I wouldn't call anything he's saying cynicism, but it's more truth than most people can bite off. Basically, I relate to his frustration.

LIANE HANSEN: Tell me how. I wondered if there was a comparison to be made.

JONI MITCHELL: In the world of painters, innovation and originality has always been a criteria, whereas in the world of pop music copycatism is rewarded. They usually shoot the innovator. And it takes about two or three generations of copycats and by the time they like it you've got a real watered down kind of insipid thing going on. I kind of cut my ear off many a night over that. [laughter]

LIANE HANSEN: You are, I think, as well known for your visual art and the fact that you paint as you are for being a musician, and I wanted to know, do you approach a song like a painting?

JONI MITCHELL: I was always an artist. I was always the school artist and I had a kind of precocious ability to render. And I was putting up drawings for a parent-teacher day in the sixth grade when a man named Mr. Krautzman [sp], the seventh grade, one of the two great seventh grade teachers came up to me and said, `You like to paint?' And I said, `Yes.' He said to me, `If you can paint with a brush you can paint with words.' Now that is a tremendous gift to give a young child.

When I met Georgia O'Keefe she was in her 90s and she said to me, `Well, I would have liked to have been a musician too, but you can't do both.' And I said, `Oh yes you can.' And she leaned in on her elbows and said, `Really? You know, I would have liked to have played the violin.' I said, you know, `Well, take it up, Georgia,' you know? I mean, you know, start today, you know.

LIANE HANSEN: Never too late. You want to perform something from a yet-to-be-released album, right? A new song.

JONI MITCHELL: Yeah, this is a collaboration. This is kind of a fun song. I've written a lot of songs over a period of years about the bridges in Saskatoon, which is a city that I spent my teens, in my- from the age of nine, I guess, or 10 to 18 when I left home. And they call themselves the Paris of the North. They even have obelisks like for posters on the streets, and it is a cultured little city in Northern Saskatchewan or middle of Saskatchewan.

`Cherokee Louise' was written about the Broadway Bridge, and `Facelift,' which is another song to be released was written about a view from the Besber [sp] Hotel looking at several of the bridges. Two of them are concrete span, and then there's an old railroad bridge, an old metal bridge. And then there's the grand trunk bridge where I spent my youth. Well, I spent my youth on all of these bridges. This is about the railroad bridge on a stormy night. Let me just tune my guitar a little.

(`LOVE'S CRIES' BY JONI MITCHELL)

LIANE HANSEN: Joni Mitchell with a new song, `Love's Cries.' I love the image in that, the train going by and making so much noise that you can't hear the- no one can hear these lover's cries of- [laughs]

JONI MITCHELL: This is a song for people who live in an apartment building.

LIANE HANSEN: Right.

JONI MITCHELL: And the lyrics here are not mine. They're- a singer/songwriter also from my home town. I think we're the only- well, I don't know all of the scene there, but Donald Freed [sp] wrote the lyrics for the most part and I set it to music. I added a little bit just to fit into this structure.

LIANE HANSEN: The sound of the train going through the night that you're able to accomplish with only five strings on a guitar. [laughs]

JONI MITCHELL: Yeah, five, because one of them was out of tune. Bad guitar.

LIANE HANSEN: I'm sure everyone's calling in because they noticed. [laughter]

JONI MITCHELL: Van Gogh, you know, like, believed in the flawed art, so-

LIANE HANSEN: -There you go. Real time, real life sort of performing. Do you find when you're writing that now- I mean, as you grow older do you find yourself sort of traveling back to, you know, the home of your youth and things you remember about then?

JONI MITCHELL: More than I ever I think, you know, because my folks are getting old and also because of Donald, which gives me a friend in the community. You know, Donald and I, we shared so many peculiar things in common. He's a west- it's an east side-west side town. He's a west side boy - the history is different on the two towns - and I'm an east side girl.

LIANE HANSEN: Were you a rebellious one? I mean, out there sneaking cigarettes and such?

JONI MITCHELL: Oh, yeah. Well, I started smoking at the age of nine, so- I had polio when I was nine and when I got out of the hospital I kind of made a pact with my Christmas tree that if I could get my legs back, you know, that I would- that I- it was kind of- maybe it was God. I don't remember. At that time I'd broken away from the church because I loved stories and they had a lot of loopholes, you know, like in- if you asked the teacher about those loopholes like, OK, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman and they had two sons, Cain and Abel, and Cain killed Abel, then Cain got married. Who did he marry? You know, it did not go over well, and so I refused to go to church in the town for a while and- but I had this debt to pay back because I, you know, I did stand up, unfurl, and walk, you know?

So I joined the church choir. And one night after choir practice in the middle of the winter a girl who had snitched a pack Black Cat Cork from her mother and we all sat in the wintry fish pond in the snow and passed them around, and some girls choked and some threw up, and I took one puff and felt really smart. I mean, I just thought, whoa. You know, my head cleared up. I seemed to see better and think better. So I was a smoker from that day on, secretly, you know, covertly, and-

LIANE HANSEN: -Still smoking.

JONI MITCHELL: Still smoking.

LIANE HANSEN: Don't you worry about your voice? No.

JONI MITCHELL: No. [laughter] I mean, it's gotten a little huskier, but I sounded like I was on helium when I was a girl. You know, it does thicken the cords. I think I like it better a little rough. My favorite singers' voices were a little rough. Billie Holiday at the end, I love her singing at the end. It's really- it's really all in knowing what you're singing about and the heart and spirit behind it, so if it gets a little frayed I think you can still get some beauty out of it.

LIANE HANSEN: What wisdom do you think you've gotten with age?

JONI MITCHELL: Oh, I think that's a myth. I think that's a thing old people say. I think people are like most - intelligent at 19, like Freud, for instance. I'm not a fan of Freud. The most intelligent thing I ever read that he said he said when he was 19, and he said, `Dissection of personality is no way to self knowledge.' He just went on to get stupider. I mean, he's admired by intellectuals as if intellect was all there were, you know, there was to intelligence.

LIANE HANSEN: It is funny when you tell that story about Georgia O'Keefe, that you're the one telling her that she should go out and do what she wants to do.

JONI MITCHELL: Well, you never know who the messenger is going to be. Like, somebody's got to give you permission, especially in this culture, you know, like to- and it's true. If you can paint with a brush you can paint with words. If you're an observer and you're going to describe it, one way you- look at Van Gogh. I mean, his descriptions of what he wants to paint, what he did paint are fantastic. They're every bit as artistic as the creations in a way. They move you in the same way. His writing gives me a lump in my throat and his painting gives me lump in my throat. They're charged with his personal excitement.

LIANE HANSEN: Well, I think a lot of people would say that they listen to your albums the same way. I mean, and I think your albums essentially have been created to be heard more than once.

JONI MITCHELL: Absolutely.

LIANE HANSEN: There's a depth there, there's a breadth there that it actually doesn't do it justice, you know, one listening. But you didn't have that in mind when you were creating it, you were creating what was best for you at the time.

JONI MITCHELL: Yeah. You know, at first the music was very sparse and so I was called a folk singer. I haven't been folk singer since 1964, and none of the songs on my records are folk songs, you know. They're more like German lieder or something in the beginning. They're more classical than folk. Primary colors is what folk art is made of. These are very sophisticated, broken colors. You know, you can't call it folk music. But it looks like folk music. So appearance in the pop world, it's appearance above content anyway.

LIANE HANSEN: I think a lot of people still appreciate the fact that you will take on social issues in your music. I mean, in the newest album, for example, in the `Magdalena Laundries' where, you know, talking about pregnant girls and then there's a song about she was- she was out of line, he was not to blame. To me this said, you know, domestic violence.

JONI MITCHELL: Yes.

LIANE HANSEN: I mean, and that- you know, I think that speaks to people too, the fact that you are- you're still willing to take a stand on something. You're still willing to get out there with a point of view.

JONI MITCHELL: Well, it's not so much willing, it's, like, to create you need a tail wind, so like a strong- I always have to work from a strong emotion, whatever that emotion might be, you know? Like and-

LIANE HANSEN: -Anger.

JONI MITCHELL: Yeah.

LIANE HANSEN: Frustration.

JONI MITCHELL: It's only that that will drive you into this seclusion. Otherwise you'd just rather go out and party. [laughter] You know, for a long time I was, you know, too eclectic to belong. People usually don't like change. They don't like change, and in an artist it requires that they change too and, you know, either you like change or you don't. Most people don't.

LIANE HANSEN: Well, welcome to public radio. Change and eclecticism are welcome here.

JONI MITCHELL: Oh, thank you. That's why we came.

LIANE HANSEN: And you're going to do a song.

JONI MITCHELL: This is a song, an older song. I've had bad luck with this song. In public performance I played it in New Jersey to a crowd that was louder that I was throwing things at me. I played it in what we like to refer to as the save the stupid human beings benefit, which had global satellite hook-up and, you know, the heads of state were coming on and Diana was bouncing the globe on her foot like- and singing `What a Wonderful World It Would Be,' and it was pretty insipid. And I was censored actually.

This song, they led me out at the Philharmonic and I began to play with the Herbie Hancock All-Stars. It was Herbie and Wayne. And the first verse and the second verse had- and the first chorus had commercials plastered over because it was the day that the fellow jumped out in front of the tank in China and this was being broadcast into China. So it was a little close- too close to the bone for international politics. So this is one of my least popular songs. I'd like to play it for you today. Obscure and difficult.

(`THE THREE GREAT STIMULANTS' BY JONI MITCHELL)

LIANE HANSEN: From her Dog Eat Dog album, `The Three Great Stimulants.' I'm glad you're bringing that song back.

JONI MITCHELL: Yeah. I mean, right now with the bombing in Oklahoma and everything, now America, dog eat dog kind of-

LIANE HANSEN: -Works.

JONI MITCHELL: -Makes sense, you know?

LIANE HANSEN: Yeah. Joni Mitchell. Her most recent release on the Warner Reprise label is Turbulent Indigo. And, Joni Mitchell, our profound thanks to you for coming to our studio today.

JONI MITCHELL: Thanks. Enjoyed it.

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