Lloyd Whitesell - The Music of Joni Mitchell (2008)

THE M USIC OF JONI MI T C H E L L
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Joni
T H E
M U S I C
O F
Mitchell
L L OY D W H I T E S E L L
1 2008
1
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Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Whitesell, Lloyd.
The music of Joni Mitchell / by Lloyd Whitesell.
p. cm.
Includes discography (p. ), bibliographical references, and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-530757-3; 978-0-19-530799-3 (pbk.)
1. Mitchell, Joni—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
ML410.M6823W55 2008
782.42164092—dc22 2007043693
Publication of this book was supported by the Lloyd Hibberd Publication

Endowment Fund of the American Musicological Society
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONT ENT S
Abbreviations xi
1 Introduction: Pop Song and Art Song 3
2 Sound and Style 15
3 Voices and Personae 41
4 Thematic Threads 78
5 Harmonic Palette 117
6 Melodic Turns 148
7 Collections and Cycles 194
8 A Tribute 227
Appendix 230
Notes 232
Bibliography 257
Index 267
AC KNOWLEDGME N T S
I am grateful to Fred Maus for encouragement at an early stage of this project. For
conversations about method and generous advice about work in progress I would
like to thank Udayan Sen, Daniel Sonenberg, and my colleagues David Brackett
and William Caplin. An anonymous reader for the press was extremely helpful
with suggestions for revision. Thanks go to my research assistants Heather White
Luckow and Michel Vallières for their enthusiasm and insight in compiling a
bibliography on the analysis of popular music.
Research for this book was carried out with the aid of an Internal Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Grant from McGill University. Cynthia Leive
and the wonderful staff at the Marvin Duchow Music Library offered abundant
support. Les Irvin, of the Joni Mitchell Discussion List, gave invaluable help
tracking down arcane details and materials. The two official Web sites are beau-
tifully maintained treasure troves of information, making research a treat. I am
grateful to Cathy Clarke of S. L. Feldman & Associates for help with permis-
sions. A special thanks to Joni Mitchell for permission to reproduce her painting.
Suzanne Ryan, Norm Hirschy, and the staff at Oxford University Press have been
supportive and enthusiastic at every stage of the project. The book also received
welcome assistance from the Lloyd Hibberd Publication Endowment Fund of the
American Musicological Society.
I would like to thank the students in my graduate seminar on Joni Mitchell
for the opportunity to share some of my ideas. Finally, thanks to Don McLean,
Dean of the Schulich School of Music, McGill University, for working so untir-
ingly to bring the artist herself to the Symposium on the Music and Art of Joni
Mitchell at McGill, October 2004; to Howie Klein for smoothing the way; to
David Brackett and Sarah Culpeper for their help in organizing the symposium;
and to all the participants for making it a success: Line Grenier, John Kelly, Dan
Levitin, Ann Powers, Jennifer Rycenga, Udayan Sen, Daniel Sonenberg, Greg
Tate, and Jacqueline Warwick.
A portion of chapter 4 appeared as “A Joni Mitchell Aviary” in Women and
Music 1 (Summer 1997): 46–54, and The Joni Mitchell Companion: Four Decades
of Commentary, ed. Stacey Luftig (New York: Schirmer Books, 2000), 237–50. A
version of chapter 5 appeared in Popular Music 21 (2002): 189–209.
The following excerpts, words and music by Joni Mitchell, reproduced by per-
mission. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square
West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred
Publishing Co., Inc.
All I Want. © 1971 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Amelia. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Arrangement. © 1969 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Banquet. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Barangrill. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Be Cool. © 1981 Crazy Crow Music.
The Beat of Black Wings. © 1988 Crazy Crow Music.
Big Yellow Taxi. © 1970 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Black Crow. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Blonde in the Bleachers. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Blue Boy. © 1969 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Blue Motel Room. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Boho Dance. © 1975 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Both Sides, Now. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Cactus Tree. © 1968 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Car on a Hill. © 1973 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Carey. © 1971 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
A Case of You. © 1971 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Chelsea Morning. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Chinese Café. © 1982 Crazy Crow Music.
The Circle Game. © 1966 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Conversation. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Cotton Avenue. © 1977 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Coyote. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Dawntreader. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Dog Eat Dog. © 1985 Crazy Crow Music.
Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. © 1978 Crazy Crow Music.
Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow. © 1975 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Down to You. © 1973 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Dreamland. © 1977 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Edith and the Kingpin. © 1975 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Electricity. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
For the Roses. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Furry Sings the Blues. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Gallery. © 1969 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
viii | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Hejira. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Help Me. © 1973 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
I Had a King. © 1968 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Impossible Dreamer. © 1985 Crazy Crow Music.
In France They Kiss on Main Street. © 1975 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Jericho. © 1974 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune). © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy
Crow Music.
Just Like This Train. © 1973 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Ladies of the Canyon. © 1968 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Ladies’ Man. © 1981 Crazy Crow Music.
Last Chance Lost. © 1994 Crazy Crow Music.
Let the Wind Carry Me. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Little Green. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Love or Money. © 1974 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Marcie. © 1968 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Michael from Mountains. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Morning Morgantown. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Nathan La Franeer. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Night Ride Home. © 1988 Crazy Crow Music.
Off Night Backstreet. © 1977 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Only Joy in Town. © 1991 Crazy Crow Music.
Otis and Marlena. © 1977 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Paprika Plains. © 1977 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
People’s Parties. © 1973 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Rainy Night House. © 1970 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Raised on Robbery. © 1973 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac. © 1991 Crazy Crow Music.
Refuge of the Roads. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
River. © 1971 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Same Situation. © 1973 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
See You Sometime. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Shades of Scarlett Conquering. © 1971 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Shadows and Light. © 1975 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Silky Veils of Ardor. © 1977 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Sisotowbell Lane. © 1968 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Song for Sharon. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Song to a Seagull. © 1966 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Songs to Aging Children Come. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
A Strange Boy. © 1976 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | ix
Sunny Sunday. © 1994 Crazy Crow Music.
Sweet Bird. © 1975 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Tea Leaf Prophecy. © 1988 Crazy Crow Music.
Tin Angel. © 1967 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Trouble Child. © 1973 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Willy. © 1969 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey. © 1979 Crazy Crow Music.
Woman of Heart and Mind. © 1972 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
Woodstock. © 1968 (Renewed) Crazy Crow Music.
You Dream Flat Tires. © 1981 Crazy Crow Music.
The following excerpted lyrics by Joni Mitchell reproduced by permission. All

rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.
A Chair in the Sky. Words and music by Joni Mitchell and Charles Mingus.
© 1979 Crazy Crow Music and Jazz Workshop, Inc. All rights outside the U.S.
and Canada on behalf of Jazz Workshop, Inc. and Crazy Crow Music administered
by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203.
The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines. Words and music by Joni Mitchell and Charles
Mingus. © 1979 Crazy Crow Music and Jazz Workshop, Inc. All rights outside
the U.S. and Canada on behalf of Jazz Workshop, Inc. and Crazy Crow Music
administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville,
TN 37203.
The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Words and music by Joni Mitchell and John
P. Guerin. © 1975 (Renewed) Mad Man’s Drum Music and Crazy Crow Music.
All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West,
Nashville, TN 37203.
x | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABBR EV IAT IONS
ALBUMS BY JONI MITCHELL

B Blue
BOS The Beginning of Survival
BSN Both Sides Now
C Clouds
C&S Court and Spark
CMRS Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm
DED Dog Eat Dog
DJRD Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
FR For the Roses
H Hejira
HSL The Hissing of Summer Lawns
LC Ladies of the Canyon
M Mingus
MA Miles of Aisles
NRH Night Ride Home
S&L Shadows and Light
SPG Songs of a Prairie Girl
SS Song to a Seagull
TI Turbulent Indigo
TT Taming the Tiger
WTRF Wild Things Run Fast
BOOK
Luftig Stacey Luftig, ed., The Joni Mitchell Companion: Four Decades of
Commentary (New York: Schirmer, 2000)
THE M USIC OF JONI MI T C H E L L
1
INT RODUCT ION :
P OP SONG AND ART S O N G
Joni Mitchell is now widely recognized as one of the foremost singer-songwriters

of the late twentieth century. Since her career began in the 1960s she has pro-
duced fifteen original albums and a collaborative project with the great jazz musi-
cian Charles Mingus, as well as a number of concert albums and compilations.1
By the 1990s she began to be marketed as a “classic” and was confirmed in her
classic status by a series of tribute concerts and awards for artistic achievement.2
Her songwriting, in its originality, creative integrity, stylistic adventurousness,
and technical polish, has had great influence on musicians from many different
backgrounds. Furthermore, her lyrical and musical output has acquired special
cultural status as the representative voice of a self-exploratory intellectual bohe-
mianism, shaped by the visionary ideals of the 1960s folksong revival, youth pro-
test movements, and sexual revolution. In particular, her songs record a woman’s
response to those struggles and the prospects they have opened up. Mitchell is
also unique in her perspective on the North American cultural landscape, as pro-
jected through a symbolic triangulation of the urban poles of New York City and
Los Angeles with the prairies of western Canada. These aspects of her writing, as
well as her depth of thought as a lyricist, have received some treatment by crit-
ics in the popular press.3 Her musical craftsmanship, however, still lacks a full
account.
This book is about music and poetry in the songs of Joni Mitchell. My subject
is sound, syntax, design, and effect—how the songs are put together and how
they work. I will not be judging the value of her music based on its influence,
popularity, or exemplary nature as a chronicle of its times, though these are all
topics worthy of consideration in their own right. Rather, I will be examining
details of her craft, rummaging through her musical toolkit (her “box of paints,”
as she might put it) to establish a basis for judgments about the quality of her
songwriting. I am not particularly interested in ranking Mitchell’s work against
that of other songwriters (to compete for the title of “the greatest” according to
some presumed set of objective criteria). Nevertheless, I do feel compelled to
point out that evaluation of her work has been affected by its placement within
two predominant categories of cultural prestige: namely, on the disadvantaged
side of the distinction between high and low art, and between male and female
authorship. Prestige categories can operate as preconceptual filters, sorting art-
ists into piles marked from the start as “superior” and “inferior” before engag-
ing with their work on its own merits. Having been produced entirely within
the context of a commercialized media industry, Mitchell’s music risks being
perceived as falling into a lower order of achievement in comparison with clas-
sical music. However, as Bernard Gendron has demonstrated, this general situa-
tion underwent changes in the 1960s, when certain popular musicians (notably
the Beatles and Bob Dylan) began to acquire the status of serious artists rather
than mere entertainers, and rock itself began to gain respect as a “legitimate art
form.”4 Arriving on the heels of this advancement in status, Mitchell was able to
overcome the lowbrow distinction to a limited extent. Already early in her career,
critics were describing her music in terms of an art song aesthetic. For instance,
Dan Heckman, reviewing Blue in 1971 for the New York Times, writes:
I suspect this will be the most disliked of Miss Mitchell’s recordings,

despite the fact that it attempts more and makes greater demands on her
talent than any of the others. The audience for art songs is far smaller than
for folk ballads, and Joni Mitchell is on the verge of having to make a deci-
sion between the two.5
Late in her career (1996), Joni Mitchell was awarded the Polar Music Prize by
the government of Sweden; in a rare leveling of status, the other recipient of the
award that year was eminent classical composer and conductor Pierre Boulez. I
will return to the distinction between high and low art below.
The privileging of male over female authorship occurs in both classical and
popular music scenes. This is not the place to mount an extensive argument
about male domination in the popular music business.6 Suffice it to mention
that Mitchell’s 1997 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame came a full
four years after she first became eligible, during which time her nomination had
languished due to lack of support. Before her induction, music critic Stephen
Holden had sharply criticized the Hall of Fame for its relative neglect of female
musicians and their historical influence, citing this neglect as an index of gender
bias in rock criticism at large.7 I hasten to add, however, that my interest in pro-
moting Mitchell’s music arises not from any such perceived slights, but from its
4 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

inherent quality. Mitchell herself has generally been dismissive of gender issues
altogether. In the press conference in connection with the announcement of the
Polar Prize, the interviewer solicits her thoughts on being the first woman to win
the prize. Mitchell responds, “Oh, I don’t like to think about that so much, this
man-woman-man-woman thing. I wish we could get over that.” When pressed,
she adds,
I try not to think about gender distinctions. It’s kind of like [asking], “You
are the first black to receive it—how do you feel about that?” I find it an
isolating question and I hope there will come a day when this distinction
is not made. I’m a musician and I leave gender aside. I’m an accomplished
musician.8
While I would like to draw attention to the hierarchy of prestige within popular
music, according to which women’s intellectual production has been historically
undervalued, I agree wholeheartedly with the view that Mitchell’s accomplish-
ment should stand or fall on its own merits, without respect to gender.
In concentrating on distinctions of style and musical craft, I hope to avoid
setting up prestige categories of my own. In the chapters that follow, I don’t
mean to suggest, for example, that harmonic complexity in itself is aesthetically
superior to harmonic simplicity or that complementary, closed melodic structures
are superior to open-ended, dance-oriented formal processes. Rather, my aim is to
develop a precise vocabulary by which to recognize her technical achievements for
what they are and to identify a value system appropriate to them. Joni Mitchell’s
particular brand of songwriting is characterized by its conceptual depth, struc-
tural sophistication, stylistic dynamism, and aesthetic ambition. One can value
her music for these traits without casting aspersions on other brands of song-
writing, which may be recognized for their skill according to slightly different or
even entirely different sets of priorities (such as rough immediacy, kinetic drive,
effusiveness, accessibility, trendsetting).
The characteristics I have listed for Mitchell’s music would seem to call for a
value system traditionally associated with the world of high art. Mitchell herself,
in numerous interviews, has appealed to the art concept as a way to convey her
views on musical value.
I was only a folk singer for about two years. . . . By that time, it wasn’t really
folk music anymore. It was some new American phenomenon. Later, they
called it singer/songwriters. Or art songs, which I liked best. Some people
get nervous about that word. Art. They think it’s a pretentious word from
the giddyap. To me, . . . the word art has never lost its vitality.9
INTRODUCTION: POP SONG AND ART SONG | 5

Mitchell has asserted the importance of the classical music tradition in the for-
mation of her tastes.10 She has likened aspects of her songwriting to classical
composition, claiming affinities with the expressive miniatures of German Lieder
and the harmonic palette of Debussy—once even referring to herself as “a com-
poser in the small, modern form.”11 Often, in light of her concurrent interests
as a painter, she will refer to visual arts: she speaks of the song “Paprika Plains”
[DJRD] as “the most experimental and bewildering piece [to compose], but it
was always moving forward, always changing, much in the same way that Picasso
paints. . . . He’s always working toward his own satisfaction, that’s his only crite-
ria.”12 Another telling remark occurred off the cuff during a live concert in 1974
(captured on the Miles of Aisles album). As Mitchell adjusts her guitar tuning
between numbers, fans compete for her attention, calling out a dozen different
requests. This prompts the following philosophical observation:
That’s one thing that’s always been a major difference between the per-
forming arts to me and being a painter. Like, a painter does a painting and
he does a painting, that’s it, you know, he’s had the joy of creating it, and
he hangs it on some wall, somebody buys it, somebody buys it again, or
maybe nobody buys it, and it sits up in a loft somewhere till he dies. But
nobody ever says to him, you know, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, “Paint
‘A Starry Night’ again, man!”
These quotations indicate a personal creed favoring artistic ambition over popu-
lism, creative integrity over accessibility, and aesthetic value over market value.
The last quoted remark also somewhat paradoxically upholds the ideal of the
finished, durable artwork (the “masterpiece”), even within a context of live per-
formance. In a more recent statement, Mitchell alludes to a similar concept while
modifying it in an important way: “My music is not designed to grab instantly.
It’s designed to wear for a lifetime, to hold up like a fine cloth.”13 Here, her refer-
ence to textiles evokes a concept of art that is less removed from everyday life,
one that acknowledges repeated use or enjoyment and allows more “give” to the
work as it adapts to different listeners. We might bring all these various nuances
together and suggest a “fine art” model for the appreciation of Mitchell’s song-
writing. The term “fine art” has the advantage of encompassing a broad range of
practice in various media, including both high art and artisanal crafts.
In downplaying popularity and accessibility as creative goals, Mitchell is not
announcing a willful intent to write difficult music. There is no question that
her songs are designed to move and please listeners. Nevertheless, such an atti-
tude (“art” before “pop”) is maintained in tension with the reigning values of the
popular music industry.14 As Daniel Sonenberg has observed, Mitchell benefited

from significant restructuring within the industry at the outset of her career. The
increasing profitability of the long-playing record and rise of FM radio “reduced
the demand on rock artists to attain instant stardom” and allowed for more
breathing space to foster an original musical sensibility.15 Mitchell and others
were able to approach their music as both popular expression and fine art, thus
bridging the gap between traditions commonly segregated into high and low
forms. Mitchell was recognized at the time as a particularly strong proponent of
such an approach. According to New York Times critic John Rockwell, her work in
the 1970s established “her claim as the artist best able to link folk-rock with the
older Western tradition of the art song.”16 Elsewhere, he says:
The pop people have by now created their own artistic traditions and . . .
their traditions have begun to merge, in some still vague and elusive sense,
with the mainstream of high art. Today, there are a number of supposedly
“pop” performers who are in no reasonable way distinguishable from “art-
ists”. . . . Joni Mitchell . . . is such an artist—as serious and experimental
as they come.17
The label “singer-songwriter,” one of the terms that evolved in response to the
new approach, attempts to capture this sense of an intermediate aesthetic space.
Defined neither entirely in commercial terms (as with “hit” or “star”) nor in terms
of high culture (as with “composer”), the new description plots a continuum
between the dual poles of accessibility and artistry. But what does it mean to fall
between the two traditions? What are the consequences of bridging high and low
cultures? The meeting of Pierre Boulez and Joni Mitchell on equal footing at the
Polar Music Prize press conference provided an occasion to address such questions.
Boulez is asked about the possibility of breaking down barriers. He replies:
Each time I meet journalists I am asked, why did you work with Zappa?
That was the first time I broke down this imaginary but real barrier
between the world of symphonic music and a music of another kind. . . .
We in the kind of serious world have a lot of heritage and sometimes it is
very heavy to assume that this heritage is yours and you have to continue
in that direction. In the other world, you don’t have this burden and they
are more spontaneous and vital from this point of view and surely I think
both worlds would have to benefit from each other. The vitality of the
one world should be introduced in the world of classical music and vice
versa. A kind of values should be introduced in the world of actuality [in
the sense of actualité, current events]. I think this exchange should happen
more often.

It is interesting to note Boulez’s delicacy with labels. He uses a variety of terms
for the world of art music (symphonic, classical, “kind of serious”) while resisting
specific terms for music of “another kind,” other than the notion of the current
music scene. He avoids the prestige labels of high and low culture altogether. Yet
he does ascribe certain attributes to each world—spontaneity and vitality in the
one case; seriousness, heritage, and an implicit set of “values” in the other. What
might these unspoken values be?
If one were asked to list the stereotypical connotations of high art, the follow-
ing descriptions would probably come to mind:
• serious, edifying
• profound
• complex, subtle
• carefully constructed
• enduring in value, establishing a cultural heritage
The stereotypical connotations of low or popular art would call up a contrasting

list:
• entertaining
• vital, authentic
• simple, common
• spontaneous, immediate
• novel, topical in value
Furthermore, the comparative cultural status of the two categories has tended
to confer evaluative weight, so that the traits of high culture are judged to be
refined and aesthetically superior, those of low culture vulgar and aesthetically
inferior. But it is not very difficult to expose this whole descriptive/evaluative
grid as prejudicial. In the first place, none of the properties listed are exclu-
sive to either culturally defined category: plenty of classical music idealizes
simplicity and the common touch while some is deliberately vulgar; likewise,
popular musicians are not categorically bereft of refinement, profundity, or
careful attention to craft. In the second place, aesthetic superiority is not auto-
matically conferred by cultural status; after all, there is no shortage of second-
and third-rate classical composers. Popular music scholar Simon Frith puts it
this way:
To assert the value of the popular is also, necessarily, to query the superior-
ity of high culture. Most populist writers, though, draw the wrong conclu-
sion from this; what needs challenging is not the notion of the superior,
but the claim that it is the exclusive property of the “high.”18

In short, designations of “high” and “low” have to do with the question of
prestige or cultural regard and are not to be equated with aesthetic distinctions. A
range of attitudes toward creative expression can be encountered in both cultural
spheres. Still, the first set of attributes above (especially the notions of edification,
durability, and technical skill) has an established history of association with high
art traditions, the second set (especially entertainment, immediacy, and acces-
sibility) with popular traditions. It is possible to distinguish between approaches
closer to an art model or a popular model without saying anything about rela-
tive superiority.19 It follows that one can appreciate hybrid or intermediate forms
like the singer-songwriter repertoire as popular expression or as fine art. When
Mitchell praises Leonard Cohen’s work for its “deeper thought,” she is applying
the fine art standard of profundity.20 When Noel Coppage ends his review of The
Hissing of Summer Lawns with these remarks—“I hope I’ve made it clear that this
isn’t much of a party record; you’ll have to deal with it privately, as you would
read a book. But it should keep you occupied for about as long as you want it
to—and how often does ‘popular’ music do that?”21—he is suggesting a listening
approach favoring seriousness and edification over immediacy and entertainment.
Finally, John Rockwell, in a review of Hejira, argues for the careful construction
and enduring value of Mitchell’s music and in the process deems it worthy of the
high cultural regard usually reserved for art song traditions:
Like all of Miss Mitchell’s work, Hejira is not for comfortable background
listening. This is no boogie album, no soothing collection of pop tunes
with handy hooks. Instead it is a series of personal statements couched in
the idiom of sophisticated Los Angeles folk rock, but assembled with all
the care of a Lied by Hugo Wolf. As such it is something not to be sampled
casually and put aside, but to be savored seriously over the years.22
For a long time, representatives of high musical culture have looked on

popular music with suspicion (when they haven’t overlooked it altogether),
despising it as lacking complexity, profundity, and the like. With the trend
toward legitimation in the general culture as well as the rise of popular music
studies in academia, such a viewpoint has become more difficult to maintain.
But meanwhile, some champions of popular music for their part remain suspi-
cious of the values associated with high musical culture. We should beware
a sort of reverse discrimination, whereby structural complexity and technical
sophistication are decried as elitist, pretentious, or ideologically loaded. Not
all critics have been as approving as Coppage and Rockwell of the aesthetic
ambition evident in Mitchell’s career.23 In the academic sphere, the analysis of
complex structural relations is sometimes construed as a wholesale valorization

of certain popular genres and styles over others. As popular music scholar David
Brackett warns:
Analytical work . . . that uncritically accepts the basic tenets of Western

music theory has tended to accommodate popular music to some notion
of a canon of masterworks through either “legitimation” or “pluralism.”
“Legitimation” works by selecting music for analysis that contains a type
of complexity that responds well to techniques designed for Western art
music. . . . Sheet music or transcriptions are typically used to show sophis-
ticated pitch relationships which, it is implied, are every bit as worthy of
study as those found in the masterpieces.24
For my part, I agree that an uncritical attitude toward analytical precepts and
the process of canonization is untenable. Nevertheless I hope that as listeners, we
would be prepared to appreciate technical skill and subtlety wherever we encoun-
ter it, without enshrining it as a necessary standard of value.
What I offer, then, in this book is a set of analytical tools geared toward
understanding Joni Mitchell’s skill and achievement as a songwriter. Close
musical analysis can unlock hidden aspects of song construction and lead to a
more precise grasp of technical innovations and the idiosyncrasies of an original
style. Analysis need not alienate listeners from the music they love. The incisive
knowledge of the scholar can go hand in hand with the intimate knowledge of
the fervent fan. In Brackett’s words, analysis can compel the listener “to engage
forcefully with the object of study, to learn it thoroughly and to hear it in new
ways.”25 This endorsement, couched in the language of intellectual fascination,
is not that far removed from the language of love. Along the same lines, I see no
reason to divorce discussion of music’s syntactic aspect (analysis narrowly defined)
from its expressive, semantic, or cultural aspects (music criticism). These various
aspects of musical meaning are wholly interrelated. My primary focus on analysis
addresses a deficiency in the literature on Joni Mitchell; but wherever possible, I
try to connect analytical detail to an awareness of the living musical experience in
its power, beauty, and cultural reach.
In contrast to recent books by Richard Middleton, Allan Moore, and Ken
Stephenson, whose concern is to elaborate a coherent theoretical system applica-
ble to a wide range of popular music, my scope is more modest and pragmatic: the
illustration of some useful concepts custom designed for a specific repertoire.26
Some of the tools I use derive from traditional poetic criticism, some from the
traditional analysis of art music. These have been adapted as needed to accommo-
date characteristics of style, form, and syntax peculiar to popular music traditions
in general and Mitchell’s music in particular. I have benefited from the growing

body of scholarly literature devoted to the analysis of popular music. One ques-
tion which has caused a certain amount of controversy in this field is the inherent
suitability of analytical concepts originally designed for art music.27 I hold with
the view (articulated by John Covach, David Brackett, and others) that there are
significant areas of overlap between various art music and popular music tradi-
tions28 and that analytical techniques borrowed from art music can be useful as
long as they remain flexible and sensitive to different generic conventions.29 Such
hybrid analytical practices, developed on an ad hoc basis, are especially appropri-
ate to a songwriting approach that seeks to bridge traditions.
The objects of my analyses are sound recordings. That is to say, the primary
material of study is aural experience rather than printed scores. In contrast to art
song repertoire, which is conceived as abstractable from any particular performed
version, the singer-songwriter repertoire more closely marries authorship and
original performance; thus analysis entails sensitivity to authorial interpretations
of songs as performed. For most songs I consider a single specific performance as
captured and produced by Joni Mitchell in a definitive recorded version; in a few
cases she has recorded more than one version. The commercially released song-
books are themselves generally transcribed by ear from recordings. However, even
when they are carefully done, market-driven conventions often take precedence
over faithful notation. For instance, songs may be transposed to avoid complex
key signatures (true of Mitchell’s early songs performed in F and D), and piano
accompaniments are frequently changed to incorporate the vocal line in the right
hand. In Mitchell’s early career, her guitar accompaniments were generally con-
verted to standard tuning. In some of the songbook collections that do faithfully
notate her alternate guitar tunings (namely, Hits, Misses, and Joni Mitchell Complete
[Guitar Songbook Edition]), every song (even if originally performed on piano) is
arranged willy-nilly for guitar performance. For such reasons, transcriptions in
this book are my own, aided by reference to the published songbooks, whose reli-
ability I have carefully checked against my own listening perceptions.30 I have
done my best to identify and describe sounds faithfully and with precision, but
occasionally, certain musical details (e.g., meter, harmony, figuration) are ambig-
uous or obscured by sound layering. In such cases there may be more than one
valid interpretation of the phenomena. Questions of performance technique (such
as inquiry into Mitchell’s extensive use of alternate guitar tunings and fingerings)
are not my subject here.
In the chapters that follow, I offer a survey of Mitchell’s output, with many
discussions of individual songs; but I have organized the material by topic rather
than chronology. This allows for variety in analytical approach (each chapter
exploring different parameters, such as poetic voice, harmony, melody, and large-
scale form) as well as in analytical focus (different sections concentrating variously

on single songs, entire albums, themes recurring between albums, and style peri-
ods). Instead of attempting to cover every song, I delve into different aspects of
her songwriting craft by way of selected illustrative examples.
In chapter 2 I present an overview of Mitchell’s dynamic stylistic evolution
from 1966 to 1998 according to four distinct periods. In the first period she takes
an acoustic folk aesthetic as the point of departure for various explorations into
intricate poetic structure, rhapsodic expression and idiosyncratic instrumenta-
tion. The second period, initiated by the album Court and Spark and climaxing
with the Mingus collaboration, is marked by a dramatic shift toward jazz stylings,
an integral backup band, and highly polished production. The third period (rep-
resenting Mitchell’s least-known work) mingles forays into mainstream upbeat
pop with brittle synthesized soundscapes and a tone of political indignation. The
fourth period, tinged with nostalgia, returns to a largely acoustic palette, while
fusing aspects from previous periods. I illustrate salient aspects of each period—
such as poetic style, changing vocal production, genre references, melodic writ-
ing, instrumental timbre, and figuration—by discussing representative songs.
This overview introduces many of the topics that will receive extended treatment
in subsequent chapters as well as providing a general chronological framework
for the individual analyses in the remainder of the book. The chapter ends by
focusing on one of Mitchell’s signature songs, “Woodstock,” which unfolds its
own distinct narrative of changing sound and style as it has traveled with her
throughout her career.
Chapters 3 and 4 share an emphasis on the lyrics to the songs. In chapter 3
I explore a particularly vivid aspect of Mitchell’s songwriting and performing
style: the colorful array of lyrical voices and personalities she brings to life. My
discussion pays special attention to details of poetic technique. In the first section
of the chapter, I make reference to an extensive range of song lyrics to suggest
the flexibility and nuance to be found in Mitchell’s creation of fictional personae.
After systematically mapping out categorical distinctions of poetic mode, repre-
sentation, syntax, diction, and vocal performance, I illustrate their use through
the analysis of an entire poem. In the second section of the chapter, I highlight
five character types of special importance in her work.
Chapter 4 takes a more sweeping view of poetic themes. I focus on a favor-
ite thematic preoccupation—personal freedom—as explored by way of potent
symbols of confinement, the journey quest, bohemianism, creative license, and
spiritual liberation. Here analyses of individual songs are mustered with an over-
arching goal in mind: to demonstrate the complexity and profundity of Mitchell’s
poetic-musical thought, her provocative coupling of personal and universal con-
cerns, and her rhetorical assurance in articulating and engaging with some of the
pressing cultural issues of her generation.

In chapter 5 I turn to musical detail work, considering the extent of Mitchell’s
harmonic innovation, an aspect that clearly sets her apart from her songwriting
peers. My harmonic analyses are carried out in conjunction with poetic and expres-
sive interpretation. Through a representative survey, I demonstrate how her songs
fall under five broad categories of harmonic organization: modal, polymodal, chro-
matic, polytonal, and pedal point. Mitchell’s work is especially impressive for its
thoroughgoing exploration of alternatives to single key structures and the major/
minor system. In conversation, she has equated this experimental harmonic prac-
tice (“chords of inquiry”) with the musical articulation of a critical perspective.
In chapter 6 I study the structural intricacy underpinning Mitchell’s melodic
writing. The first section of this chapter introduces vocabulary basic to popu-
lar song form and shows how she devises variations on the standard forms. The
second section examines the internal structure of formal sections, highlighting
Mitchell’s nonformulaic approach to phrase construction. Phrase proportions are
often irregular, due to devices such as harmonic extension and metric disruption.
Phrases commonly relate to one another through audible patterns of parallel-
ism, contrast, and complementarity; I introduce a concise method of diagram-
ming such relations. I also spend some time clarifying the principle of hierarchic
cadences and complementary pairings (what Allan Moore calls the “open/closed
principle”), an issue plagued by terminological confusion.31 This principle, cru-
cial to Mitchell’s melodic style, has not yet been carefully theorized in popular
music studies. In the third section of this chapter I turn to the expressive effects
made possible through the sculpting of melodic contour. Along the way I char-
acterize two dramatic paradigm shifts in her approach to melodic writing, one
occurring in the mid-1970s and another in the early 1980s.
Chapter 7 places individual songs in the context of larger formal spans, tack-
ling the question of coherence at the level of the album. From her beginnings
Mitchell was interested in trying out both song collections and song cycles, that
is, loose groupings of diverse characterizations (Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon) as
well as “concept” albums organized by connecting frameworks (Song to a Seagull,
Blue). I analyze large-scale form in three albums, pondering just what kind of
unity is at stake. Elements to be considered include recurrent imagery, thematic
and motivic interconnections, consistency of expressive tone, narrative and tonal
planning, and visual design. The centerpiece of the chapter is a comparison of
two consecutive albums from the late 1970s whose cyclic characters could not
be more different. Where Hejira’s songs of the open road are tightly interlinked
in theme and consistent in sound, the double-LP Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter is
multifarious, sprawling, and contradictory. By way of a coda, chapter 8 reflects
on the significance of a high-profile collective tribute to Joni Mitchell released on
the Nonesuch label in 2007.

Though analytical terminology is handled in a cumulative fashion, I have
tried to make it practicable for readers to approach individual chapters out of
order according to their interests. The flow of the book would have been more
streamlined had I reduced the sheer number of songs discussed. But I have pre-
ferred to err on the side of variety and inclusiveness, in the hopes of extending
the book’s usefulness as a compendium as well as a preliminary study. Some songs
make multiple appearances under different rubrics (e.g., “I Had a King,” “The
Dawntreader,” “Song to a Seagull,” “Woodstock,” “Amelia”). Readers compara-
tively new to Mitchell’s work may wish to begin by learning a limited number of
songs and tracing a progress through the book by way of these stepping stones.
The analyses that follow do not pretend to be comprehensive. By no means
have I covered everything of note regarding Mitchell’s harmonic language, the-
matic resonance, or my other chosen topics. Moreover, many fascinating musical
aspects touched on in passing—such as rhythm, timbre, instrumental figuration,
studio production, and mixing—deserve extended consideration in their own
right. But in developing substantial scholarly inquiry into the areas of style, voice,
theme, harmony, melody, and large-scale form, I have had four broad goals in
mind: discovering initial points of entry into a rich and relatively uncharted body
of popular song; laying the groundwork for future analytical inquiry; providing
practical models of analysis for use in the classroom; and establishing a basis for
evaluating Joni Mitchell’s stature as a songwriter. Given my earlier caveats about
cultural prestige, I realize that this last aim bears an ironic similarity to the Great
Man approach toward music history, used so effectively to exclude women (and
other classes of people) in the past. In focusing on one remarkable artist’s indi-
vidual achievement, my intent is not to wedge her into a position of rank or bury
her under a weight of symbolic importance. I would rather view this project in
terms of a visit to a busy workshop, with an emphasis on the appreciation of skill,
ingenuity, design, polish, and knowledge of materials. But in moments of musi-
cally induced weakness, I have been known to refer to her as a genius.

2
SOUND AND ST Y L E
Joni Mitchell is one of those modern artists who maintain a constant sense of
adventure and unpredictability in their work, treating style not as a dependable
personalized manner but as a changing field of possibility. She likens herself to
Miles Davis and Pablo Picasso in this regard.1 The towering influence of both fig-
ures derives in part from their dramatic stylistic experimentation over the course
of long careers. Picasso’s path from the postimpressionism of his youthful con-
temporaries through primitivism, cubism (analytical and synthetic phases), and
classicism was impetuous and marked by sudden ruptures. Davis, “the innovator
of more distinct styles than any other jazz musician,” restlessly explored new
approaches from cool jazz to modal playing to fusion, while refusing to define
his creative impulse by any single approach.2 Mitchell herself has covered ample
ground, moving from folk roots through inventive encounters with jazz, world
music, and synthesized pop. Her protean character as a songwriter means that any
two fans may cherish completely contradictory mental images of her music. This
fact was brought home to me with a jolt when I attended Mitchell’s performance
at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in the spring of 1995. Mitchell
was playing a solo set at one of the large open stages. Only one week earlier,
she had acquired a new electric guitar fitted with a Roland VG-8 controller to
facilitate her multiple alternate tunings.3 She began the set with “Sex Kills,” a
searing social critique released on Turbulent Indigo the year before. The stern per-
sona adopted in her recent work together with the unexpected aggressive electric
sound struck me with the excitement of a new stylistic venture. However, one
thirty-something female fan near me listened for about twenty seconds before
spluttering, “I can’t take this,” and elbowing her way out of the crowd. (Mitchell
recalls the moment: “I started with ‘Sex Kills,’ playing this diabolical kind of
Jimi Hendrix/fuzztone sound, just for the hell of it, and I think a lot of people
were quite annoyed.”)4 On the other hand, after the concert, as I joined a small
group of admirers in search of the backstage exit area, it was hard not to notice an
undaunted spirit of the sixties frolicking on the grass in full wizard costume (robe
and conical hat) while clutching a Joni LP.
Clearly, Joni Mitchell’s audience is a heterogeneous bunch. There are “uni-
versal” Joni fans who have stayed with her for the whole trip as well as devotees
of favorite periods in her career. In this chapter, I want to convey a sense of the
breadth of her style by sketching the overall arc of her musical evolution. But
I also plan to outline a succession of loose stylistic periods to use as a framework
for later discussion. I freely admit that this periodic grouping is my own interpre-
tation; others may well hear things differently. Nor do I mean to imply that the
music within each period is stylistically static or homogeneous. Mitchell’s inven-
tion is typically multidimensional and open to all sorts of byways. Nevertheless,
we can point to common preoccupations spanning several albums and contribut-
ing to a cumulative sense of direction.
I hear Mitchell’s work from 1966 to 1998 as falling into four distinct periods,
defined according to the studio albums released between the following dates:
1968–1972 (five albums), 1974–1979 (five albums), 1982–1988 (three albums),
and 1991–1998 (three albums).5 The beginning of each successive period is signaled
by an album announcing a bold new departure in sound and style: in 1974 the album
is Court and Spark; in 1982, Wild Things Run Fast; and in 1991, Night Ride Home.
I have chosen specific songs to illustrate the stages in Mitchell’s musical journey.
FIRST PERIOD (1966–1972)

Mitchell wrote her first song, “Day after Day,” in 1964 when she was twenty. She
started writing her own material in earnest the following year after forming a
folksinging duo with husband Chuck Mitchell and after the traumatic experience
of giving her daughter up for adoption.6 However, the earliest songs she chose to
include on commercial recordings (“Night in the City,” “Song to a Seagull” [both
SS], “I Think I Understand” [C], and “The Circle Game” [LC]) date from 1966.
The year 1966 thus marks the start of Mitchell’s official published work.7 All four
of her first albums include songs written while she was on the touring circuit dur-
ing the two years before her recording career was launched in 1968.
With the opening number on her debut album, “I Had a King” (1968, SS),
Mitchell was in effect introducing herself as a recording artist to a wider audience.
Presented simply as a solo for voice and guitar, the song evokes the ambience
of the waning folk scene in its quiet presence, its strophic form, and its trou-
badour imagery.8 Mitchell’s voice modulates between tones of fragile simplicity
and bardic solemnity. But these seemingly modest resources reveal great artistry

and expressive power. The song’s medieval dress of castles and carriages is merely
a threadbare overlay for its real setting—a shabby pocket of some modern city.
Lingering wisps of premodern fantasy are exposed as romantic illusions in the ugly
light of a marriage breaking apart. Within the verse, rhymes are arranged to form
a densely interlocking structure. Verse 1 is the most rigorously constructed:
I had a king in a tenement castle a

Lately he’s taken to painting the pastel walls brown a b
He’s taken the curtains down b
He’s swept with the broom of contempt c d
And the rooms have an empty ring c d e
He’s cleaned with the tears of an actor f g
Who fears for the laughter’s sting f g e
Note how the end rhymes of lines 1, 4, and 6 are paired with internal rhymes
in the subsequent lines, nested within different end rhyme pairs. Such a highly
worked attention to rhyme is common in Mitchell’s songs from the late 1960s.9
Here, the ornate verbal patterning chimes with the deliberately precious meta-
phorical conceit. Elsewhere, Mitchell is able to turn the same technique to quite
different expressive effect. In a song like “Willy” (LC), for example, the leapfrog-
ging rhymes are more vernacular and liquid (verse 2: “real . . . peal . . . bells, tell . . .
spell . . . real, lose . . . blues . . . feel”), as if swept up in the tumbling current of pas-
sion. In “I Had a King” one can point to a further effect of the poetic structure. The
added end rhyme on the second poetic line creates asymmetrical lengths in the first
half of the verse (with lines of eleven, thirteen, and seven syllables—or 4 poetic
“beats,” 5 beats, and 3 beats), and Mitchell adheres to this in her musical setting,
constructing a melody in irregular phrase groups of two, three, and three bars.
The guitar sets up a pattern of running eighths. At first, Mitchell spins out
a filigree of arpeggiation across a two-octave span, with some interesting knots
in the middle range. But at the poem’s emphatic reversal in line 2 (“pastel walls
brown”), she begins to give the guitar a multivoiced texture, with a certain inde-
pendence between bass parts, upper melodic figures, and chordal punctuation.
( JM: “When I’m playing the guitar . . . I hear it as an orchestra: the top three
strings being my horn section, the bottom three being cello, viola, and bass—the
bass being indicated but not rooted.”)10 In the second half of the verse, the chord
changes are knit together by internal voices slowly and wistfully falling by seconds
(Ex. 2.1). Though the accompaniment is composed out, Mitchell occasionally alters
the strophic pattern in response to special moments in the poem (as in verse 2,
when she adds chordal accents to catch the syncopation of “become that kind”).
Many musical elements work together to assert the song’s central idea of refusing to
be trapped (more on the theme of entrapment in chapter 4). The accompanimental
SOUND AND STYLE | 17

rhythm, for instance, presents its own drama—passages of gentle burbling motion
crossed by groups of ominous strong accents. Rhythm conjoins with gradations
in timbre, as in the chorus, where the guitar’s soaring melody repeatedly falls
to a forceful downbeat, the rhythmic constraint emphasized with a percussive
touch. The treatment of register in the interaction between voice and guitar is
also dramatic: at first, the voice is tangled in the middle stretch of the guitar line,
then at line 4 the guitar recedes as the voice reaches into a flutier soprano. In the
chorus, the hopefully rising vocal lines (“I can’t go back there anymore”) dove-
tail with plunging descents in the guitar. All of these tensions are made cogent
by the conflicted harmonic implications at work. The song cannot decide on its
mode: each verse begins with an immediate shift from an A major to an A minor
chord, while each chorus concludes with a shift from minor to major. In between,
many of the ominous accents occur on open, quartal harmonies (chords built of
fourths; Ex. 2.1). The chorus’s rising vocal lines do all cadence on A major, only to
be checked every time by the plunging guitar arrivals on suspended chords (i.e.,
chords in which the middle note of a triad [1,3,5] is replaced by a dissonant note
[1,4,5 or 1,2,5 or 1,2,4,5]). For its final cadence, the song returns very fittingly to
example 2.1. “i had a king,” guitar accompaniment, second half of

verse
(He’s swept with the broom of contempt)
(I can’t
go back...)
All examples are notated as heard (i.e., no octave transposition in guitar).

an open, undecided Asus2 (for an explanation of the chord symbols used in this
book, see the Appendix). In this, her debut song, Mitchell evokes the ingenue
persona of a sunnier folk repertory while setting her within a darkly textured,
charged drama of internal conflict, frustration, and self-assertion.
By the time of “The Arrangement” (1969, LC), reference to folk models is
no longer pertinent. Regarding its genre, this song combines two types common
to Mitchell’s work as a whole: the character portrait and the statement of social
critique. From this perspective, “The Arrangement” fits in well on the album
Ladies of the Canyon, which includes many portraits (often combined with love
poems: “Conversation,” “Willy,” “Rainy Night House,” “The Priest”) as well as
two of her most famous “statement” songs (“Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock”).
The kind of portrait painted here is notable for its archetypal quality. The per-
son being pleaded with (“You could have been more”) could be a particular man
known to the songwriter but equally seems to stand for a whole generation of
consumers settling for a shallow life. The song was written for piano, like five
other songs on the album. A turn to piano writing in 1969 reflects the availabil-
ity of the instrument in her new home with Graham Nash in the Laurel Canyon
neighborhood of Los Angeles (the canyon of the album’s title).11 Mitchell’s piano
style is typified by a rhythmic matrix of steady rocking figures in the left hand,
with harmonic fill and chordal accents in the right. Her right-hand chords fit eas-
ily in the hand and are often triadic, but their relation to the left hand’s harmonic
root is complex, with plentiful use of “slash chords” (so termed from the lead
sheet notation, where they are written as upper triad then bass note separated by
a slash: e.g., G/A, or “G over A”). The first three chords in this song’s prelude, for
instance, are all such chords: G/A, D/E, and C/D (Ex. 2.2). Once the voice enters,
the piano takes a supporting role with little melodic interest. (Other piano songs
like “My Old Man” [B] feature melodic licks in counterpoint with the voice.) The
modal irresolution between Aeolian and Dorian and the absolute pervasiveness of
suspended chords (including the final cadence) recall the harmonic ambiguities
of “I Had a King” (modes will be explained in chapter 5).
In other ways, “The Arrangement” looks forward to musical directions taken
up in the following album, Blue. (In 1974, Mitchell judged: “There’s a song
called ‘The Arrangement’ which seemed to me as a forerunner and I think has
more musical sophistication than anything else on the album.”)12 The rhap-
sodic possibilities inherent in solo piano accompaniment are explored in the
metrically free instrumental prelude and coda. Mitchell’s delivery of the text
is highly erratic in rhythm—now rushing headlong, now drawing out a single
word (especially true in the B section; see the formal divisions marked below).
Her voice ventures into a raw, dangerous volatility. The melodic design is simi-
larly reckless, with moody troughs and peaks and abrupt shifts in register. The

example 2.2. “the arrangement,” piano prelude
Very slowly and freely
G/A
D/E C/D
poem, while maintaining a scheme of interlocking rhymes, no longer projects an

unwavering sense of structural control. For one thing, there is a whole series of
important line-ends that remain unmatched by rhyme.
A section:
You could have been more a

Than a name on the door a
On the thirty-third floor in the air a x
More than a credit card b
Swimming pool in the backyard b
A section:
While you still have the time c

You could get away and find c
A better life, you know the grind is so ungrateful c x
Racing cars, whisky bars b b
No one cares who you really are b
B section:
You’re the keeper of the cards b

Yes I know it gets hard b
Keeping the wheels turning x
And the wife she keeps the keys d d
She’s so pleased to be d d
A part of the arrangement b x

The unrhymed x phrases spill across the underlying pattern with words that don’t
attempt to fit. These phonic lapses serve to underscore the speaker’s point, echo-
ing the dissociated quality of a life on the thirty-third floor in the air, the point-
lessness of keeping the wheels turning, the hollowness of the whole arrangement.
Formally, the song is unusual in being through-composed, that is, in inventing
a unique design that doesn’t follow a traditional strophic or verse-chorus format.
The B section sounds like a bridge at first, because of its fresh harmonic direction,
but in fact it is integrally needed to complete the rhyme scheme (the “cards/hard/
part” rhyme answering the end of the A sections) and cadential structure. It is not
a chorus because it never repeats; instead there is a return to a modified, expanded
A section, where the voice, already pushing to the edge of a wail, finally dissolves
into raw “la la” vocalization.13 (The complete form can be expressed as AAB
A'+coda.) All elements of the composition, in fact, are minutely sensitive to the
turbulent emotional detail.
SECOND PERIOD (1973–1980)

In the mid to late seventies, Mitchell’s career reached its zenith. Over a period of
seven years, she released four studio albums (including one double LP), two con-
cert albums (both double LPs), and a collaborative project with Charles Mingus.
Three of these albums peaked within the top five on the U.S. charts (C&S and
MA at no. 2, HSL at no. 4), and with the song “Help Me” she had her only Top
Ten single (at no. 7). Her music received more airplay than at any other time
in her life, as her songwriting reached new levels of maturity and sophistica-
tion. While Court and Spark is the breakaway album that most clearly sets a new
course, For the Roses (at the end of the first period in my scheme) is unmistakably
transitional. Many characteristic ingredients of the second period style already
make an appearance there. These include multipart instrumental arrangements
incorporating winds and percussion, strong jazz inflections (notably Tom Scott’s
woodwind solos on “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire” and “Barangrill”), a new
polish in vocal performance, and ambitious formal innovations (e.g., the episodic
“Blonde in the Bleachers” and the complicated interludes in “Let the Wind Carry
Me” and “Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune)”—an homage to
Beethoven).
For Court and Spark, however, Mitchell used an integral backup band for the
first time, engaging members of Tom Scott’s jazz-rock fusion group the L.A.
Express. The sound of the album is anchored by the core group of drums, bass,
electric guitar, electric piano, and winds, with the addition of special instruments
including trumpet, chimes, and clavinet. In fact, each song is conceived with

its own unique combination of instrumental resources in mind. One example
of a striking coloristic touch can be heard during the coda to “Car on a Hill,”
where Mitchell’s acoustic piano transmutes by sleight of hand into electric piano,
silvered by guitar harmonics and swathed in eerie Doppler wails in the horns.
Another effect occurs at the end of the chorus in “Trouble Child,” where the
Malibu surf is evoked by electric guitar arabesques and cymbal crescendi over
pauses in the rhythmic groove. In “Down to You,” Mitchell introduces a fully
orchestral excursion (bringing in strings, horns, bassoon, oboe, clarinet, and
harp). This album shows signs of a new interest in large-scale form: a terse, idio-
syncratic piano fanfare at the opening; elaborate interludes in “Car on a Hill” and
“Down to You”; segues linking the fourth and fifth songs (“People’s Parties” and
“The Same Situation”) and the final two songs (“Trouble Child” and “Twisted”).
(The same formal techniques will be greatly developed a few years later in DJRD;
see chapter 7.)
The hit song “Help Me” (1973, C&S) provides a good basis for more extensive
comments on the second period style. Here, Mitchell’s steady guitar strumming
is thoroughly blended into the mix; drums set a suave beat; electric piano and
electric guitar fill in and warm the texture; mellow flutes and heckling reeds enter
on the breaks. As befits the glossy production, Mitchell’s voice is sweet and beau-
tifully modulated, her passion tastefully restrained.14 Jazz inflections are evident
in harmony, melody, and rhythm. Harmonically, the song maintains an almost
continuous string of seventh chords. The sense of key is elastic; swerves to new
local tonics occur by third relations, or by planing through whole steps.
A E5 GM7
Help me, I think I’m falling in love again.
GM7 FM7
When I get that crazy feeling I know I’m in trouble again.
FM7
I’m in trouble ’cause you’re a rambler and a gambler and a sweet-talking ladies’ man.
CM7 GM7 CM7 A CM7 DM7 BM7 FM7 G A
And you love your lovin’ but not like you love your free—dom.
A reduced harmonic analysis would read as follows (bold letters indicate shifts to
new local tonics):
A—G pivot—F (IV in C)—G pivot—D—F—A
(G is a pivot chord because it belongs to several of the keys involved [A Mixolydian,

D, and C], and is used to shift between keys.) Note how the first three chords in
the harmonic reduction plane down through whole steps; the last three chords
are related by thirds.

example 2.3. “help me,” cadence for
instrumental break
Over a harmonic progression which is rhythmically deliberate and unvarying

across verses, the melody is more freely constructed, following similar contours in
each verse while allowing for a degree of variation in rhythm and pitch.15 Mitchell
also punctuates the verse with witty metric disruptions. The meter is laid back and
foursquare until the final words, “your freedom,” where it gets into a pileup of dotted
eighths and misses a beat. Then, at the end of the instrumental break, there is a syn-
copated threefold cadential figure. On the first two times through, the syncopation
causes an anticipation of the cadential downbeat; on the last time, Mitchell simply
drops a beat so the cadence and the barline finally line up (Ex. 2.3).16 Throughout
her second style period, Mitchell combines characteristic elements of her musi-
cal language—for example, extended harmonies, modal/tonal complexity, flexible
melodic phrasing, and syncopated rhythmic hooks—so as to evoke an affinity with
jazz. This affinity is often an unobtrusive blend, but at times overt jazz stylings rise
to the surface, from momentary vocal ornaments or slides, to improvised instrumen-
tal solos, to songs that present a full jazz pastiche. Court and Spark ends with such
a stylization: Mitchell sings a cover of Annie Ross and Wardell Gray’s “Twisted,”
accompanied by a classic small combo of drums, bass, and trumpet. Subsequent jazz
stylizations include “Centerpiece” (by Johnny Mandel and Jon Hendricks, HSL),
“Blue Motel Room” (H), and of course most of the songs on Mingus.
The poem for “Help Me” is atypical: a breezy pop-romantic morsel, in stan-
dard strophic form plus bridge, though it is interesting in the way its collo-
quial language is pressed into an exaggeratedly schematic form (note the dual
refrains at the beginning and end of each verse, a gerund in the second phrase
[“feeling”/ “hoping”/“going”] matching those in the refrains [“falling,” “lovin’”],
and close repetition in the third phrase [“I’m in trouble . . . I’m in trouble”/“hot
hot”/“flirting and flirting”]). Mitchell’s oeuvre is sprinkled with such unique
experiments. More representative of the poetry of this period is the song “Amelia”
(1976, H). Its tone is an attractive blend of the conversational with the poetic.
Thus the diary-entry sound of lines such as “I wish that he was here tonight” flows
comfortably into the lyricism of “A ghost of aviation/She was swallowed by the

sky.” In its structural rhythm the poem is discursive, drifting through a series of
impressions as the poet muses on her burden of wanderlust and disillusionment.
The song’s open-ended, lengthy multiverse form is especially prevalent on this
album, dedicated to evocations of road travel (see chapter 7). (Mitchell had used
it first in the five-verse “For the Roses” [FR] and the six-verse “Don’t Interrupt
the Sorrow” [HSL].) Where the artifice of the first-period poetry was typically
manifest in decorative verbal detail, now it operates primarily at the level of
the image. Rhyme schemes become plainer, while the deployment of imagery
becomes more challenging and complex. Here is verse 1 of “Amelia.”
I was driving across the burning desert

When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
The opening image of vapor trails sets the poem’s mood of loneliness in open
space. It introduces the central themes of travel and transience—but only implic-
itly. Rather than beginning with a fanciful image conveying a particular poetic
interpretation (as in “I had a king in a tenement castle”), Mitchell begins with a
Wordsworthian observation of the world around her. But then, far from clarify-
ing the significance of her observation, she reconfigures it by way of metaphoric
substitutions, left uninterpreted. The image of the hexagram suggests arcane
metaphysical meanings deliberately resistant to understanding. This skywriting
then transforms into a symbol of the poet’s own songwriting and thus her inner
world; but the purport of this new metaphoric likeness is just as much of a riddle.
The substance of her vision is somehow both impossibly distant and as near as
the car seat next to her. (Such a dreamlike elasticity of dimensions will continue
throughout the poem.) The refrain offers little help in closing the sequence of
thought. It takes an oblique turn, changing to an apostrophic address (to Amelia)
without warning, and coming to a despondent conclusion that doesn’t clearly
follow what came before.
Speaking generally, if the first-period poetry is characterized by an intricate
decorative surface, that of the second period prefers to stir up rich conceptual
resonances. We might borrow terms from art criticism and describe this as a
shift from linear to painterly thinking. The distinction derives from Heinrich
Wölfflin, who differentiates an interest in outline, surface, and clearly defined
objects, on the one hand, from an interest in “the apprehension of the world as
a shifting semblance,” on the other, where objects merge in unbounded space.17
Such a conceptual distinction is suggestive not only for Mitchell’s poetic develop-

ment but for her treatment of melody and instrumentation as well. Early melo-
dies (especially before 1970) are conceived as chiseled intervallic designs in fairly
precise rhythmic coordination with accompanimental figures. In contrast, a typi-
cal second-period melody is a more plastic contour, allowing for a lot of give in its
alignment with the background. Early instrumental figuration (especially guitar)
typically lays down a decorative line. In the second period, however, Mitchell
takes full advantage of backing performers and studio production to create “aural
landscapes in which the singer loses, rediscovers, and surrenders herself.”18 The
sound of “Amelia,” for instance, is anchored by a stable underlying guitar pattern;
but Mitchell consciously softens the outlines of her guitar by doubling it loosely.
Over and around the strangely reverberant guitar background the vibraphone
and lead guitar are applied like daubs of paint, creating bell-tone highlights and
a swarm of subliminal “voices” that bend, croon, and soar. Here, Mitchell uses
her instrumental resources to create an ambient sound environment, emphasizing
musical space and texture. The added instruments are also free to respond to tran-
sient moments in the text, as each verse calls up its own set of sonic impressions.
THIRD PERIOD (1981–1988)

The two projects marking the culmination of Mitchell’s second period (DJRD
and M), her most ambitious in concept and execution, received mixed reviews,
including some stinging rebuffs from prominent critics.19 Her insistence on fol-
lowing her own uncompromising path had made her cutting-edge in the 1970s;
at the end of the decade it left her open to critical and commercial desertion. In
the 1980s she transformed herself again, now regrouping in a turn to mainstream
pop and absorbing innovations from recent pop trends, especially new wave. At
the same time she pulled back to a more leisurely pace of work, producing a new
album only every three years. While recording Wild Things Run Fast she met bass-
ist Larry Klein, and the two embarked on a fruitful, long-term collaborative rela-
tionship (Klein went on to co-produce all Mitchell’s subsequent albums through
Travelogue, except TT ). Nevertheless, the third period represents a low point for
Mitchell’s music in terms of exposure (Dog Eat Dog, for instance, remains the only
album for which a songbook was never produced). In the 2003 reissue of this
material, she dubs the decade the “Lost Years,” recounting her personal efforts
to save the albums from oblivion.20 Following the career watershed of Mingus,
Mitchell’s continued musical development in the 1980s attracted comparatively
little public attention, while her work projected an increasingly public voice.
Wild Things Run Fast (1982) is a highly accessible album, cast mainly in conven-
tional pop styles and forms. Conceptually, it works with nothing as controversial as

the bold stylistic compounds and high literary conceits found on the previous two
albums. In fact, Wild Things contains an atypical number of happy, enjoyable songs
without lofty artistic goals. The pull of jazz is still evident—for instance, in the
shuffle beat of “Moon at the Window” and “Be Cool,” the blues-based progression
in the latter song, and the flexible, meandering vocals of “Love.” But there are also
several rock ’n’ roll songs (the title song, “Baby, I Don’t Care,” “You Dream Flat
Tires,” “Underneath the Streetlight”), a contemporary pop ballad (“Chinese Café”),
a song harking back to Tin Pan Alley ballad form (“Moon at the Window”), and
even two songs in rhythm and blues (R&B) style (“Ladies’ Man,” “Man to Man”).
( JM: “‘Ladies’ Man’ [is] a song that Aretha Franklin could have sung. In fact, there’s
two little catches in my vocal that are out of admiration for her.”)21 Significantly,
instead of the jazz covers found in the second period, this album features a cover of
Leiber and Stoller’s tune “Baby, I Don’t Care” (released in 1959 by Elvis Presley).
In fact, Mitchell opens the album with a nostalgic tribute to the pop hits from
her youth, fragments of two of which (“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” and
“Unchained Melody”) are embedded in the song.22 As usual, Mitchell’s treatment
of familiar genres is rarely formulaic; she handles conventions with originality and
sophistication. In “Be Cool,” for example, she gives the shuffle beat a surprising
twist by weaving it into a hemiola (two-against-three) cross-rhythm which aligns
with the backbeat and thus undercuts the downbeat (see Ex. 2.4).23 Meanwhile, the
chord changes in “Be Cool” offer a fresh take on the standard blues progression
(Ex. 2.5). Mitchell expands the form from 12 bars to 16 by elongating the domi-
nant section of the third phrase while replacing the standard dominant chord with
a more piquant major II (E major in the key of D).24 Mitchell also enhances her
pop sound with style markers adopted from new wave groups such as the Police
and Talking Heads: for example, the repeated-note bass line in “Wild Things Run
Fast,” the striking minimal instrumentation at the end of the same song, the reggae
groove in “Solid Love,” and the importance of synthesizers in the mix for much of
the album. In fact, according to Mitchell, the Police were an explicit model in the
making of this album:
I love that band, and they were definitely a factor. My appreciation of their
rhythmic hybrids and the positioning and sound of their drums was one of
the main things calling out to me to make this a more rhythmic album. I
was in the Caribbean last summer, and they used to play “De Do Do Do”
at the disco. I love to dance, and anytime I heard it, boy, I didn’t care if
there was no one on the floor, I was going to dance to that thing because
of those changes in rhythm. You get into one pattern for a while and then
WHAM, you turn around and put a whole other pattern into it. My feet
got me into that record.25

example 2.4. “be cool,” intro
Gtr.
Bass
Small notes indicate an alternative way of hearing the rhythmic groupings, cutting across the meter.
Note that the prominent chords line up with beats 2 and 4 (marked by arrows), rather than the downbeat.
example 2.5.
a. standard blues progression
b. “be cool,” chord changes
a.  I  I I I 
 IV  IV  I  I 
 V  IV  I  I 
b. V V I I 
 IV  IV  I  I 
 II  II  II  II 
 IV  IV  I  I 
“You Dream Flat Tires” (1982, WTRF) is one of Mitchell’s true rock ’n’ roll
songs.26 She lets the rhythm section drive the song with its heavy beat and hyper-
kinetic bass; the point is musical impact and energy rather than intellectual sub-
tlety. The poetry is an unrefined concoction of graphic images, romantic musing,
and raw snippets of conversation, all nailed down by the repetitive refrain, which
hardly holds up as a poetic line but sounds great as a “hook,” or memorable musi-
cal figure (Ex. 2.6). In fact there is an abundance of hooks, from the flashy intro, to

the catchy repartee in the bridge, to the major-mode vocal loops in the coda. Guest
vocals are added by Lionel Richie, at that time just entering the high point of his
success as a mainstream pop artist. Once again, the song’s conventional aspects
are given clever turns. The bass sets up the rock beat as a speeding compound
duple; when the drum first enters, it marks a hemiola cross-rhythm without any
reference to the downbeat for an unsettling few moments. The combination of
slipped rhythmic gears and frenzied angular bass motion captures the key image
of a car spinning out of control before the vocals even start. Harmonically, the
song doesn’t venture beyond i, iv, and v (Dm, Gm, and Am)—until the refrain,
which suddenly veers on a wild chromatic path from Am11 through Cm11 and
Fm11 back to D. Formally, Mitchell follows a matter-of-fact alternation between
verse and bridge—until the last verse, which cuts short after two lines and elides
into an instrumental break and coda.
Other mannerisms in “Flat Tires” reflect a new set of tastes which will hold
sway over the third period. First is the tone of bravado mixed with aggression,
shared by the whole band but coming to the fore in Mike Landau’s lead guitar,
whose solo licks crack like a whip. In comparison, Mitchell’s voice here is laid-
back. More attention-grabbing is the unusually cocky, strutting voice she affects
for “Underneath the Streetlight,” which looks forward to future vocal affecta-
example 2.6. “you dream flat tires,” refrain
Why do you dream flat tires when you dream
Am11 Cm11
flat tires? you dream flat tires.
Fm11

tions. Second, Mitchell emphasizes the ends of certain phrases by brutally cut-
ting off the sound. In “Flat Tires” this can be heard at the end of the intro and
most notably at the end of the song, where it sounds as if the vibrations of the
final phrase are abruptly sucked into a vacuum. Such a penchant for dry cadences
with little or no reverberation will extend through the decade (for other examples
on WTRF, see “Solid Love” and “Streetlight”). Third, like many songs on the
album, this song makes important use of backing vocals in repetitive verbal riffs
(notably in the coda: “Flat tires, love, love is precious . . .”). Finally, on this album
(though not on this song) Mitchell starts to experiment with a new terseness in
her poetry. The new direction is most evident in “Wild Things Run Fast,” about
which Mitchell relates: “I wrote this for the discipline of saying something in
short, fragmented sentences, which is basically what pop writing always was. It
was more of an exercise to see if I could do it, to say something in a minimalist
way. I failed” (i.e., she was unable to quell her characteristic lyric pattern of “para-
graphs,” or connected thoughts).27
By the next album (Dog Eat Dog), however, Mitchell had become much more
practiced at a verbal style of end-stopped, compressed lines (especially notable
in “Fiction,” “Tax Free” [both poems responding to music by Larry Klein], and
“Impossible Dreamer”; see Ex. 6.20). This is in keeping with a remarkable change
in tone and subject matter, emblematized in Mitchell’s cover art. Compared to the
relaxed self-portrait on Wild Things ( Joni in a comfortable leaning posture, hand
in pocket, shoes kicked off ), the photographic image on Dog Eat Dog shows her
with both fists raised, eyes clamped shut and mouth open in a yell, surrounded
by howling or snapping wolves. This image stamps an album dominated by
social and political protest as no Joni Mitchell album had been before.28 The title
song, “Dog Eat Dog” (1985, DED), decries social attitudes of rampant greed and
hypocrisy in language that modulates between sharp colloquial harangue (“you
can lie, cheat, skim, scam”) and the rolling cadences of scripture (“People looking,
seeing nothing”).29 Mitchell’s voice is taut, clipped, and deliberately constricted,
her phrasing often rigidly tied to an implacable strong beat. The groove is pieced
together from a number of interlocking rhythmic parts, forming a rather inflex-
ible whole. In fact, the concept of mechanization guides the entire sound design.
Brittle percussive effects (including an extremely sharp backbeat) are slotted into
a matrix of synthesized harmony. There is a very quick decay in keyboard and
drum, deliberately exaggerating the sense of an artificially constructed perfor-
mance space. Drums are either sampled or kept fanatically uniform. Stitched into
the rhythmic underlay is a persistent syncopated vocal sample of the primary
refrain (“dog eat dog”), leached of its vowel qualities. It’s difficult to tell whether
the consonantal enhancement is due to electronic alteration or the result of mix-
ing with other sounds, so intimately has the human merged with the machine.

Yet the chilly surfaces in this song are posed against warmer musical reso-
nances: full-bodied backup harmonies, unabashed major-mode cadences, moments
of thawing, even tenderness, in Mitchell’s vocal. The scriptural reference in the
coda is amplified by the harmonic gesture there, which settles on a series of plagal
cadences (IV-I, common as a benediction: “Amen”), thus dissolving the foregoing
anger into an elegiac perspective. The strong polarities kept in play make for a
complex expressive utterance. Meanwhile the grooves and timbres of 1980s pop
still animate the musical style, though Mitchell bends them to an overt ethical
purpose. In its marriage of accessible pop style with a strong ethical orientation,
her music in this period resembles concurrent work by the Police and U2.
FOURTH PERIOD (1989–1998)

On the release of Night Ride Home in 1991, Geffen Records took out promotional
advertisements reading: “Her work has become a standard by which others are
compared. Once again, the standard is raised. The much anticipated new album
from an artist whose sound has inspired a generation of listeners and influenced a
generation of musicians.” By this stage in her career Mitchell was being marketed
as a classic. The album received enthusiastic critical attention, again with an
emphasis on her seasoned status as a writer as well as the retrospective aspects
of her work. Stephen Holden, in a New York Times interview, highlighted her
age (47) and the perspective that comes with “middle-age resignation.” Linda
Sanders, in Entertainment Weekly, concluded that Mitchell had synthesized “vari-
ous musical styles from every phase of her career” so successfully that the album
“sounds like the distilled essence of everything she’s done before.”30 The 1990s
also ushered in a period of official acclaim, in the form of prestigious awards
for artistic achievement, beginning with Billboard magazine’s Century Award
(1995). Inaugurated in 1992 to recognize established but underappreciated song-
writers for the excellence of their “still-unfolding body of work,” Mitchell was the
fourth person to receive this honor (after George Harrison, Buddy Guy, and Billy
Joel).31 The Century Award was followed by a number of accolades in quick suc-
cession, including Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, the Canadian Governor General’s
Performing Arts Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National
Academy of Songwriters (all 1996) as well as induction into both the Songwriters’
Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1997). However, at the same
time as her importance was being affirmed by her peers, the press, and cultural
agencies at home and abroad, Mitchell’s career as a songwriter came to a standstill in
1998 with the release of Taming the Tiger, her last collection of new songs until
Shine (2007).

The opening song, “Night Ride Home,” from her 1991 release (NRH) was
actually written in 1988, the same year as the release of Chalk Mark in a Rain
Storm. Nevertheless, in its eventual recorded incarnation, Mitchell clearly unveils
a renovated sound for the 1990s. The busy layering of her late-1980s studio work
is gone; instead an uncluttered texture allows for maximal exposure of the guitar
figuration. The rhythmic groove, laid down by guitar and hand drums, is simple
and relaxed. In its reinstatement of acoustic timbres, showcasing of intricate gui-
tar work, and elegant, chiseled melodic design (see Ex. 6.21), the song represents
a return to values from Mitchell’s earliest style period. A digital sample still
provides an ostinato, but here it’s a chirping cricket, a sound that reaches beyond
the confines of the studio to evoke a peaceful natural space. Mitchell’s voice is
showing its late huskiness, but it is relaxed and honeyed in tone. The poem like-
wise is relaxed, a summer nocturne celebrating a moment of quiet harmony and
beauty. Pedal steel guitar is added sparingly for painterly highlights and spatial
resonance, as in second-period style. Meanwhile the harmonic palette explores a
relatively new direction for Mitchell in its consistent unmixed major mode and
its generous use of major dominant chords at the cadence, which in the context of
her previous harmonic usage is a turn to a simpler, more classical idiom.32
The song is not a love song per se but includes reference to a comfortable
partnership (“I love the man beside me”) as integral to the ambience of peace
and fulfillment. In general, the fourth period is characterized by its seasoned per-
spectives on love, spiritual aspiration, and the adventures of youth. The personal
storm and stress of earlier periods has largely given way to greater authority and
self-possession. The sociopolitical causes so starkly exposed in the third period are
now sometimes diffused into mythical presentiments of apocalypse. Examples of
the latter include “Passion Play” (based on the story of Zacchaeus from the Gospel
of Luke) and “Slouching towards Bethlehem” (based on W. B. Yeats’s poem “The
Second Coming”) from NRH, “The Sire of Sorrow” (based on the Book of Job) from
TI, and “Taming the Tiger” (based on William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”) from
TT.33 This scriptural/metaphysical genre exists alongside protest songs similar to
those from period 3 (such as “Sex Kills,” “The Magdalene Laundries,” and “Not to
Blame,” all from TI). Character portraits remain a favorite genre, as always. Finally,
there is a proliferation of retrospective vignettes from her childhood and teenage
years (on NRH, these include “Cherokee Louise,” “Come In from the Cold,” and
“Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac”). “Cherokee Louise,” a memory of a childhood friend who
was sexually abused, is especially interesting in its integration of the portrait, nos-
talgic, and protest genres. Stylistically, Mitchell synthesizes elements from across
her career, each song carefully and individually crafted. Certain songs are marked
by particularly unique or refined touches in timbral design, such as the combina-
tion of oboe, omnichord, and Latin percussion in “The Only Joy in Town,” or the

percussive guitar hockets (hiccup-like interjections), special “tribal” drum sound,
sirens, and vocal glissandi in “Slouching towards Bethlehem” (both NRH).
In “Harlem in Havana” (1998, TT), the possibilities for unique sound design
are expanded by means of Mitchell’s new digital guitar. This album was the first
to appear after she acquired the Roland VG-8, which came equipped with a vari-
ety of sound patches to affect the guitar’s timbral output. This song is particu-
larly adventurous with the sonic palette of the instrument (Mitchell refers to it
in special terms as a “guitar orchestra” in the liner notes to this and one other
song). The first sound produced bears no resemblance to a guitar, sounding more
like a kind of malleted keyboard, especially brittle and metallic, with very salient
upper partials. In its next overlay, the guitar adopts the tones of a calypso drum
band, as befits the poem’s Afro-Cuban reference. As verse merges with refrain, the
instrument has a third incarnation as a raunchy quasi-horn section, with a lot of
fuzz. All this sonic experimentation builds to a roaring climax, but when the dust
clears in the interlude, it’s evident that the bones of the performance are set down
by a classic jazz combo (bass, drums, sax), with a shuffle beat and free vocal phras-
ing to match. The poem here belongs to the nostalgia genre: a story of carnies
coming to Mitchell’s prairie town, she and her teenage friends sneaking in wide-
eyed to the burlesque show. The song’s subtle wit rests in the distance between
the youthful and the adult perspectives (conveyed in words and music, respec-
tively). The poem deliberately captures a naive, limited frame of reference in the
girls’ first thrilling experience of sophistication: their brush with “snakey” black
music, gender-bending performers, moral rebellion, and interracial romance.
Meanwhile, Mitchell’s music makes use of all the formidable resources built up
over a lifetime of romance with the black muse. In its complex gapped shuffle
groove, seasoned jazz manner, digitally minted sound layers, and iridescent shift-
ing harmonies, the song is an expression of Mitchell’s style at its most ultra-cool.
The adult musician looks back with knowing fondness on the moment when she
first fantasized about being “on the inside.”
RETROSPECTIVE PROJECTS
For nearly ten years following Taming the Tiger, Mitchell discontinued songwrit-
ing.34 Instead, her musical energies were taken up in producing various compi-
lations and reinterpretations of her existing body of work. To some extent this
was a response to pressure from record companies for marketable “Greatest Hits”
anthologies; but in many of these projects Mitchell took the opportunity to shed
new light on her work as a whole, through unexpected juxtapositions, thematic
concepts, or new musical arrangements. The first compilation, Hits, appeared in

1996; Mitchell insisted on a companion anthology, Misses, of personal favorites
she wished to rescue from neglect.35 In Both Sides Now (2000), Mitchell debuted as
a big-band-style crooner, covering popular standards from the 1920s to the early
1970s (including two of her own) in lush orchestral arrangements. This unique
project was followed by no less than five compilations in the years 2002 through
2005: a hits anthology (Dreamland ), two thematic collections (The Beginning of
Survival and Songs of a Prairie Girl ), a box-set reissue of the four albums made
for Geffen, and the ambitious Travelogue, in which twenty-two of her songs from
across all periods receive expansive orchestral treatment.
The periodic framework outlined in this chapter does not represent the views
of the composer; it is my own schema, devised according to explicit criteria laid
out here. It is helpful for making general distinctions of style and sound but
shouldn’t take on a life of its own. I would not want the artificially sharp borders
between periods to blind us to strong musical ebbs and continuities across those
borders. Moreover, there are other ways besides periodization to make connec-
tions within a catalogue of over 150 songs, and make sense of a creative time
span of thirty-odd years. To illustrate one such countervailing path, I would like
to follow one of Mitchell’s most famous songs, “Woodstock,” as it has traveled
with her throughout her life. Among the small number of early favorites Mitchell
continued to perform in live appearances from the 1970s through the 1990s, this
song was unique in that she chose to thoroughly redesign its sound, not once
but twice. These changes in sound can be mapped consistently onto the periodic
framework. But if the framework is laid aside, Mitchell’s revisions of the song
suggest a distinct evolutionary narrative with a different set of turning points and
a continuing dialogue between the present and the past.
Mitchell wrote the song in August 1969 as the original Woodstock Festival
was taking place. However, she never actually made it to the festival herself.
Crosby, Stills, Nash and myself all went to the airport. Woodstock had been
declared a national disaster area, so we were informed that we couldn’t get
in and get out. I had to do The Dick Cavett Show the following day, so I left
the boys there, thinking they were going someplace else. But they rented
a helicopter. I felt left out. I really felt like the Girl. The Girl couldn’t
go, but the Boys could. I watched everything on TV. But I don’t know if
I would have written the song “Woodstock” if I had gone. I was the fan
that couldn’t go, not the performing animal. So it afforded me a different
perspective.36
In its first incarnation (released on LC, 1970), despite lyrics flush with utopian
dreams of peace and renewal, Mitchell conceives the song as a lament for solo

voice and keyboard in E Dorian. Bluesy keyboard passages introduce and close
the song. The vocal melody repeatedly aims upward for a tonic octave peak, only to
end by groveling in its lowest range (Ex. 2.7a). Mitchell creates a special mystical
aura through extreme vibrato in the electric piano, pentatonic harmony (including
exposed parallel fourths), dirge-like rhythms, and sobbing, sibylline backup vocals
at the end of every refrain. The long wordless vocal coda captures the song’s con-
tradictory emotional crux: having finally attained the melodic highpoint, Mitchell
allows her voice to go painfully raw as it gulps and throbs with loss. Perhaps not
surprisingly, this introverted original version was eclipsed in popularity by the
joyous Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cover (1970, Déjà Vu), which casts the song in
blues G major with a rock beat, departs from the original melody to hover around
the octave peak, and replaces the cadential downward drift on “garden” with an
ecstatic upward melisma (Ex. 2.7b).
The evolution of Mitchell’s own conception of “Woodstock” can be traced
from its subsequent appearances in her concert tours, as recorded on albums and
videos available in commercial release. The first concert album, Miles of Aisles,
captures a tour undertaken in 1974 with the L.A. Express; the expanded musi-
cal horizons due to that collaboration are palpable in striking new arrangements
of songs such as “The Last Time I Saw Richard” as well as new songs such as
“Jericho” (which would not be released in a studio version until three years later).
“Woodstock” closes side 1 of the double LP. The new arrangement is full of funk
attitude: drums and bass set down a leisurely beat while the rest of the band
fills in with varying degrees of nervous energy. The electric piano, formerly a
conduit of melancholy, now chimes in with offhand splashes of color. Mitchell’s
voice coasts above all this at its own deliberate pace, her vocal manner noticeably
lighter than in the 1970 version. The song has been transposed down from E
to B, bringing the melody within comfortable vocal range and relaxing the level
of tension. Nevertheless, the melody remains very close to the original, and the
effect is strangely double-faced, the voice retaining some of its former gravity and
passion while the band steps out with a very danceable, ebullient sound. Where
the refrain was once marked by melodic collapse, the voice now rises at this point
and takes on its sternest tones, as the entire band joins in a strongly marked
cadential progression (Ex. 2.7c).
This rock-band version of “Woodstock” seems to have been the brainchild of a
particular moment (and in fact it hasn’t dated well). In contrast, the next version
for electric guitar, first showcased in a 1979 tour (with Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays,
Jaco Pastorius, Michael Brecker, Don Alias, and the Persuasions), proved much
more enduring. The corresponding concert album, Shadows and Light (1980),
includes this song as its closing number—the only number in which Mitchell
performs alone.37 Where the keyboard version was drenched with desire for the

example 2.7. “woodstock,” chorus, four versions
a. From Ladies of the Canyon (1970)
We are star - - dust, we are gol -
A♭sus
den, And we got to get our - selves back to the
E♭m D♭sus
gar - - - - - - - -
E♭m7/B♭ A♭ A♭sus
- den.
E♭m
(continued)

example 2.7. (continued)
b. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, from Déjà Vu (1970)
C7 G7 C7
We are star - dust, we are gol - den, we are bill - ion year old car-
B♭ F
- bon, And we got to get our - selves back to the gar-
C G G7
- - - - - - - den.
state of innocence, the guitar version has a chilled, understated beauty, everything
crystalline and in place. The key is a comfortable C Aeolian; gravity and passion
have now completely given way to a cool jazz voice, breathy and streamlined.
Where melodic phrases in the original tended to linger and trail off well after
the harmonic resolution, now phrases are trimmed and punctuated clearly. On
guitar, Mitchell adapts the piano’s distinctive parallel-fourth motion (originally
employed to evade triadic harmony) into a stepwise countermelody with a sense
of rhythmic precision.38 She accentuates the rhythmic profile by slapping the
strings on the occasional backbeat and by marking the melodic highpoint (“we’re
golden”) with a pair of high chimed chords.
In short, Mitchell has reconceived the song by classicizing it. A few specific
comparisons of structural detail will help to illustrate the prevailing aesthetic.
The 1970 version used aspects of harmony and scansion to imbue its phrase
structure with a sense of urgent yearning. For instance, the subdominant chord
that has such prominence mostly occurs in suspended form (A-D-E), imply-
ing a resolution to an A triad without revealing whether that chord would be
major or minor. For this reason the mode of the song remains unclear (Dorian?
Aeolian?) until the very end of the refrain (“garden”), when the triadic quality
of the chord is revealed in passing as A major (i.e., Dorian). In particular, the
first section of the refrain (“We are stardust”) prolongs the sense of harmonic ten-
sion by sounding the Asus chord for four continuous bars (Ex. 2.7a). During
this passage, the melody climbs to its highpoint, but without the support of

harmonic resolution it collapses again. In contrast, the 1979 version makes use
of a simpler harmonic palette overall, based solely on clear iterations of i, iv,
and v—all definitely minor in quality (Ex. 2.7d). (The one exception is the F/G
chord at the end of the refrain, which admits a brief flicker of modal ambiguity.)
The inclusion of a dominant chord allows for more stable progressions. In the
crucial first section of the refrain, Mitchell aims for a completely different effect,
defusing the tension by loosening the phrase structure from four bars to five
example 2.7. “woodstock,” chorus, four versions

c. From Miles of Aisles (1974)
E D/E Bm G F♯m
We are star - dust, we are gol - den,
Bm A
And we got to get our - selves back to the
D/E Bm/D C♯m F♯m Bm
gar - - - - - - den.
d. From Shadows and Light (1979)
Fm11 Gm11 Cm11
We are star dust, we’re gol - den,
Fm11 Gm11
And we got to get our - selves back to the
Fm11 F/G C7sus
gar - den. Hmm

while changing the harmony so there is actually a strong cadence at this point
(iv-v-i), coinciding with the melodic highpoint arrival.39 Meanwhile, where the
original performance emphasized urgency by placing the words “And we got to”
at the point of tonic arrival, in the later version these words are passed over very
quickly before the first beat of the new bar. A final telling change occurs in the
treatment of the concluding word “garden”: originally charged with emotion
due to its collapsed range and its prolongation over three bars, in the later ver-
sion the word is quickly declaimed, leaving room for a coolly commentative hum
on a three-note turn. The lavish sorrow of the original cadence is here condensed
into this restrained melodic tag with a final note (F) that cuts ambivalently
across the tonic C minor.
The refashioning of “Woodstock” from an emotionally raw to a highly aes-
theticized form is multiply significant at this point in her career. She reminds lis-
teners of her authorship of this iconic song, already known as a rock classic. At the
same time, by putting an entirely new stamp on it, she reclaims it to some degree
from the associations acquired in its well-known CSNY incarnation. By fore-
grounding her aesthetic treatment she spotlights her technical skill as a composer
and arranger rather than her emotional prowess or immediacy. The unveiling of
this arrangement also comes at the end of a decade of tremendous popular success
and progressive musical exploration, thus confirming a kind of arrival at a peak of
creative power. Stylistically, by reference to a cool jazz persona, she acknowledges
her own individual journey to maturity through a dialogue with jazz. Finally,
in thematic terms, it is certainly significant that 1979 marks the ten-year anni-
versary of Woodstock and the song’s genesis. Mitchell’s musical revision can be
seen as adopting a new perspective on the social ideals captured in the song. In
her polish and detachment, Mitchell measures a retrospective distance from the
utopian groundswell of the youth movement and its exuberant, messy festivals.
Even in a short ten years, those ideals of radical social change had been notably
compromised by apathy, self-interest, commercial success, and exploitation. In
Mitchell’s new, chilly “Woodstock” the ideals of spiritual and earthly renewal are
not abandoned, but they take on an ironic poignancy in light of the intervening
evidence of all-too-human failings.40
In essence, it is this solo guitar arrangement that Mitchell returns to for the
next twenty years. The concert video Refuge of the Roads (from a 1983 tour) closes
with “Woodstock.” Only a few changes have been made since 1979, including
a striking vocal descent on “we’re golden,” and a return to the original melisma
on “garden.” Fifteen years later, her concert video Painting with Words and Music
(1998) also closes with “Woodstock.”41 Mitchell’s singing voice has passed into
its late state of repair, very husky and short of breath. This version of the song is
still based on the 1979 arrangement, though she has tinkered with the figuration

and mellowed the sound. Her playing is less percussive, omitting the slaps and
accented chimes. The guitar ritornello is longer, ringing yet another change on
the pentatonic, parallel-fourth motif. The accompanimental track is treated more
loosely throughout, open to spontaneous variations. She mixes in figural touches
strongly reminiscent of her 1994 song “Sex Kills,” and even mixes in temporary
shifts to a major tonic. In a tiny but resonant detail, where the 1979 and 1983
recordings remain open-ended, fading out on a harmonic loop, Mitchell uses her
new guitar break to bring the latest version to musical closure. Here is a clear
case where the evolution of general composerly style and the treatment of a single
signature song tell different stories. Despite the major stylistic shifts Mitchell
undertook in the 1980s and 1990s, her concept of “Woodstock” preserves the
retrospective tone and classicized image formed at the peak of her career.
Mitchell returned to the song yet again in Travelogue (2002), her two-disc
farewell project (as she conceived it at the time) featuring selections from her
catalogue in lush orchestral arrangements by Vince Mendoza. In this collection,
“Woodstock” is given no prominent position (the choice for closing number is
one of her earliest, “The Circle Game,” sentimental anthem to the passing years).
It is transposed down even further (to A!) to accommodate a sinking vocal range.
Mendoza’s arrangement takes off from the original keyboard version, turning its
pentatonic riffs into nebulous string clusters. After an extensive meditative pre-
lude, drums and horns enter, setting up a constant, quasi-military thrum as back-
ground for the voice. Sparkling harp highlights complete the timbral scheme.
The success of the orchestrations on this album I find hard to gauge. In terms
of pure sound, they are pleasurable immersions into a technically polished, vast
symphonic space. As arrangements, they tend to be unimaginative, never straying
too far from the revered original figuration. In expression, they are consistently
grandiose, occasionally lugubrious. This can come across at times as an ill fit with
the art-song scope of the material as well as with Mitchell’s small weary voice. At
times, however, the orchestral pomp allows for a dreamlike expansion of a song’s
original limits. As for “Woodstock,” the song’s carefully judged marriage of
homespun narration and visionary cosmology is overborne by the epic orchestral
gestures. The thrumming march is impressive and ominous, but uncomfortably
ambiguous in its signification—as if at this distance, the global warmongers and
the gathering crowds of countercultural pilgrims blur together in memory.
Even in this introductory survey, one encounters numerous signs that Joni Mitchell
is consciously seeking to bridge cultural traditions. Such signs show up in the
authorial discourse around her music: for instance, when she situates her work in
the context of high art figures (Picasso, Yeats, Beethoven) as well as figures from
popular music (Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, the Police); or when she uses

terms from art music (orchestral resources) to describe her approach to the guitar;
or when she freely intermingles ideals associated with fine art (sophistication)
and popular entertainment (infectious dance rhythms). They show up, of course,
in her composition of music and lyrics: song forms range from conventional to
through-composed; instrumental breaks can be well-spun hooks or rhapsodic
arabesques; lyrics bubbly or gravid; chord changes down to earth or twisting
through strange dimensions. “I Had a King” and “Amelia” make bids for art-
song status in their consistent high-mindedness and dense working of materials.
“Help Me” and “You Dream Flat Tires” are engaging pop songs, crafted with wit
and originality but without pretense. Other songs perch elsewhere along the con-
tinuum. Accordingly, analysis of Mitchell’s songwriting needs to be diversified in
its vocabulary and flexible in its aesthetic register. The following chapters set out
to explore the details of such an approach, beginning with poetic technique.

3
VOI CES AND PER SO N AE
VOCAL PRESENCE
Well before she began her career as a songwriter, Joni Mitchell was already paint-
ing and writing poems. She credits a charismatic seventh-grade teacher with her
discovery of poetry as an art form: “He encouraged us to write in any form that
we liked. Even at that age I enjoyed poetry, the structure of it, the dance of it, to
essays or any other form.”1 Her song lyrics on the whole are distinguished by their
literary quality; self-consciously so to begin with and more comfortably assimi-
lated as she matures. It might be surprising to learn, therefore, that Mitchell has
typically written lyrics to fit her music, rather than the other way around. In an
early interview, she explains, “I get the melody first and then I write out three
sets of lyrics before I’m satisfied. Usually I think the melody is too pretty for the
lyrics.”2 As this statement suggests, such a method does not preclude painstaking
attention to verbal design, and for the most part, her lyrics exhibit their own aes-
thetic integrity when considered outside their musical context. For these reasons,
in the following discussion I will refer to Mitchell’s lyrics as poems—keeping in
mind their special dimension as poems designed to be sung.3
Is there such a thing as a typical Joni Mitchell poem? There are many poems
in which she shows off her skills as a raconteur, such as “Barangrill” (FR) and
“Furry Sings the Blues” (H), with their wealth of anecdotal detail, or “Free Man
in Paris” (C&S), with its vivid character impersonation, or “Dry Cleaner from Des
Moines” (M), with its easy bantering tone.4 There are those in which she molds
poetry out of spontaneous conversation, whether chatty commonplaces (“All I
Want” [B]), furrowed-brow monologue (“Lesson in Survival” [FR]), or impas-
sioned unburdening (“River” [B]). Yet Mitchell can take just as much pleasure
in constructing verbal artifice: the free play of words and images is salient, for
instance, in the sequentially intermeshed stanzaic structure of “Roses Blue” (C)
(where the final word or phrase of each verse becomes the opening phrase of the
next), the Beat verbal collisions of “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire” (FR), or the
hallucinatory metamorphic symbolism of “The Jungle Line” (HSL). One favored
genre is the individual portrait, with an eye for colorful particulars of time and
place, and sharp, often biting observation of character (as in “The Last Time I
Saw Richard” [B], “Shades of Scarlett Conquering” [HSL], or “Otis and Marlena”
[DJRD]). On the other end of the spectrum, however, one finds poems that deal
in anonymous, archetypal emotions, as if in conscious imitation of a timeless folk
repertory (“The Fiddle and the Drum” [C], “The Circle Game” [LC], and “The
Silky Veils of Ardor” [DJRD]).
Such a range of poetic endeavor calls for a plural analytical approach. In chap-
ter 4 I will explore a cluster of overarching themes inspiring sustained treatment
amid the diversity of tone and voice. In this chapter I have chosen to focus on her
control over certain effects basic to the poetic utterance, namely, the illusion of
speaking voices and poetic personae. This will allow me both to survey the range
of effects at her disposal and to identify distinguishing features of her literary
style. The concept of “voice” is a well-used metaphor with an array of overlapping
connotations. In literary criticism it has a technical meaning, indicating the set
of conventions by which fictional speakers are dramatized or implied in a text.
In less technical parlance, “voice” can refer symbolically to the distinctive per-
sonality of an individual creative artist or suggest the expressive force of a social
identity more broadly (representing a Canadian “voice,” for example, or a female
“voice” within a male-dominated industry). In music the word has a literal refer-
ent (the organ of sound production) as well as a common metaphorical use, denot-
ing any melodic entity (“voices” in a contrapuntal texture). In addition, music
scholars have recently begun to test the value of the literary-critical concepts of
“persona” and “voice” (understood as referring to dramatic agents or fictional
sources of utterance) for the experience of music, with or without words.5 Song, as
an amalgam of music and poetry, is susceptible to every one of these connotations;
thus if we use “voice” as an analytical concept, we will need to clearly distinguish
its competing layers of metaphor.
In this chapter I intend to focus on “voice” in its literary-technical sense, indi-
cating the vivid fictional characters and implied speaking presences in Mitchell’s
poetry. In the medium of song, these fictional voices are performed in real time;
thus their dramatization depends on the skillful handling of the singing voice
as a way to embody poetic constructs. Since the early 1990s, Mitchell has often
spoken of vocal performance in terms of dramatic impersonation. When discuss-
ing her songwriting goals as a middle-aged woman, she says, “What I’d like
to do is experiment and create roles for myself.”6 When asked about her use of
guest singers on the album Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, she explains, “I’ll need
another voice to deliver a line, because [the songs] are like little plays.”7 When

asked whether she ever considers returning to her early songs, she replies, “I never
wanted to be a human jukebox. I think more like a film or a dramatic actress and a
playwright. These plays are more suitable to me. I feel miscast in my early songs.
They’re ingenue roles.”8 Given the vivid character portrayals for which she has
always been known as a performer, it’s remarkable that such theatrical metaphors
do not appear explicitly until late in her career.9 She explores this realization in
more detail in a radio interview:
I’ve been thinking [recently] about something Faye Dunaway said years
back. It was at a time when actresses were complaining that there were
no good roles for women, and there weren’t. All the roles were written by
men, and they were basically decorative parts and tits and ass; and she said
to me, “Joni, you’re lucky because you can create your own roles.” And I
hadn’t thought of it really that way, you know, I hadn’t focused on it as a
role. You know, I just thought they were songs. But really she’s [right],
they’re little plays, and I’m the playwright and I am the actress, and I’ve
written some songs, like “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire,” that I didn’t
have the right voice for, I don’t think, although maybe it’s interesting the
way it was. But I think that would be a good song for a man with more
grit in his voice to sing, to bring out the darkness of it, the soliloquy. . . . As
long as I can genuinely get into [the old material] and find something as
an actress, so to speak—because they are very theatrical, these songs—to
bring to the role, I have no problem with playing the old songs.10
The metaphor of dramatic roles is useful in that it emphasizes the importance

of vocal delivery while maintaining a clear distinction between the singer-
songwriter and the personae she brings to life. But it is potentially confusing in
that it collapses a host of poetic effects into the single mode of dramatic represen-
tation. Some of Mitchell’s poems are indeed framed as drama, but many are better
understood as narrative or lyric poems. Sometimes she foregrounds her narrative
or lyric personae as animated characters, while at other times they figure as subtle
background presences. We need more precision in our descriptive language to
account for the whole spectrum of effects in order to appreciate Mitchell’s rhetori-
cal command and versatility. In the first section of this chapter, I will introduce
a set of categories designed to distinguish the various literary and performative
elements that together create the illusion of fictional voices. The second section
will survey five specific persona types characteristic of Mitchell’s work. I will be
charting the categorical distinctions in succession, referring to a dense fabric of
examples taken from her entire output. The categories will prove useful concep-
tual tools in the more sweeping view of poetic themes undertaken in chapter 4.
VOICES AND PERSONAE | 43

Some readers may prefer to skip the first section of this chapter to begin with,
returning to it as needed to clarify specific categories as they arise.
Mode
The first aspect to consider is the general manner in which a poem addresses its
audience. What kind of communicative relation is presumed between the poetic
speaker and her hypothetical listeners? This involves distinctions between vari-
ous imaginary speech situations. While in actual terms, Mitchell’s songs were all
intended for oral performance (either live with an actual audience present or sim-
ulated in recorded form with little authorial control over the listening situation),
in fictional terms, they present themselves according to four different modes of
artistic enunciation: dramatic, narrative, lyric, and political. These modes can
be distinguished by the different roles they assign to the singer as well as to the
implied audience. In the following classification I am using terms common to
discussions of poetic genre, without subscribing to any particular system.11 It is
not my project in this book to theorize songwriting genres in any systematic way,
nor to worry too much about airtight classification by genre category. I will be
referring to established musical and poetic genres and subgenres pragmatically
as they figure in my chosen examples. But for the moment my analytical lens is
trained on the dynamics of audience address as fictionally presented within the
encompassing medium of sung poetry.12
Dramatic
Poetry in the dramatic mode consists of words spoken directly by fictional char-
acters, thus resembling a scene or monologue from a play. Scenes may feature a
single character, or several; the singer impersonates different characters as they
appear. The audience is placed in a kind of spectator role (but without the visual
component), observing the drama from the other side of a virtual proscenium. (A
possible term for this special auditory role would be “closet spectator,” by analogy
with so-called closet drama, i.e., unstaged dramatic reading.)
An early example of dramatic address is found in “The Pirate of Penance”
(SS), for which the names of the speaking characters are labeled explicitly in the
printed poem. The main character is Penance Crane, a woman living in a harbor
town. Initially she sounds detached from the tale she relates, of a pirate who has
had his way with a cabaret dancer and then stolen off at dawn. But as the song
continues it becomes clear that Penance is personally involved. She bursts out as
if in answer to unseen accusers: “It isn’t true I hardly knew him.” Eventually we
learn that a murder has taken place (but who is dead?); Penance protests her inno-
cence. Meanwhile, the Dancer also has a speaking part, recalling her rendezvous

with the pirate and implicating Penance in the past events. The dialogue of the
two characters overlaps in performance; Mitchell distinguishes the voice of the
Dancer through a slower, more languid speech pattern, and by mixing her vocal
part low, as if she is speaking from a distance.
A late example occurs in “The Sire of Sorrow (Job’s Sad Song)” (TI), a rework-
ing of Job’s dramatic dialogues from Scripture. In the Bible, Job’s long diatribes
alternate with responses and reproach from his three friends. Mitchell condenses
these responses into a chorus of “Antagonists” whose interspersed comments are
harsh and comfortless. Both of these songs represent the dramatic mode in its pure
form: the entire poem is cast in direct speech, the only speakers being characters
in the drama. In other songs, Mitchell introduces dramatic speech by means of
a framing narrative voice. Thus in “Raised on Robbery” (C&S), an introductory
section (four lines long) describes the setting and main characters, ending in “She
says . . .”; the body of the song (four verses) then adopts the voice of the “lady in
lacy sleeves” trying to pick up the man in the hotel lounge. A similar introduc-
tion occurs in “The Beat of Black Wings” (CMRS), though in this case the fram-
ing narrator is present in the dramatic scene and speaks in the first person (“I met
a young soldier”). In “Free Man in Paris” (C&S), the narrative frame is reduced to
two words (“he said”); otherwise the song is a monologue spoken by the unnamed
music business executive. When such speaking characters occupy the body of the
song and the introduction is minimal, the effect is comparable to that of dra-
matic address (though impure in mode). (Some well-known examples of purely
dramatic songs include the Shangri-Las’ “Leader of the Pack,” the Rolling Stones’
“Sympathy for the Devil,” Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” Queen’s “Bohemian
Rhapsody,” and the character songs that make up the Who’s Tommy.)
Narrative
In this mode, the singer takes the role of storyteller while the listener is positioned
as the recipient of the story (sometimes called the “narratee”). Thus a narrative
song implies a direct communicative role between listeners and singer, who is
understood as telling the story to them. (A dramatic song, by contrast, presents
fictional characters who speak to each other and are overheard by the audience.)
Some songs from the folk revival scene make this relationship with the audience
quite explicit, as in Bob Dylan’s “North Country Blues” (1963), which begins
with the familiar ploy: “Come gather ’round friends/And I’ll tell you a tale.” But
even when the invitation is not put into words, the intent is still to draw listen-
ers in with the lure of a well-told tale. So, for instance, when Mitchell begins
a song “He comes for conversation/I comfort him sometimes,” she sets up an
intriguing situation while only gradually revealing the full circumstances of the
story. There are myriad examples of narrative songs in Mitchell’s work: stories

of troubled love affairs (as in “Conversation” [LC]), reminiscences of childhood
(“Cherokee Louise” [NRH]), comic vignettes (“Dry Cleaner from Des Moines”
[M]), and quasi-mystical encounters (“Woodstock” [LC]). Narrating voices may
signal their presence to a greater or lesser degree: they may be implicit or dra-
matized, objective about described events or personally involved in them. (Such
distinctions will be considered below under “Syntax.”)
Lyric
Lyric poetry is generally understood to convey “a state of mind or a process of
perception, thought, and feeling” from the perspective of an expressive subject.13
As for the audience presumed by lyric poetry, I quote literary critic Northrop
Frye: “The lyric is . . . preeminently the utterance that is overheard. The lyric
poet normally pretends to be talking to himself or to someone else: a spirit of
nature, a Muse, . . . a personal friend, a lover, a god, a personified abstraction, or
a natural object.”14 In contrast to dramatic poems (also “overheard” by the audi-
ence), lyric poems are typically spoken in a voice that approximates the voice of
the poet. Thus when Wordsworth, in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,”
writes: “For oft, when on my couch I lie/In vacant or in pensive mood,” we are
invited to take these words as the thoughts of the poet himself rather than those
of a fictional character. The same is true of statements such as this one, from
Mitchell’s song “Amelia” (H): “Maybe I’ve never really loved/I guess that is the
truth/I’ve spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitudes.” But not all lyric speak-
ers are autobiographical in this way; some may be conventionalized or invented
poetic personae.15 “A Chair in the Sky” (M) is a lyric song taking the persona of
Charles Mingus.
The purely lyric utterance entails a scene of reflection rather than one of dramatic
action. The audience is granted special access to the thoughts of the poetic persona,
as vocalized in an imaginary monologue or a one-sided dialogue. For the most part,
“Amelia” gives the impression of solitary contemplation; but in the refrain closing
every verse, Mitchell addresses Amelia Earhart as a kind of personal muse. Another
poem addressed to a muse is “Impossible Dreamer” (DED); the unnamed dreamer
represents the spirit of political visionaries such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Many of
Mitchell’s lyric songs are addressed to lovers (“Woman of Heart and Mind” [FR],
“Blue” [B], “Jericho” [DJRD]), some to personal friends (“Song for Sharon” [H],
“Chinese Café” [WTRF]). “Song to a Seagull” (SS) is spoken to a seabird, represent-
ing a romanticized “spirit of nature” (in the tradition identified by Frye). In “Sweet
Bird” (HSL), the apostrophized bird figure is a personified abstraction representing
lost youth. (Compare Paul Simon’s “The Sound of Silence,” also addressed to a per-
sonified abstraction: “Hello darkness, my old friend.”)

Political
Political poetry aims to communicate a set of ethical beliefs or highlight an urgent
social problem. It also appeals to a collective audience by affirming shared values
or rallying listeners to a common cause. Sometimes such lyrics will imply group
singing, where individuals merge in a communal “we” (as in the traditional “We
Shall Overcome”); though it is rare for Mitchell to relinquish her individuality
in this way. When the issue is specific and the goal of agitation is overt, this is
known as a protest song. But political poetry can take more indirect forms. Thus
songs such as Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and John Lennon’s “Imagine,”
while advocating political causes, employ nonspecific, even mythicized images
and a rhetoric of metaphysical questioning rather than activism. (Of course, such
songs have certainly been used as protest songs by groups of activists.) Mitchell’s
political songs cover a number of different issues, including war (“The Fiddle and
the Drum” [C]), the environment (“Big Yellow Taxi” [LC]), poverty (“Banquet”
[FR]), the media (“Fiction” [DED]), aboriginal rights (“Lakota” [CMRS]), and
spousal abuse (“Not to Blame” [TI]). In “The Fiddle and the Drum,” the poet first
addresses a soldier, trying to persuade him to relinquish warfare. The second half of
the poem repeats the plea, this time addressed to “America,” the poet now adopt-
ing a communal voice: “We have all come/To fear the beating of your drum.”
Some of Mitchell’s political songs move in and out of a lyric voice. Thus in
“Banquet,” the verses speak in general terms of social inequity; the bridge section,
however, turns to a lyric perspective: “I took my share down by the sea.” There are
other hybrid modes as well: “The Beat of Black Wings” (CMRS) is a quasi-dramatic
song (with a narrative frame, as discussed above) with a strong anti-war message.
This brings up the possibility of mixing modes, a common practice in Mitchell’s
work and in fact common in poetry generally. Canonic lyric poems routinely incor-
porate narrative passages. The Wordsworth poem alluded to earlier begins with such
a passage (“I wandered lonely as a cloud . . . When all at once I saw . . .”), crucial to the
effect of lyric reflection at the poem’s end. One type of hybrid is even recognized as
its own subgenre: the so-called dramatic lyric (a favorite genre of Robert Browning),
which captures the lyric utterance of a single speaker, caught in “an identifiable
situation at a dramatic moment” and often interacting with other characters.16 The
speaker may be the poet, as in “Carey” (B), set in a particular locale in Crete as a
conversation with a friend as the two prepare to go out for the evening; or “Off
Night Backstreet” (DJRD), addressed to an unfaithful lover and calling him on the
carpet for his actions. Or the speaker may be a fictional character, as in “Two Grey
Rooms” (NRH), based on a gay man’s unrequited love and the lengths to which he
goes to observe the object of his infatuation; or “The Magdalene Laundries” (TI),
spoken by a pregnant girl committed to a Catholic house of charity and dramatizing

a particular moment (“Peg O’Connell died today”). (General examples of dramatic
lyrics include songs in which the singer is in the process of writing a letter [as in the
Jenkins/Mercer song “P.S. I Love You”], conversing on the telephone [ Jim Croce’s
“Operator”], or seducing a lover [a recurring genre for Prince].) Numerous songs
move freely between modes of address as I have defined them here. Thus the modes
should not be considered fixed and globally controlling but miscible and interactive.
Representation
A second basic aspect of poetic technique concerns broad questions of representa-
tion—how the poet chooses to depict specific fictional worlds. This may seem at
first glance to have little to do with “voice,” since the verbs commonly used to
describe this aspect (“depict,” “portray”) invoke visual metaphors, more appropri-
ate to painterly rather than vocal personae. But the topic does have a bearing on
the implied presences in poetry: first, poetic representation, being verbal, is often
attributable to the various lyric, narrative, or dramatic voices (speaking presences)
we have already distinguished. Second, modes of representation involve differ-
ent perceptual filters, determining what kinds of observed or intellectual detail
dominate the poetic (and the listeners’) perspective and thus contributing to the
effect of a perceiving presence. Third, the depicted worlds furnish the situations in
which the poems’ characters find themselves. I will briefly discuss four representa-
tional categories important in Mitchell’s work.
Realistic
Many poems take place in the everyday world. Reality is represented through the
description of ordinary physical and social surroundings, human actions and emo-
tions. “Barangrill” (FR), for instance, is set in a truck stop. The poetic speaker (a
blend of lyric and narrative) describes her observations of the commonplace scene:
the conversation and attire of the waitresses, the personal charm of the gas sta-
tion attendant as well as her own concurrent thoughts and yearnings. (Compare
the similar lyric/narrative mode and realistic representation in Paul Simon’s
“Homeward Bound.”) In “Help Me” (C&S), a lyric speaker expresses familiar
feelings of vulnerability at the beginning of a love affair. She offers no details
concerning the physical setting, but her descriptions of emotion, character, and
actions (dancing, talking, flirting) depict common experiences from real life.
Mythic
In contrast, some poems describe their settings and actions in terms more pictur-
esque, idealized, or mysterious than everyday life. Thus in “The Dawntreader” (SS),
the lyric speaker refers to clothing as “satins” and money as “silver.” The seaside

setting evokes images of mermaid colonies and brilliant underwater treasure. The
human encounter at the heart of the poem may well have been inspired by an actual
occurrence, but it is poetically cast as a romantic fantasy, filtered through an ideal-
ized archaic outlook that suggests magical access to a world of dreams. (Compare
David Crosby’s “Guinnevere.”) The song “Blue” (B) works in a similar way to por-
tray a contemporary human relationship in terms of romanticized seafaring imag-
ery rather than realistic detail. Specific negotiations over personal commitment
are transformed into the poetic plea: “Crown and anchor me/Or let me sail away.”
(Thus the explicit reference to drugs [“acid,” “needles”] and guns has a harsh, intru-
sive effect.) I use the term “mythic” for this category to indicate the typical recourse
to collective, primal symbols (castles, mermaids, lost Edens, and the like).
Aesthetic
In certain poems, real-world referents seem less important than the aesthetic
qualities of the verbal constructions. An interest in decorative or conceptual arti-
fice is foregrounded to the point where connections to represented objects become
tenuous. In “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire” (FR), for instance, the actual details
of the situation (a drug addict in need of a fix) are subsumed in a kind of verbal
free play. People and things lose their real names and sprout fanciful titles. Words
surrealistically cluster and combine according to their textural properties:
Underneath the jungle gym

Hollow-grey-fire-escape-thief
Looking for Sweet Fire
Shadow of Lady Release
(Compare the verbal free play in songs such as Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick
Blues,” Paul Simon’s “Mrs. Robinson,” and David Bowie’s “Jean Genie.”) In this
representational category, the emphasis is on verbal and symbolic patterning rather
than closeness to objective reality. Symbols tend to be newly invented, rather than
taken from the collective repository of myth. Thus the song “Electricity” (FR)
expands on an ironic metaphor whereby romantic attraction is portrayed as faulty
wiring, held together by makeshift repairs:
The masking tape tangles

It’s sticky and black
And the copper
Proud headed Queen Lizzie
Conducts little charges
That don’t get charged back
Well the technical manual’s busy

“The Jungle Line” (HSL) is a virtuosic display of metaphoric substitution, in
which images of modern Manhattan jazz clubs dreamily disconnect and merge
with images suggesting an African American racial memory, overseen by a dis-
embodied, ambiguously raced primitivizing presence (identified with the painter
Rousseau).
Philosophical
Finally, some poems are primarily taken up with philosophical discourse. They
expound on metaphysical principles and the basic conditions of existence rather
than the details of particular lives. To this category belong the songs “Love”
(WTRF), a reworking of Paul’s famous sermon from I Corinthians, chapter 13,
and “Shadows and Light” (HSL), a lesson in Manichaean dualism. On a less exalted
level, the personal details at the heart of “Down to You” (C&S) are framed by pas-
sages contemplating the transience of fortune and desire.
Syntax
One of the most overt ways to create the illusion of poetic speakers is through
clues indicating grammatical person. Many lyric and narrative poems are spoken
in a voice explicitly claiming the first-person “I.” Some poems flesh out the sense
of an immediate speaking situation by addressing a second-person “you.” Other
poems, however, avoid such overt clues, treating the speaking voice as an implied
presence. One common technique in such cases is for the implicit poetic speaker
to describe a scene or story entirely from the perspective of a third-person central
character. In this subsection I will discuss different syntactical constructions of
voice and perspective and their rhetorical effects.
Explicit speakers
Fi rs t-perso n su b j e c t The explicit personalized voice is common coin
in the singer-songwriter genre, revealing a historical link to the Romantic lyric
poem. Given this extended exploration of the expressive possibilities of first-per-
son utterance, we can expect to find a rich and complex field of signification
within this grammatical category. One distinction to note at the outset is whether
the speaker is identified as singular or plural. The plural “we” is less common and
thus a special case, suggesting a folky inclusiveness, or occasionally, more eccen-
tric groupings (as in the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”). A famous example of the
plural subject expressing a common human condition occurs in the chorus of
“The Circle Game” (LC): “We can’t return we can only look behind/From where
we came.” A more eccentric community is portrayed in “Sisotowbell Lane” (SS):
“We have a rocking chair/Each of us rocks his share.”

As for the singular speakers, some seem to be autobiographical while others are
clearly fictional roles. The “I” voice in “A Chair in the Sky” (M) belongs to Charles
Mingus (as Mitchell imagines him); in “The Magdalene Laundries” (TI), it is a
fictional unwed mother who speaks. On the other hand, all of the songs on the
album Hejira use an “I” virtually identical with the songwriter herself, recording
her thoughts and preoccupations at the time of writing and referring to autobi-
ographical details. There are also cases when the line between fiction and autobi-
ography is blurred. “The Priest” (LC), for instance, relates a fraught romantic
encounter with great immediacy; but without extratextual information there is
no way to verify whether Mitchell is recalling something from her own experience
or projecting herself into an intriguing fictional role.
In many songs, the first-person subject speaks in soliloquy, as if to herself.
Such a reflexive address is evident in “River” (B), with its stream of reminiscence,
hand-wringing, and internal remonstration:
I’m so hard to handle

I’m selfish and I’m sad
Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
A later example, less “confessional” in tone but still presented as interior mono-
logue, is “The Only Joy in Town” (NRH): “I want to paint a picture/Botticelli
style/Instead of Venus on a clam/I’d paint this flower child.” Equally numerous,
however, are those songs using second-person address, that is, direct speech to an
explicit “you.” Direct dialogue can create a vivid sense of spontaneous emotions
and possibilities, as in “All I Want” (B): “Do you want to take a chance/on maybe
finding some sweet romance with me baby/Well, come on.” Or it can present a
more measured, ruminative conversation, as in “Chinese Café” (WTRF): “Caught
in the middle/Carol, we’re middle class/We’re middle aged.” But in either case it
is less self-enclosed than the reflexive voice. Second-person address captures the
poetic speaker interacting with another person and thus gestures toward a dra-
matic scene, whether of seduction, accusation, or long-distance correspondence
(“For the Roses” [FR], “Song for Sharon” [H]).
Some first-person (reflexive) speakers focus their attention on another central
character, not as a second-person addressee but as a third-person object. (“The
Priest” and “The Only Joy in Town” are examples.) Thus in “Conversation” (LC),
the speaker doesn’t directly enact the conversation of the title but rather tells a
story about her unrequited love for a married man, in the third person: “I only
say hello/And turn away before his lady knows/How much I want to see him.”

In such cases, the speakers may be dramatized or undramatized. This distinction
originates with narrative theorist Wayne Booth, who explains how “many novels
dramatize their narrators with great fulness, making them into characters who are
as vivid as those they tell us about,” while other narrators, even if explicitly pre-
sented as “I,” are “given no personal characteristics whatever.”17 (While Booth is
discussing narration, I believe the distinction is also applicable to lyric voices. In
any case, lyric and narrative modes are often inextricably combined in Mitchell’s
poetry.) The narrator in “Conversation” is fully dramatized, relating her personal
involvement in the situation. Likewise, in “Furry Sings the Blues” (H), Mitchell
sketches a third-person portrait of a singer (Furry Lewis) fallen on hard times
while at the same time including precise details about her visit to his house (she
came by limo, bringing gifts), her observations of the neighborhood, and her feel-
ings about Furry’s music. On the other hand, the first-person speaker in “Roses
Blue” (C) is exiguous, taking up the story of a character who has lost her way in
occult practices (“I think of Rose, my heart begins to tremble”) without confiding
any significant details about her own personality or involvement in the situation.
The emphasis here is on the third-person object rather than the speaker. Another
example of an undramatized speaker is found in “Marcie” (SS). In fact, this song
has no explicit speaker until the final verse, when a first-person voice unexpect-
edly appears: “Marcie leaves and doesn’t tell us/Where or why she moved away.”
The songwriter neglects to reveal any more about this shadowy “us.”
Second-person subject In a limited number of songs, Mitchell casts the

reflexive speaking voice in the second person. That is, the subject of the poem
speaks of herself as “you” rather than “I.” This syntactic move is striking in
its divergence from everyday linguistic usage; nor does it have any obvious
precedent in nineteenth-century lyric poetry. Instead, the immediate influence
is the poetry of Leonard Cohen, specifically the song “Suzanne” that uses the
device throughout (“Suzanne takes you down/to her place near the river”).18
Early examples from Mitchell’s work include “Michael from Mountains” (SS),
“Little Green” (B), and the unreleased song “The Wizard of Is” (1966). Whereas
first-person songs are typically set in the past tense, second-person songs are in
the present: “Michael wakes you up with sweets/He takes you up streets and the
rain comes down.” Thus in temporal terms they have a special immediacy, even
as in psychological terms they create a unique doubling or mirroring effect. The
listener is given the same kind of access to the speaker’s thought processes as in
first-person poetry, but the speaker addresses herself through a poetic conven-
tion as another person: “You want to know all/But his mountains have called
so you never do—.”19 In one sense, this reinforces the self-enclosed, reflexive
aspect of the speaking situation (soliloquy), but in another sense, by using the

typically outward-directed second person, the songwriter makes it easier for the
listener to identify with her subjective experience and enter into that psychi-
cally enclosed space of reflection. The only other Joni Mitchell songs using this
device are “Barangrill” (FR) and possibly “Down to You” and “Trouble Child”
(both C&S), though these are ambiguous (they will be discussed below under
the second-person focal category).
Implicit speakers
Thi rd -perso n fo c a l c ha r a c t e r There are many poems in which the
speaker does not lexically introduce herself as an “I” or “you” but remains an
implicit linguistic presence. In Mitchell’s poetic practice, virtually all such poems
are focalized through a central character: that is, the narrative or scenic situation
is described from that character’s perspective, following his or her actions and
thoughts. (The term “focalization” originates with Gérard Genette.) 20 This does
not mean that the speaker and the character are the same; we should recognize
the distinction between the experiential perspective of the character and the poetic
voice, which may reveal a certain distance from the focal character through irony
or other forms of commentary.
In “Blue Boy” (LC), the scene is focalized through a love-smitten lady, whose
self-abasing worship of a unresponsive lover eventually turns her to stone, in a
reversal of the Galatea myth. The poem unfolds by way of the lady’s thoughts and
perceptions:
She would wake in the morning

Without him
And go to the window
And look out through the pain
But the statue in her garden
He always looked the same
In this case one does have the impression that the poetic speaker has wholeheart-
edly projected herself into the lady’s tragic perspective. It is hard to detect any
verbal clues of perceptual distance; and in performance, Mitchell abandons herself
to a painful emotional vulnerability. The situation is very different, however, in
“Shades of Scarlett Conquering” (HSL). The poem still presents the experiential
focus of a central character, this time haughty and vain:
She comes from a school of southern charm

She likes to have things her way
Any man in the world holding out his arm
Would soon be made to pay

But the poetic voice constantly distances itself from the latter-day Scarlett’s atti-
tudes and behavior. From the first, her emotions are portrayed as false and the-
atrical (“Mimicking tenderness she sees/In sentimental movies”). The implied
speaker conveys a tartly ironic tone, disguising a criticism of the self-centered
heroine as a compliment: “It is not easy to be brave/[. . .]/To carry the weight of
all that greed.” The song “Sunny Sunday” (TI) presents a third possible relation
between voice and perspective. Here the narrative voice remains rather detached
from the solitary main character, reporting her odd actions (shooting a pistol at
the streetlight) but not her feelings. There is only one moment when we gain
access to an inner thought: “That one little victory, that’s all she needs!” At the
same time, the speaker mostly refrains from commentary or critique: only one lit-
erary simile betrays an external commenting presence: “She dodges the light like
Blanche DuBois.” This type of objective speaker is more distant than the empa-
thetic voice of “Blue Boy,” yet less obtrusive than the critical voice of “Scarlett.”
In general, third-person focal characters are taken to be fictional, but there are a
few exceptions where the “she” of the poem refers to an autobiographical persona.
One clear example is “Ladies of the Canyon” (LC), which makes reference to the
bohemian enclave of Laurel Canyon, Mitchell’s home at the time, while painting
a stylized self-portrait. Mitchell’s various talents as visual artist, homemaker, and
songwriter are personified as three separate archetypal female characters. Another
example, “Cactus Tree” (SS), is less precise in its autobiographical references, but
in the context of the personal geography set out in the album, the “lady in the
city” suggests Mitchell’s own perspective. Though it’s told in the third person,
we understand the central conflict between romance and independence to express
the songwriter’s own dilemma. Once again, by casting her portrait in the third
person, she translates personal traits into archetypes: the poet as heartbreaker and
rolling stone. Note that this poem’s refrain uses an obtrusive voice, commenting
ironically on the choices made by the protagonist: “she’s so busy being free.” Thus
her internal conflict is not only thematized but it is also expressed structurally in
the distance between Mitchell-as-focal-character and Mitchell-as-poetic-speaker.
Second-person focal character In a limited number of songs, the

scene is focalized through a character addressed as “you.” Even though there is no
explicit “I” persona, the second-person address strongly conjures up an implied
speaker. An example is found in “Judgment of the Moon and Stars” (FR), focalized
through famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The poetic voice empathizes
with the composer’s frustration due to his loss of hearing: “Cold white keys under
your fingers/Now you’re thinking/‘That’s no substitute.’” The poem ends with
an extended exhortation as if in direct dialogue with the composer: “You’ve got
to shake your fists at lightning now/You’ve got to roar like forest fire.” A similar

device is used in “Blonde in the Bleachers” (FR), whose focal character is a “Rock
’n’ Roll man”: “She follows you home/But you miss living alone/You can still hear
sweet mysteries/Calling you.”
Note that second-person address can appear in three different speaking situ-
ations, according to the syntactic categories I have outlined: first-person subject,
second-person subject, and second-person focal character. The latter two (lacking
“I” pronouns) are distinguishable by whether the pronoun “you” refers to the
poet herself or a fictional character whose perspective guides the discourse. Given
that autobiographical experience tends to be aestheticized and fictionalized when
cast in poetic form, one can see how such a distinction may blur, and Mitchell
exploits this unique ambiguity in two songs (both from C&S).21 “Down to You”
is a wry meditation on the transience of love and moral certainty. It starts out
sounding like a second-person monologue, the poet talking to herself (or possibly
using “you” in the general sense of “one”): “Things that you held high/And told
yourself were true/Lost or changing as the days come down to you.” But then she
begins to address what seems like another character: “Constant stranger/You’re a
kind person/You’re a cold person too.” Is this stranger a focal character or is the
poet still speaking to herself as an object of self-analysis? The following (bridge)
section turns from abstract thoughts to concrete anecdotal detail: “You go down
to the pick up station/Craving warmth and beauty/You settle for less than fasci-
nation/A few drinks later you’re not so choosy.” This passage can be read either
as a focalization through a fictional (male?) character, or as a less-than-flattering
personal confession (in second person). The syntax allows either reading.22
“Trouble Child” also maintains a grammatical illusion of contradictory per-
spective: either second-person subject or second-person focalization. There are
few clues pointing strongly one way or the other. The main character is appar-
ently hospitalized for reasons of mental health:
Up in a sterilized room
Where they let you be lazy
Knowing your attitude’s all wrong
And you got to change
And that’s not easy
Our access to his or her thoughts means either that the “trouble child” is engaged
in a soliloquy or that an empathetic voice has charge of the discourse. At the end,
it sounds like the poetic voice is finally establishing a bit of distance to comment
on the situation: “Well some are going to knock you/And some’ll try and clock
you/You know it’s really hard/To talk sense to you.” But this could conceivably
still represent an interior voice driven to argue with itself. And in fact such a read-
ing, where the exasperated subject is “breaking” down into separate components,

is made likely by the segue into the next song, “Twisted,” a humorous first-person
take on the same scene of psychoanalysis and split personality.
Diction
Poetic speakers are characterized through the things they talk about, but they
are also characterized through their vocabulary. Even undramatized or implicit
speakers may reveal a tangible persona by their choice of words. One broad dis-
tinction to be made is whether a speaker chooses to employ everyday language or
some form of heightened, “poetic” language. Some poems are deliberately home-
spun. “Morning Morgantown” (LC), for instance, is about simple pleasures in an
idyllic town. The speaker suggests an innocent, fresh persona through her consis-
tent use of utterly common words: “We’ll rise up early with the sun/To ride the
bus while everyone is yawning/And the day is young/In morning, Morgantown.”
The speaker in “Woman of Heart and Mind” (FR) also uses thoroughly ordinary
diction, but the effect is different. Worldly wise, she is using bluntness to cut
through bullshit:
Is it all books and words

Or do you really feel it?
Do you really laugh?
Do you really care?
Do you really smile
When you smile?
She also descends for a moment into vulgar speech to make a point:
Nothing seems to keep you high

Drive your bargains
Push your papers
Win your medals
Fuck your strangers
Don’t it leave you on the empty side
In another variation on everyday speech, there are songs in which Mitchell cul-
tivates a colloquial manner to create an especially approachable persona. This is
the case with “Big Yellow Taxi” (LC) and its casual contractions: “Don’t it always
seem to go/That you don’t know what you’ve got/Till it’s gone.” She uses collo-
quialism to portray the working-class woman looking for a pickup in “Raised on
Robbery” (C&S): “You know you ain’t bad looking/I like the way you hold your
drinks/Come home with me honey/I ain’t asking for no full length mink.” But
she has also used it to express complex emotions in terms that are down to earth.

In “The Same Situation” (C&S), the character is in an existential quandary, but
her words are familiar and unintimidating:
With heaven full of astronauts

And the Lord on death row
While the millions of his lost and lonely ones
Call out and clamor to be found
Caught in their struggle for higher positions
And their search for love that sticks around
In “Be Cool” (WTRF), there is no explicit speaker, but the colloquial diction cre-
ates a strong impression of one: “Don’t whine/Kiss off that flaky valentine/You’re
nobody’s fool.”
But of course, while adept at the common touch, Mitchell is well known for
the intellectual aspects of her verse—both in its subject matter and in her ease
with sophisticated turns of phrase. In “Hejira” (H) she takes the everyday stuff
of love trouble and voices her thoughts through a hyperarticulate persona: “In
our possessive coupling/So much could not be expressed/So now I am returning
to myself/Those things that you and I suppressed.” In “The Boho Dance” (HSL),
the speaker’s freedom to move between bohemia and the glamour set is expressed
verbally as well, with unpretentious phrases like “hard-time,” “working cheap,”
and “runs in her nylons” jostling with lexical sophisticates such as “affectation,”
“stricken,” and “capsulized.”
The turn to a markedly poetic language can take several forms. It can intro-
duce an archaic register, as in “Nathan La Franeer” (SS), where calling a taxi
becomes “I hired a coach,” and urban commotion is described as “the bedlam
of the day.” The second verse of “Rainy Night House” (LC) contains a strik-
ing temporary modulation to archaic diction: “You are a holy man/On the FM
radio/I sat up all the night and watched thee/To see, who in the world you
might be.” “Holy man” is already evocative of premodern religious imagery,
but by importing “thee” into the contemporary discourse, the speaker imbues
the moment with a special aura of veneration, as if setting a halo above her
lover’s face.
Poetic language can be a matter of stylization, employing more formal cadences
than everyday speech, as in the first verse of “Little Green” (B):
Born with the moon in Cancer
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who have made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer

Here contractions are avoided, phrases are repeated for their melodic effect, and
the consciously artificial address creates a strong sense of ceremony. In this case
the formalized language is a sort of response to the trauma of giving up a child
for adoption, with the poem taking the form of a letter of farewell, a bittersweet
keepsake for the lost child. Stylized language can also result from elaborately con-
structed imagery, as in “Love or Money” (MA): “Vaguely she floats and lacelike/
Blown in like a curtain on the night wind/She’s nebulous and naked/He wonders
where she’s been.” In “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” (DJRD), Mitchell employs
an extended symbolic pattern whereby she casts herself and her romantic partner
as the opposing poles of a dialectical pair, which transmutes dizzyingly into other
dual images—eagle/snake, airplane/train, reason/desire:
We’re going to come up to the eyes of clarity

And we’ll go down to the beads of guile
There is danger and education
In living out such a reckless life style
I touched you on the central plains
It was plane to train my twin
It was just plane shadow to train shadow
But to me it was skin to skin
Though the vocabulary is unassuming here, the image structure is complex, mov-
ing through multiple layers of abstraction, while the verbal cadences have a high
density of internal rhyme and recursive patterning.
There are cases where stylization is exaggerated for a special effect. For
instance, in “Songs to Aging Children Come” (C), psychedelic apparitions and
stilted language go hand in hand (“Does the moon play only silver/When it
strums the galaxy/Dying roses will they will their/Perfumed rhapsodies to me”).
“Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” (HSL) toys with deliberately opaque imagery and
obscure contortions of grammar:
A room full of glasses

He says “Your notches liberation doll”
And he chains me with that serpent
To that Ethiopian wall
In this poem, one of Mitchell’s thorniest, the main characters are engaged in
personal combat over a woman’s proper place. Some of the male chauvinist’s state-
ments sound like defective English, brutally stripped of connective particles. But
even the female speaker’s lines come across as dangerously disconnected, as if
outrage is making it hard for her to marshal her thoughts (“Don’t interrupt the
sorrow/Darn right/In flames our prophet witches/Be polite”).

Of course ordinary and poetic diction do not remain segregated. Some of the
most interesting effects arise from counterpoint between the two. Thus “The
Wolf That Lives in Lindsey” (M) plays with a tonal ambiguity. Diction is fluid,
passing quickly from high-flown to veristic:
There lives a wolf in Lindsey

That raids and runs
Through the hills of Hollywood
And the downtown slums
The interpenetration of poetic register creates a double image: does the poem’s
language aestheticize degraded subject matter (crime and moral corruption) or
does it attempt to bring a lofty philosophical disquisition down to earth? The
inconstant tone resonates with the poem’s portrayal of glamorous amorality. In
“Dog Eat Dog” (DED), on the other hand, the passage from low to high is sudden
and complete. The body of the poem employs harsh confrontational diction (“you
can lie, cheat, skim, scam/Beat ’em any way you can”), only to pass into a coda
of stylized lyricism (“People looking, seeing nothing/People listening, hearing
nothing”). “Blue Motel Room” (H) contains a line where the conversational tone
switches briefly and campily into mock-poetic image construction:
I know that you’ve got all those pretty girls coming on

Hanging on your boom-boom-pachyderm
Well, you tell those girls that you’ve got German measles
Honey, tell ’em you’ve got germs
As part of the discussion of diction, I want to call attention in passing to the

variety of specific types of utterance (e.g., emotional expression, reminiscence,
self-scrutiny, statements of decision) that together constitute poetic speech.23
The monologue spoken by the wheelchair-bound Charles Mingus in the first
verse of “A Chair in the Sky” (M) moves from past-tense narration setting the
scene (“The rain slammed hard as bars”), to lyric reflection in the present (“I’m
waiting for the keeper to release me”), reminiscence, then wistful reincarna-
tional fantasy, borrowing the diction of marketing hype (“Next time/I’ll be big-
ger!/I’ll be better than ever!”), to end with present-tense narration (“But now
Manhattan holds me”). The modulation between different types of utterance (or
different “speech acts”) and the rhythm of that movement can be exploited for
its own effect. “A Chair in the Sky” sets up a very regular, formalized rhythm,
changing utterance about every four lines. In contrast, “See You Sometime”
(FR) is a casual jumble of distinct utterances, helping to create the illusion of
spontaneous speech. The poem opens with questions suggesting an imaginary
dialogue (“Where are you now/Are you in some hotel room”). Then comes a

direct accusation, followed by the revelation that an actual telephone conversa-
tion has been taking place:
Why do you have to be so jive

O.K. hang up the phone
It hurts
But something survives
Though it’s undermined
I’d still like to see you sometime
From “O.K.” on, the phone connection is cut off and the conversation is definitely
imaginary. The rest of the poem moves randomly between lyric expression (“I’m
feeling so good”), narrative (“I run in the woods”), declarations of will (“I’m not
ready to/Change my name again”), and friendly persuasion (“Pack your suspend-
ers/I’ll come meet your plane”).
In “Little Green” (B), the verses consist of narration, stylized self-address
(“Choose her a name”), and farewell wishes to the lost child. But the chorus is
linguistically suspended in a highly refined utterance that is hard to describe:
Just a little green

Like the color when the spring is born
There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there’ll be sorrow
The first two lines are neither narration nor expression, not even a complete sen-
tence—just an isolated thought unfolding a single poetic image, deepening the
significance of the chosen name. The next line is a masterstroke of understate-
ment: ostensibly limited to a precise objective detail about the turning of the
seasons, it trembles with the subtext of future moments the speaker will never
share. The final line is exquisitely ambiguous. Its imprecise, ongoing future tense
disguises a very fresh wound. And who is it spoken to? Into the air apparently,
conveying a parental wish to pass on hard-won knowledge, from a disappearing
speaker whose despair is spun into perfectly balanced verbal designs.
Performance
Appreciation of the impact of the speaking presence in moments such as these
is not complete without considering the manner of vocal performance. When
Mitchell sings “there’ll be sorrow” (especially in the final chorus), her emotions

are very restrained. Only for a brief moment, just before the cadence, does she
give a hint that her vocal tone, and therefore her calm facade, is in danger of
breaking. Such an emotionally controlled persona is in stark contrast to the naked
vulnerability of the voice in a song like “Blue Boy” (LC), where the verses ulti-
mately dissolve into extravagantly broken moans. In general, Mitchell’s singing
voice responds sensitively to poetic shape and detail. But apart from the projec-
tion of textual particulars, one can suggest general categories of vocal production
through which the singer brings diverse personae to life. The following attributes
are not meant to be rigorously distinct from one another; rather, they explore dif-
ferent nuances in the embodiment of vocal personae.
Vivid versus impersonal in character

In a song like “Raised on Robbery” (C&S), Mitchell employs vocal histrionics to
portray the main character. Her brash personality is conveyed through a bright,
forceful vocal tone and suggestive, flamboyant slides. The vocal persona in “Talk
to Me” (DJRD) is equally vivid: hyperactive, full of chatter, mercurial, and lightly
self-mocking. On the other hand, a song like “The Dawntreader” (SS) aims for a
hauntingly impersonal effect by maintaining a mysterious languid monotone for
long melodic stretches. The singing voice in “Sweet Bird” (HSL) is also gener-
ally subdued, as befits the poem’s supramundane, bird’s-eye perspective (see the
discussion of this song in chapter 4).
Intense versus detached in expressivity

Like a face in cinematic closeup, Mitchell’s voice in songs such as “Willy” (LC)
acts as a living vehicle of emotion. Subtle expressive nuances are communicated
through constant changes in pressure, vocal purity, and fullness of tone. Even
words not explicitly concerned with feelings (“Willy is my child, he is my father”)
are infused with the sounds—the sobs, swoons, and tender breaths—of emotional
intensity. “Last Chance Lost” (TI), about the fallout from a divorce, is a later
example of an intensely expressive performance. In contrast, the vocal persona in
“Marcie” (SS) holds herself aloof from the plight of the focal character, maintain-
ing a steady composure even through phrases that invite expressive comment
(“Marcie’s sorrow needs a man”). Likewise, in “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire”
(FR), the trauma of the junkie (“Bashing in veins for peace”) does not register in
the cool, nonchalant singing voice.
Controlled versus unstable in manner

This dichotomy is well illustrated by the contrasting vocalities in “Little Green”
and “Blue Boy,” introduced above. A controlled persona is also audible in the trim,
streamlined voice Mitchell uses in the 1979 version of “Woodstock” (discussed in

chapter 2). In still another instance, “Dog Eat Dog” (DED), the taut, compressed
vocal delivery gives a strong impression of anger held in check. On the other hand,
a dangerously volatile persona is especially prominent on Ladies of the Canyon and
Blue. In songs like “The Arrangement” (LC), Mitchell’s voice climbs to a wail,
veering in and out of control as if skating an emotional precipice.
Natural versus artificial in elocution

In songs such as “Chelsea Morning” (C), Mitchell projects artlessness by avoid-
ing a cultivated vocal tone and by approximating the flexible declamation of
everyday speech. (Later examples include “Cherokee Louise” [NRH] and “The
Crazy Cries of Love” [TT].) But on the same album, in “Songs to Aging Children
Come” (C) she adopts a highly unnatural vocal style, with extreme range and
exaggerated warble. One of the dramatic characters in “The Pirate of Penance”
(SS), the Dancer, also sounds artificial in her rhythmic uniformity and eerie lack
of inflection. In a later example, “The Beat of Black Wings” (CMRS), the voice of
the Vietnam veteran is performed as a distorted series of vocal tics, expressive of
his personality disorder.
Naive versus sophisticated in tone

The vocal persona in “Morning Morgantown” (LC) is fresh, innocent, and unpre-
tentious. Mitchell sings with a limpid tone and warm, exuberant energy, com-
pletely free of vocal bruises or scuffmarks. In “The Circle Game” (LC) she matches
the childlike lyrics with a voice that sounds timid, impressionable, and wide-eyed.
By her second period, however, she is drawn to suave, knowing personae. For
the cynical vignettes in “Edith and the Kingpin” (HSL) and “Otis and Marlena”
(DJRD), Mitchell’s voice is arch, cool, and well-dressed. Her melodies quirk and
tail off in an urbane manner. Coy vocal slides and vibratos sound like ironic winks
at the listener. Mitchell reaches a pinnacle of cool sophistication in the breathy,
sometimes cocky jazz voice she cultivated for the album Mingus.
Polished versus raw in timbre

In certain performances, Mitchell foregrounds the beauty of her voice as an aes-
thetic object. Expressive power is secondary to timbral sweetness, purity, and
technical confidence. Such a polished persona makes an appearance in “Both Sides
Now” (C). Similarly, the emotional trouble of “Trouble Child” (C&S) is filtered
through an aestheticized singing voice. Vocal tone is relaxed, lulling, lustrous;
final nasal consonants are lingered over for their sensory effect. Other songs sacri-
fice beauty for expressive power. The impassioned monologue in “The Last Time
I Saw Richard” (B) does not shy away from vocal cracks or impurities. Forays
into the high register are piercing and exposed. In the third period, harsh, forced

timbres are often used to convey political indignation. This is audible in songs
such as “Fiction” and “Ethiopia” (both DED). Note that the quality of Mitchell’s
voice alters materially over time as it is cured by age and tobacco, deepening in
register, becoming increasingly husky, and losing flexibility. But this dramatic
metamorphosis is a separate issue from the topic under discussion of how she uses
her voice. In the late albums TI and TT, though her instrument is audibly autum-
nal, Mitchell generally avoids deliberately raw vocal timbres, while she imparts
special polish to the song “Last Chance Lost” (TI).
Combined Analysis
In the foregoing discussion my concern has been to develop as many conceptual
levers as possible for the analysis of musicopoetic voice. The distinctions will not
all be applicable with the same frequency. Some of the categories deal in precise
technical terminology (such as syntax) while others (diction, performance) call for
a more impressionistic or sensory descriptive language. We are now in a position
to try out the foregoing categories in the analysis of an entire song. I hope to illus-
trate how the concepts, laid out systematically so far, may be applied organically
as they arise, the better to discern a song’s subtle rhetorical effects.
My example is “The Tea Leaf Prophecy” (CMRS), from Mitchell’s third period.
This song follows a very clear verse-chorus form. There are also backing vocal
chants with their own distinct text, first appearing in the intro and later laid
over the chorus. With a scenario deriving from the circumstances under which
Mitchell’s parents first met during World War II, the poem is cast as a third-
person narrative, focalized through “Molly McGee” (based on her mother, Myrtle
McKee); thus it is autobiographical at a remove.24 The verses relate a fortune-
teller’s prophecy of marriage, which comes true despite the scarcity of eligible
men. Molly is characterized through colorful quoted speech, as well as through
access to her thoughts:
Oh these nights are strong and soft—

Private passions and secret storms
Nothin’ about him ticks her off
And he looks so cute in his uniform
In a few short strokes the empathetic narrator portrays a woman who is lively and
pragmatic, yet with emotional depths. In fact, taken by themselves, the verses
resemble a nostalgia piece from the viewpoint of a narrator curious about her own
origins. But such a straightforward perspective has already been deflected by the
background vocals as the song opens: “Study war no more/Lay down your arms.”
These recurring lines open up the poem’s conceptual and temporal horizon by

referring to another prophecy, from the Old Testament (Isaiah 2:4) as paraphrased
in a traditional spiritual, thus posing a mythic frame of reference.25 They also
put the listener on alert by using a political mode of address. In relation to this
widened frame, the narrative of Molly’s whirlwind engagement takes on a more
portentous shading: the detail of her attraction to a man in uniform (in the line
quoted above) is a humanizing touch but presented in such a way as to emphasize
the trifling, accidental impulses often lying behind momentous decisions. And
before the line is quite finished, the singer is overtaken by the admonitory back-
ing vocals reminding us of the wider theater of war and its potential costs.
Strange things happen as we pass between verse and chorus. The rate of poetic
declamation is augmented; now it takes twice as long to declaim one line. There
is a corresponding shift in represented time, from the singular events of the verse
to the time-lapse, seasonal recurrence of the chorus:
She plants her garden in the spring

She does the winter shoveling
Tokyo Rose on the radio
She says she’s leavin’ but she don’t go
The elliptical dimensions of the chorus disturb the realistic chronology of the
verses, while zooming out from scenic detail to discern a well-worn routine.
Molly in this archetypical aspect represents a woman missing her chance to break
out of predestined roles; the narrator casts a critical eye. The effect of diverging
perspectives (two views of Molly, two narrative distances) is heightened by the
backing vocals, interwoven between the lines and split into two layers: one a col-
lective monotone (“Study war no more”), one solo and strident (“Lay down your
arms”). One suggests melancholy and inertia, one righteous indignation.
The words of successive choruses are not wholly identical, but vary to reflect
changing circumstance as the main character is increasingly identified in terms
of her family. Chorus 2 comes after the wedding (now “he” does the shoveling),
chorus 3 after the birth of a child (“The three of ’em laughin’ ’round the radio”),
but the overall routine remains the same. The arrival of the child is unnarrated;
we learn of it indirectly in verse 3, which abruptly breaks into the dramatic
mode. The narrator disappears for the time being to be replaced by Molly’s voice,
addressing her baby:
“Sleep little darlin’!
This is your happy home
Hiroshima cannot be pardoned!
Don’t have kids when you get grown

Because, this world is shattered
The wise are mourning—
The fools are joking
Oh—what does it matter?
The wash needs ironing
And the fire needs stoking”
This is an eccentric lullaby, to say the least. The sudden burst of outrage against
the bomb creates a blaring clash of utterances, detonating amid the warm nest
and derailing the unself-conscious normality of home life. In a flash, that distant
fallout has reached western Canada and deformed the realistic picture of moth-
erly contentment. (What mother has ever forbidden her newborn to continue
the family line?) Molly’s voice frays as it becomes a mouthpiece for the narrator’s
anxieties—a narrator who despairs of the future, who perhaps remains childless.
(At the time of writing, Mitchell had not yet been reunited with her daughter.)
In a significant off-rhyme, the “darlin’” of the lullaby rings false with “pardoned.”
Instead, the latter word conjures up the ghost of another rhyme, namely the “gar-
den” Molly busies herself with every spring, a consolation as well as a self-imposed
limit. Note also the strangely reflexive second-person address—the poet imagin-
ing herself as “you,” tiny auditor of an urgent primal message while in fact put-
ting words in her mother’s mouth. This points up another idiosyncratic feature
of the poem. Its syntax is strung with second-person warnings, but each “you” is
different. “Lay down your arms” takes in a general audience; “You’ll be married
in a month” is Molly’s own special heirloom; while “Don’t have kids when you
get grown” reflects back on the poet, both personally and in her broader role as
representative of the baby boom. This fracturing of person further elaborates the
idea of divergent perspectives.
In “Tea Leaf Prophecy,” Mitchell arranges deceptively ordinary material into a
structure with unforeseen complexity of tone and voice. As the choruses continue,
time speeds forward:
She plants her garden in the spring

They do the winter shoveling
They sit up late and watch the Johnny Carson show
She says “I’m leavin’ here” but she don’t go
A nostalgia piece twists into antinostalgia; a charming cameo is set within a cri-
tique of postwar inertia. The narrator’s empathy for Molly’s close-knit situation is
repeatedly questioned by reference to a wider frame—and by recognition of the
poet’s own utterly different viewpoint, as a woman who managed to leave.

SOME RECURRING TYPES
From the foregoing discussion the reader will have an impression of the incred-
ibly diverse repertory of speaking personae Mitchell has brought to life in her
poetry. Among this collection of dreamers, wags, and knaves, certain character
types stand out as favorites; I will highlight five of these. Where the first part of
this chapter concentrated on finely tuned distinctions of poetic voice, this sec-
tion will take a more holistic view, describing typical character roles shared by
numerous songs and explored from different angles over time. Together, these five
types represent Mitchell’s most well-known personae as a writer and performer.
Noteworthy strokes of poetic skill will be highlighted along the way.
The Ingenue
We have already encountered the callow, wide-eyed girl in “Morning Morgantown”
(LC). Her youthfulness is conveyed through naive vocal tones, simple diction,
and a visual/emotional filter that paints the town in glowing colors. But not all
ingenue songs are upbeat; the key feature is their intensity of response to life’s
pleasures or pains, as if experiencing them for the first time. In “All I Want” (B),
the speaker’s exuberance results in phrases that gush out in a stream of insistent
repetitions and volatile emotions:
I am on a lonely road and I am traveling

traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be
Oh I hate you some, I hate you some
I love you some
Oh I love you when I forget about me
Expression is naively direct, trading in sincerity (“All I really really want”) rather than
suave versifying. Even the simplest actions (“I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo
you”) trigger steep highs and lows. Nor does the speaker shy away from clichés in her
confessional outpouring. On the other hand, an ingenue persona does not preclude
verbal deftness or intelligence. Take the following passage at the end of verse 2:
Applause, applause—Life is our cause
When I think of your kisses my mind see-saws
Do you see—do you see—do you see
how you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue

There is a charming gaucherie in the first line with its puffed-up theatrical
parlance. But then, as the musical section comes to a cadence (on “see-saws”),
Mitchell fashions a brilliant, witty link to the following section through a mul-
tiple pun. The first syllable of “see-saw” unexpectedly evokes a rhyme in “Do you
see.” Following the established pattern of excited repetition, this phrase stutters
upward three times as if mimicking the rocking rhythm of a seesaw. Emotionally
as well, a similar gesture is enacted in the quick lurch from joy to pain.
Where “All I Want” is a paean to love, in “Nathan La Franeer” (SS), the inge-
nue is an urban waif, fleeing from the city (“You feed it all your woes/The ghostly
garden grows”). Her voice is unfailingly earnest. The very premise of the song is
melodramatic, casting a simple taxi ride to the airport (“from confusion to the
plane”) as a litany of alienation. From her taxi window, the fugitive glimpses gar-
ish images from a Bosch painting (“I saw an aging cripple selling Superman bal-
loons”). Her complaint intermittently unfurls in expansive, limber poetic lines:
Through the tunnel tiled and turning

Into daylight once again I am escaping
Once again goodbye
To symphonies and dirty trees
Sentiments such as these are ingenuous in their appalled recoiling from everyday
grime and human traffic and their need to imbue commonplace incidents with
allegorical urgency.
“The Gallery” (C) is a metaphorical tale of an artist’s model sung in a giddy,
nimble voice. The speaker is one of those ingenues who profess a premature
world-weariness (“I gave you all my pretty years/Then we began to weather”),
similar to the jaded youth in “The Circle Game” (LC) (“So the years spin by
and now the boy is twenty/Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming
true”). The tale unfolds from the first bloom of love through disillusionment and
separation to a kind of wry détente. Especially felicitous is the treatment of the
chorus, which by the simplest of alterations effects a complete reversal of mean-
ing. In its first appearance, the narrator quotes the artist, who has “gotten into a
funny scene,” assuming the mantle of an ascetic:
“Lady, don’t love me now, I am dead

I am a saint, turn down your bed
I have no heart,” that’s what you said
You said, “I can be cruel
But let me be gentle with you”
Though the situation is not entirely clear, it appears that her lover, the artist, has
mortified his flesh and is asking her to deny her own sexual desires (“turn down

your bed”). She portrays this demand as a power play of cruel condescension. But
by the final chorus, the artist has undergone a crisis in his religious convictions
and comes flying back “like some lost homing pigeon”:
“Lady, please love me now, I was dead

I am no saint, turn down your bed
Lady, have you no heart,” that’s what you said
Well, I can be cruel
But let me be gentle with you
The tables are turned. The artist renounces his sainthood and pleads abjectly
for physical warmth and affection (“turn down your bed”). The lady, in return,
accepts him back graciously even as she chides him with his own words of conde-
scension. Mitchell’s vocal tone at this clinching moment is masterfully complex,
managing to be sexy, shrewd, mildly mocking, and self-congratulatory all at the
same time.
The Mystic Bard

For the mystic persona, the phenomena of the physical world are keys to a cosmic
reality. To the narrator in “Woodstock” (LC), for instance, a fellow human being
is a “child of God,” a potential seeker of truth. Solid bodies dematerialize into
carbon from ancient stars. The lyric speaker in “The Dawntreader” (SS) likewise
conveys a mystical vision of the world around her:
Peridots and periwinkle blue medallions

Gilded galleons spilled across the ocean floor
Treasure somewhere in the sea and he will find where
Never mind their questions there’s no answer for
The roll of the harbor wake
The songs that the rigging makes
The taste of the spray he takes
And he learns to give
He aches and he learns to live
He stakes all his silver
On a promise to be free
Mermaids live in colonies
All his seadreams come to me
From the outset, this poem plunges us deep into a fantasy construction. The
actual details of setting and character are dreamily indeterminate, so that the
identities of “he,” “they,” and “me” are never precisely drawn. Scenic descriptors

(“roll,” “wake,” “rigging,” “spray,” “pilings”) are chosen above all for their pho-
netic beauty and romantic resonance. The language is image-centered to such a
degree that syntactic logic is suspended; each line begins a new thought before
the last one resolves, in the lulling rhythm of overlapping wavelets. Together,
the effect is one of immersion in a sensory flow and openness to archetypal quest
imagery (more on the theme of quests in chapter 4). Just as crucial to the bardic
persona is Mitchell’s vocal delivery: somber, subdued, and mysterious, spoken
with a trance-like languor.
In contrast to the romantic mystique of “Dawntreader,” “Shadows and Light”
(HSL) is more austere, speaking in riddles like an oracle: “The perils of benefactors/
The blessings of parasites.” Such paradoxical images tell of primal forces locked
in struggle: “Hostage smiles on presidents/Freedom scribbled in the subway.” The
poetic discourse climbs to a metaphysical plane, patterning the successive verses
around the figures of “devil,” “god,” and “man.” At issue are “the everlasting laws/
Governing day and night”: laws that dictate fundamental oppositions while con-
founding clear duality. Another oracular voice makes an appearance in “Don Juan’s
Reckless Daughter” (DJRD), this time borrowed from Native American shaman-
istic teachings:
Out on the vast and subtle plains of mystery

A split tongued spirit talks
[. . .]
And he says:
“Snakes along the railroad tracks”
He says, “Eagles in jet trails . . .
Coils around the feathers and talons on scales . . .”
Mitchell’s attraction to mystic personae is evident as well in her late-period adap-

tations of classic visionary poems by W. B. Yeats (“Slouching towards Bethlehem”
[NRH]) and William Blake (“Taming the Tiger” [TT]).
The Torch Carrier

Mitchell’s work is filled with love songs of various kinds. These include love-
in-the-bud (“Tin Angel” [C], “Help Me” [C&S]), the idyll (“Morning Morgantown”
[LC], “My Old Man” [B]), furtive love (“Conversation,” “The Priest” [both LC]),
spats (“Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” [HSL], “Off Night Backstreet” [DJRD]),
the song that cuts the lover down to size (“The Gallery” [C], “Woman of Heart
and Mind” [FR]), and the philosophical meditation on love (“Both Sides, Now”
[C], “Sweet Sucker Dance” [M], “Be Cool” [WTRF]). One special kind, the torch
song, pours out sadness over lost or unrequited love. The torch persona is wholly

absorbed in her grief and desire, which push her to extravagant declarations of
chagrin (as in “River” [B]: “Oh I wish I had a river/I could skate away on”) and
abasement (as in “Blue Boy” [LC]: “Like a pilgrim she traveled/To place her flow-
ers/Before his granite grace/And she prayed aloud for love/To waken in his face”).
But she’s still not over it, and her affirmations of love are just as extravagant. Here
is the first verse of “Willy” (LC):
Willy is my child, he is my father

I would be his lady all my life
He says he’d love to live with me
But for an ancient injury
That has not healed
He said I feel once again
Like I gave my heart too soon
He stood looking through the lace
At the face of the conquered moon
And counting all the cars up the hill
And the stars on my window sill
There are still more reasons why
I love him
It’s not enough to say “Willy is my lover”; her love is too hungry for more
powerful expressions and plants him in every possible position above her,
beneath her, as if he formed her entire family and provided her every need. But
Willy is not as wholehearted as she is. The image of the “conquered moon” is
extremely bittersweet, bringing up age-old romantic associations (where she
is the one “conquered” by love), while souring them by implied reference to
the moon landing (where the romantic mystique of the moon has been exposed
and violated by cold science). The phrase “conquered moon” echoes the earlier
“ancient injury,” both evoking the idea of a damaged love played out over a
vast canvas. But the speaker’s words after this traumatic central passage show
that she has not really been listening; she has been “counting all the cars,”
optimistically tallying her love (while absorbing and transforming the syl-
lables of “conquered”). Again she insists on the inadequacy of words to express
her feelings (“There are still more reasons”), and the ultimate rhyme on “still”
shows she has not given up hope. It all comes down to the unadorned essential
statement (“I love him”), standing outside the rhyme scheme and unaltered by
any setbacks.
“A Case of You” (B), set in a dimly lit bar, proclaims itself a torch song right
away (“Just before our love got lost . . .”). But—no surprise—the chorus reveals
that the speaker is still under the influence:

Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
The idea of confessional outpouring, key to the genre, is thematized in the song:
“part of you pours out of me/In these lines from time to time.” “These lines” refer
to the song’s poetic/melodic lines, of course, as the speaker is writing or perform-
ing them. But they also encompass the graphic lines of her visual art, since she
identifies strongly as an artist in this poem (sketching her lover’s face in verse 1,
introducing herself as “a lonely painter” in verse 2). What is being poured out
is thus her unrequited emotion as well as its embodiment in art and alcohol. In
fact, one of the beautiful things about this poem is how a handful of vivid images
bleed and flow into one another. In verse 3, the outpouring comes from a wound
(“Go to him, stay with him if you can/But be prepared to bleed”); this bleeding
then flows right into the dizzy blood of the chorus. Love figures in metaphors of
bleeding and tasting; but in proximity to the visual art imagery, it is refigured as
“drawing” (“I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid”). Meanwhile, the paint-box
resonates with the liquor case and the TV screen in a motif of feeling boxed-in (“I
live in a box of paints”), for which the antidote is the outpouring of the soul.
As a final example of the genre, I’ll mention the lovely “Blue Motel Room”
(H), which handles the torch persona with lightness and wit. Mitchell finds unex-
pected humor in the self-absorbed conventions of the torch song:
I’ve got a blue motel room

With a blue bedspread
I’ve got the blues inside and outside my head
Will you still love me
When I call you up when I’m down
The hopeful word “still” is pivotal here, as in the other examples. But the obses-
sive mirroring of an internal melancholy is portrayed in this case as slightly ridic-
ulous, given the humble setting and the overdone color scheme. And in the last
line, love’s tumultuous highs and lows are reduced to a comical seesaw of “up”
and “down.”
The Free Spirit

Of primary significance in Mitchell’s work are the many personae who chafe at
being tied down. They speak to a wide field of potential restraints on one’s free-
dom, including monogamy, restrictive social roles, and pressure to settle down

in one place. (The overarching theme of freedom will be explored in much more
detail in chapter 4.) One common expression of personal freedom is the simple
pleasure of relaxing and going out on the town, as in “Carey” (B):
Come on down to the Mermaid Café and I will buy you a bottle of wine
And we’ll laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down
The spirit of uninhibited revelry is often linked to dance music, as in “Let the
Wind Carry Me” (FR): “staying up late/In my high-heeled shoes/Living for
that Rock ’n’ Roll dancing scene”; or “Cotton Avenue” (DJRD): “Poor boys’ll
be hanging around outside in the street/They got all the latest words/They’re
dancing to the latest beat/While they’re hustling and sizing you/On Cotton
Avenue.” The liberatory ethos of rock is the theme of “In France They Kiss
on Main Street” (HSL). All three verses are dedicated to the excitement of the
downtown strip, with its dance halls, pinball arcade, and sexual possibility
(“Young love was kissing under bridges/Kissing in cars, kissing in cafés”). But
though most of the poem riffs on pleasures of the moment (“I’d be kissing in
the back street/Thrilling to the Brando-like things that he said”), along the
way it articulates a critique of suburban values, as conformist and inimical to
the vitality of rock:
And I told him “They don’t take chances

And they seem so removed from romance”
“They’ve been broken in churches and schools
And molded to middle-class circumstance”
And we were rolling, rolling, rock ’n’ rolling
Besides the carousal song, another common expression of the free-spirit per-
sona is the “rolling stone” or rambler song. Though before Mitchell’s time it was
typically a male preserve, she takes to this genre wholeheartedly, again and again
extolling the mystique of rootlessness. Here are examples from three adjacent
songs on For the Roses: “And you want to get moving/And you want to stay still”
(“Barangrill”); “I know my needs/My sweet tumbleweed” (“Lesson in Survival”);
“I’m a wild seed again/Let the wind carry me” (“Let the Wind Carry Me”). As in
the male-authored version of the genre, the urge to ramble can get in the way of
romantic commitment. This dilemma is the burden of the early song “Cactus
Tree” (SS):
She will love them when she sees them

They will lose her if they follow
And she only means to please them
And her heart is full and hollow

Like a cactus tree
While she’s so busy being free
The carousal song typically expresses joy in friendly company, while the lonely
pleasures of the rambling song are often tinged with melancholy, as in “California”
(B) or “Hejira” (H). There is plenty of time for lyrical reflection, as in verse 3 of
“Hejira,” which returns to the conflicted question of settling down:
We’re only particles of change, I know, I know

Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I’m always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Waving truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room
Note how the last quatrain of the verse veers off at a tangent, as if the self-
scrutiny and logically constructed argument of the previous lines has suddenly
become too much, motivating an escape into purely visual images. At first the
pictures have no clear angle of reference to the speaking subject, who seems to
have disappeared from the discourse, relentlessly first-person until now. But as
the images are traced to their origin we come back to the speaker’s subjective
location. The first person remains unvoiced at the end, however. We could inter-
pret this striking discursive shift as an escape from active deliberation into passive
perceptions—except that the image sequence turns out to be a neat illustration
of the present mental quandary, expressed in a different medium (surrendering to
romance [the moon] versus losing oneself in anonymous travelscapes). The final
quatrain translates the verbal reflectiveness of the previous sentences into spatial
reflection, as the image of snow-clad chimneys is reframed by the opaque glass
panels of the bank, and then again by the transparent hotel window. This double
filtering imposes layers of separation between the lyric speaker and the open vistas
she takes as her backdrop, while the precisely composed succession of images sets
up a chain of symbolic associations concerning the snug and the chilly, the mobile
and the frozen, the eternal and the transitory.
The Critic
My final example of a recurrent persona is the critical observer. At various times,
such a persona will train an analytic eye on a romantic partner, a third-person

character, or the speaker herself. The critical persona in the romantic context
makes for a rather cerebral kind of love song, as in “Strange Boy” (H):
What a strange, strange boy

He still lives with his family
Even the war and the navy
Couldn’t bring him to maturity
Nor does the speaker hold back or mute her judgments, even when they cut to the
bone, as in “Woman of Heart and Mind” (FR):
I am a woman of heart and mind

With time on her hands
No child to raise
You come to me like a little boy
And I give you my scorn and my praise
We have already sampled the continuation of this song above, as an illustration

of blunt, scathing diction. (Such a scathing second-person address brings to mind
the similar persona well explored by Bob Dylan in songs like “Positively 4th
Street” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”)
Other songs employ caustic observation in the service of third-person
vignettes. “Otis and Marlena” (DJRD) is a contemptuous send-up of Miami
resort culture and the foibles of the idle rich. Marlena, the focal character,
is portrayed as vacuous and bloodless (“white as stretcher sheet”), a specter
amid the tanned, enhanced bodies at her hotel. Bored, she looks down at the
pool, whose denizens are described in terms of circus performers and frying
meat:
She taps her glass with an emery file

Watching three rings in the sun
The golden dive, the fatted flake
And sizzle in their mink oil
It’s all a dream
She has awake
Checked into Miami Royal
Another such vignette is sketched in “Edith and the Kingpin” (HSL). A power-
ful man makes an official visit to a small town; the pageantry that greets him on
his arrival is belittled as “Sophomore jive/From victims of typewriters.” His eyes
light on Edith; the girls he has overlooked retaliate by attempting to undermine
her confidence and filling her ears with venomous gossip:

One by one they bring
His renegade stories to her
His crimes and his glories to her
In challenge they look on
Women he has taken grow old too soon
He tilts their tired faces
Gently to the spoon
In the end, Edith finds herself in his bed. But instead of being dominated or used
up, she discovers an inner affinity with her unscrupulous, dangerous new lover:
“She says—his crime belongs.” The final image pits the two in a deadlock of
mutual respect and mistrust, like vipers at bay:
Edith and the Kingpin

Each with charm to sway
Are staring eye to eye
They dare not look away
Mitchell’s poetic speakers are by no means immune from self-scrutiny. The

penchant for critical examination of one’s own motives, shortcomings and inner
conflicts is a defining trait of her lyric poetry. It haunts the disillusioned speaker
in “Both Sides, Now” (C):
But now it’s just another show

You leave ’em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away
It worries the torch singer in “River” (B): “I’m so hard to handle/I’m selfish and
I’m sad/Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby/That I ever had.” (Note that more
than one persona type can figure in a single song—here, torch and critic.) Even
when autobiographical, her judgments can be stingingly harsh, as in “People’s
Parties” (C&S): “I’m just living on nerves and feelings/With a weak and lazy
mind/And coming to people’s parties/Fumbling deaf dumb and blind.” In fact,
the airing of unflattering imperfections acts as a stamp of authenticity in the
confessional genre.
But the self-critical persona is not limited to raw exposure; it can also develop
structures of great elegance. “Song for Sharon” (H), an imaginary conversation
with a childhood friend, is one such poem. Given its length (ten verses), my dis-
cussion here will be very selective (further discussion of the song will be found in
chapter 7). The poem is populated with many characters and shuttles back and

forth in time and place. But the central thread is the deep-seated yearning for
love, especially as glamorized in the image of the new bride:
When we were kids in Maidstone, Sharon

I went to every wedding in that little town
To see the tears and the kisses
And the pretty lady in the white wedding gown
And walking home on the railroad tracks
Or swinging on the playground swing
Love stimulated my illusions
More than anything
Here in verse 7, the speaker delves into her psychological history in a tone that is
not at all distressed, but relaxed, clear, expansive, and mellifluous. The neuroses
that surface elsewhere in the poem never disturb its beautiful surface, even when
the speaker’s penchant for self-examination is itself the object of criticism: “And the
power of reason/And the flowers of deep feelings/Seem to serve me/Only to deceive
me” (verse 9). In the final verse, she comes to a kind of closure by weighing the sac-
rifices she and her friend have made against the very different lives each has built:
Sharon you’ve got a husband

And a family and a farm
I’ve got the apple of temptation
And a diamond snake around my arm
But you still have your music
And I’ve still got my eyes on the land and the sky
You sing for your friends and family
I’ll walk green pastures by and by
The couplets proceed in a series of regular, parallel exchanges (“you” then “I”),
but the psychological undercurrents are convoluted. The first line has the impact
of revealing belatedly that Sharon is happily settled down, thus suggesting a sub-
text of marriage envy motivating the entire poem. The speaker (Joni) is highly
critical and ironic about her own situation and accomplishments while apparently
offering consolation to Sharon (implying that Sharon suffers from a correspond-
ing career envy). The ostensible linguistic parallels are not really symmetrical:
the two “stills” in mid-verse have very different connotations. In Sharon’s case,
she “still has” a bird in the hand, a musical talent she can call on for her own
and her family’s enjoyment. Joni, however, has two in the bush—she’s “still got”
unfulfilled desires for happiness and a patch of land. Sharon’s attributes are pres-
ent tense and rooted in space (“still”), while Joni’s are in motion and wishfully
future tense.

Mitchell creates an equally expansive seven-verse structure in “Amelia” (H).
This poem is especially remarkable for its multifaceted voice that elegantly har-
monizes a spectrum of personae all central to Mitchell’s work: the traveler (“I was
driving across the burning desert”), the torch carrier (“I wish that he was here
tonight”), the mystic (“Like Icarus ascending/On beautiful foolish arms”), the
artist (“It was the strings of my guitar”), and the critic turned inward (“Maybe
I’ve never really loved”).
There is a story Joni Mitchell has told numerous times and with different
nuances, about the origins of her own voice as a singer-songwriter, in which she
credits the electrifying influence of Bob Dylan:
I wrote poetry, and I had always wanted to make music. But I never put the
two things together. Just a simple thing like being a singer-songwriter—
that was a new idea. It used to take three people to do that job. And when
I heard “Positively Fourth Street,” I realized that this was a whole new
ballgame; now you could make your songs literature. The potential for the
song had never occurred to me—I loved “Tutti-Frutti,” you know. But it
occurred to Dylan.26
We know from Mitchell’s subsequent career that this early conversion experi-
ence did not cancel out her love of rock ’n’ roll. The Dylanesque model of serious
poetic ambition merely took its place alongside the Little Richard model, in an
expanded understanding of what words in pop songs can accomplish. In another
retelling of her first encounter with the seminal Dylan song, she includes specific
details about technique: “When I heard that—‘You got a lotta nerve to say you
are my friend’—I thought, now that’s poetry; now we’re talking. That direct,
confronting speech, commingled with imagery, was what was lacking for me.”27
It is certainly telling that the galvanic spark, as she describes it, is delivered by
way of a vivid scenario of direct speech, a haughty, critical persona, and a caustic
voice. The literary potential of songwriting was opened up for Mitchell when she
glimpsed the versatility and power of all those vocal presences yet to be created.
Now we’re talking.

4
TH EMAT IC T H R EA D S
One reason Joni Mitchell’s body of songs deserves to be regarded as a coherent

oeuvre rather than a miscellany of occasional pieces has to do with the musico-
poetic themes running through her work in extended threads of correlation and
reflection. Counted among her favored themes are substantial matters that have
not ceased to occupy poets of every rank and generation: the untamable currents
of love, the cost of personal independence, the stern vows of an artistic calling,
spiritual perplexity, the journey quest, the terms of interracial conversation, and
the charting of a mythic homeland. Characteristic of her poetic gift is the abil-
ity to couple personal incident with general human concerns in tones that blend
playfulness with intellectual density.
To give a sense of the depth and texture of Mitchell’s thought, I have cho-
sen to explore a specific thematic strand—personal freedom—as she develops its
ethical implications in diverse symbolic and poetic registers. The word “free” and
its cognates flash forth at prominent moments in her songs like a golden thread
catching the light: “She’s so busy being free,” “He was playing real good, for
free,” “Try and get my soul free,” “I was a free man in Paris,” “Freedom scribbled
in the subway,” “A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway.” Together with
related chains highlighting words like “wild,” “dance,” and “dream,” such occur-
rences form a highly visible set of verbal motifs spanning her entire career. As
further evidence of the absolutely central importance of the theme, one can note
how Mitchell frames her first album, Song to a Seagull, with two songs devoted
to the question of personal freedom. The opening song, “I Had a King,” relates
the protagonist’s escape from a suffocating marriage; the closing song, “Cactus
Tree,” evokes the more spacious horizons, as well as the emotional costs, of her
ongoing quest. The two scenarios stand for the two poles she is compelled to
negotiate in her search for self-fulfillment: the perils of domesticity and the perils
of rootlessness. By countering the irresistible, open-ended urge for independence
with a difficult, unresolved yearning for love, Mitchell sets up a lasting internal
controversy at the core of her musical expression.
To tease out the different tributaries of this grand theme, I will consider spe-
cific examples under the following topics: cautionary tales of confinement, chron-
icles of the ongoing quest, declarations of social nonconformity, invocations of
creative license, and visions of spiritual liberation. Mitchell introduces all five of
these topics on her first album.
TRAPS
We have already considered “I Had a King” in some detail in chapter 2. There I
pointed out how the song’s central idea of refusing to be trapped was dramatized
musically, in scenarios of rhythmic constraint, melodic entanglement and release,
and harmonic suspension. In chapter 5 I will emphasize the role of the double
pedal point (lower tonic pedal, upper dominant pedal) in creating an especially
constrained voice-leading situation. Here I will expand on significant details
relating to the theme at hand and broaden the context for the song’s configura-
tion of symbols in connection with other songs from the first period.
The specific trap described in “I Had a King” is a bad marriage. The husband
is (indirectly) portrayed as an artist—or perhaps it would be better to say that
his social character is represented through aesthetic activities (painting, acting,
singing). But in every case his form of expression is depicted as ugly, mean, or
false. His perversion of the aesthetic impulse, or the speaker’s failure to respond
to him in such terms, is a strong sign of the death of love. (The following song on
the album, “Michael from Mountains,” provides a counterexample: when the pro-
tagonist is with Michael, every ordinary scene takes on the bright artifice of paint-
ings or puppet shows; even the film of oil in rain gutters shows “taffeta patterns,”
magically rearranged at Michael’s touch.) Mitchell expresses the sense of confine-
ment not only through imagery (empty rooms, the enclosing grove) but through
form and representation. The poem continually stages an ill fit between mythic
and realistic representation, with material from postindustrial life (“drip-dry,”
“salt-rusted”) showing through the threadbare medieval trappings and exposing
their aura of fantasy as inadequate. Furthermore, the poem opens with a structural
ill fit: the second line overshoots the expected rhyme on “pastel” to introduce
a new end rhyme on “brown.” This trick with the rhyme scheme conveys the
speaker’s disillusionment by embedding an initial rhyme pair (“castle/pastel”)
from the realm of romantic fantasy within an ultimate pair (“brown/down”) that
contradicts those conventions. (Similarly, in verse 3, the initial pair “carriage/
marriage” is rebuffed by “too soon.”)
THEMATIC THREADS | 79
In verse 2, the emphasis is on the ill fit of an antiquated gender role.
He lives in another time

Ladies in gingham still blush
While he sings them of wars and wine
But I in my leather and lace
I can never become that kind
The putative king despises his freethinking queen, preferring the role of unques-
tioned hero. The “gingham” suggests a reduced female position (lower than roy-
alty), as in the accepted image of the demure unassuming housewife. In contrast,
the speaker’s “leather and lace” is shorthand for a sense of experimentation in
women’s roles, in search of a personal style in which toughness and tenderness
can coexist. Right from the start of the poem, the speaker signals her unease with
the role of romantic “lady” in her unconventional locution: “I had a king.” Given
the connotations of monarchic privilege, we would expect a more submissive turn
of phrase: “I was wed to a king,” or “A king took me as his lady.” But here, the
speaker claims the role of lyric subject for herself, shouldering the king into the
object position. The clash between the poem’s competing subjects is only resolved
in the chorus, when she repudiates the man and asserts her own agency (“I can’t
go back there anymore”).
In other songs of the period, Mitchell continues to treat the archaic image of
the “lady” as a tempting but dangerous myth. The male romantic lead in “The
Gallery” (C) is another artist figure. At first, the female speaker admires his por-
traits of “ladies,” but the mystique palls as she is reduced to a domestic role, dust-
ing and keeping house. As in “I Had a King,” the speaker chafes at being “left
to winter here,” while her lover is free to travel. His attempts to maintain power
over her are baited with the empty title of “Lady.” The speaker’s ambivalence
about the mystique of sentimental fantasy does not result in as strong a critique as
we saw in the previous poem. The archaic language is less assuredly undermined;
the woman herself is compromised in choosing to stay and wait for her man. But
she does effect a stinging reversal in the third chorus when she turns his own
words against him, asserting the hitherto masculine right to withhold or grant
her favor (see the discussion under “The Ingenue” in chapter 3).
The song “Blue Boy” (LC) enacts a similar drama of entrapment, but in this
case the outcome is wholly pessimistic.
Lady called the blue boy, love,

She took him home
Made himself an idol, yes,
So he turned to stone

Like a pilgrim she traveled
To place her flowers
Before his granite grace
And she prayed aloud for love
To waken in his face
The title character’s assumed name wraps him in mystery; part of his allure derives
from his arrogance and insistence on remaining free of emotional involvement.
Another figure of perverted artistry, the blue boy sets himself up as a statue to
which the poem’s “lady” must pay homage. The mythic background here is the
story of Pygmalion and Galatea (a statue brought to life).1 But where the ancient
tale depicts the consummatory desire of a male artist for his female creation, here
the trajectory is reversed: a living woman bears responsibility for her own undo-
ing as an animate subject (“He will come few times more/Till he finds a lady
statue/Standing in a door”). The potential symbols of organic nurture (“her flow-
ers,” “his seed,” “her garden”) are negated by the prevailing image of petrification.
The place of domestic comfort (portrayed lovingly in “Sisotowbell Lane” [SS] and
“Ladies of the Canyon” [LC]) is turned into a confining space out of which the
lady is caught gazing at the window or door. Her chance for “travel” is restricted
to a pilgrimage of abasement. Her attempts at freedom of personal expression
(“boots of leather,” “feather fan”) never go beneath outer layers and in any case are
entirely channeled into her single consuming devotion. Given this scenario, the
syntax of the third-person focal character takes on a pointed significance, reflect-
ing the lady’s utter surrender of identity to the point that she is unable to take
charge of her own lyric utterance. Mitchell’s cathartic performance stands in for
the lady’s voice, groveling without shame and holding back nothing for herself.
Another factor adding to the song’s overpowering melancholy is its indefinite
arrangement of tonal space. The verse begins with a clear sense of “home” in
C major (Ex. 4.1). From that bright beginning the harmonies move through
a range of darker shades, most phrases coming to rest on G major. But is this
recurring cadence point open or closed? Mitchell uses chord successions that lack
strong hierarchical function; both C and G exert (fairly weak) gravitational force.
Somewhere around the midpoint of the verse (with the swerve to the B chord)
the clear sense of a C major home is lost. Harmonies continue to change as if they
are going somewhere, but they always return to the same ambivalent place.
“Blue Boy” fearfully imagines a character who never breaks free, indeed who
doesn’t even fight against her imposed limits. Mitchell’s trapped characters are
not always women: the man in “Conversation” (LC) is stuck in a bad relationship;
the men in “The Arrangement” (LC), “The Last Time I Saw Richard” (B), and
“Harry’s House” (HSL) are caught in empty cycles of middle-class consumerism.
example 4.1. “blue boy,” chord changes
Intro: | Dm | C | Am | G | G |
Phrase 1: | C | Am | G | G |
Phrase 2: | C | Am | F | F |
Phrase 3: | Dm | E | Am | G | G |
Phrase 4: | B | Dm7 | G | G |
Phrase 5: | Dm | C | Am | G | G |
Nor do the pitfalls for women invariably center on relationships: some, like the
speaker in “The Last Time I Saw Richard,” struggle against “dark cocoons” of
inner confusion. But it is notable how in the earliest exemplars of this theme,
hindrances to personal growth are manifest in terms of the social phenomenon of
restrictive gender roles (housewife, nurturer, submissive partner). In formulating
these cautionary tales, Mitchell was not openly advocating a feminist perspec-
tive, from which she has consistently distanced herself.2 Nevertheless, she was
articulating in her own medium the anxiety felt by many of her peers over the
limitations placed on women’s search for fulfillment, as Betty Friedan had begun
to document in The Feminine Mystique a few years earlier. In particular, Friedan
pointed to a strong retrenchment in the 1950s: “After 1949 . . . the image of
the American woman as a changing, growing individual in a changing world
was shattered. Her solo flight to find her own identity was forgotten in the rush
for the security of togetherness. Her limitless world shrunk to the cozy walls of
home.”3 Mitchell herself has stated in reference to her song “Cactus Tree”: “I feel
that’s the song of modern woman. Yes, it has to do with my experiences, but I
know a lot of girls like that . . . who find that the world is full of lovely men but
they’re driven by something else other than settling down to frau-duties.”4
By the mid-1970s, however, Mitchell was capable of treating the theme with
wry detachment. “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” (HSL, music by John Guerin)
portrays a wife in a gilded cage.
He put up a barbed wire fence

To keep out the unknown
And on every metal thorn
Just a little blood of his own
She patrols that fence of his
To a Latin drum
And the hissing of summer lawns
Her home in the hills, though ringed with barbed wire, has wider sightlines than
the abject garden of “Blue Boy” (“She could see the valley barbecues/From her

window sill”). Her confinement also comes with material consolations of a dif-
ferent order (“a diamond for her throat,” “a roomful of Chippendale/That nobody
sits in”). This lady is no ingenue but accepts her compromise with a cynical
awareness (“Still she stays with a love of some kind/It’s the lady’s choice”). With
its tropical sound world of buzzing flies, drumbeats, and hissing sprinklers, the
poem depicts the upscale housewife in her natural setting as an outlandish tribal
specimen, to be documented with anthropological composure.
In “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow,” from the same album, the theme of female
ensnarement prompts an angry stream of free association rather than a scenic
vignette. The musical tone is remarkably light and conversational given the
difficult and combative language; Mitchell’s performance projects relaxed self-
assurance as if taking it all in her stride. In this song we overhear an internal
monologue composed of disconnected reactions to the peremptory remarks
and veiled threats (“In flames our prophet witches/Be polite”) of a faceless male
speaker. The cubistic surface renders the sense obscure, but the man appears to be
ordering the woman’s compliance in a nurturing role (“Bring that bottle kindly”)
while forbidding dissent (be polite; don’t interrupt the status quo; don’t disturb
the peace of “patriarchs/Snug in your bible belt dreams”). The female speaker,
however, is up for a fight; the “room full of glasses” mentioned at the beginning
sets the scene for a contest of wills. She lays bare the trap hidden in his words and
beliefs (“he chains me with that serpent/To that Ethiopian wall”). She exposes
his presumptuous idea of the natural order as nothing but a cycle of “sorrow” for
women (“Death and birth and death and birth”). She decries the use of religion as
a tool for brainwashing (“The good slaves love the good book”). In fact, the argu-
ment rages on an intensely intellectual plane, between competing theological
fictions and their consequences for women’s lives. In her view, he is playing dirty
by using the old propaganda of the “serpent” and Eve’s guilt to immobilize her.
As an alternative, she upholds icons of matriarchal power: witch, goddess, and
Madonna. (In this, Mitchell is atypically explicit in her appeal to imagery of col-
lective female affirmation and resistance.) At first, the archetypes are taken from
pagan traditions; in tune with this, background imagery in the first four verses
cycles through the primal elements of flames, water, wind, and rock. The Virgin
Mary, the last to appear, is a “clandestine” figure of matriarchal worship carried
into the established Christian church; she appears as a secret symbol encoded in
the bottles of “Rhine wine” (Liebfraumilch or “Milk of the Madonna”) the man is
drinking. The seventeen spent glasses also echo the woman’s statement of defi-
ance (“Since I was seventeen/I’ve had no one over me”), as if the years of her
life might be distilled or poured out in service. The final verse when it arrives
feels like something of a letdown. Instead of the anger she has been voicing, the
woman seems to give ground by expressing compassion (“It takes a heart like
Mary’s these days/When your man gets weak”), and it isn’t clear whether she
will follow through on her earlier promise to “leave on the 1:15.” From another
angle, however, the last verse supplies a final diminution in the stature of the
male speaker. In his first entrance he appears as the mouthpiece for a terrifying
oracle (“He says, ‘Your notches liberation doll’ ”), incoherently fusing the idea of
freedom with images of objectification and subjugation (as in being taken down
a notch, or the “notch” as a mark of sexual conquest). His second speech is still
obscure (“Anima rising—/So what—/Petrified wood process/Tall timber down to
rock!”), but recognizable as a threat to subdue the woman’s soul (using the images
familiar from “Blue Boy” of animation vs. petrification). As the poem goes on,
his statements become needy and even petulant (“We walked on the moon/You
be polite”). Gradually he is humanized and belittled (and subdued by the wine’s/
Madonna’s influence) until his threat shrinks to nothing.
Later treatments of this theme can be briefly mentioned. “The Tea Leaf
Prophecy” (CMRS), its central character caught in the routine of house and gar-
den, was the focus of discussion in chapter 3. In her fourth period Mitchell returns
several times (“Two Grey Rooms” [NRH], “Sunny Sunday,” “The Magdalene
Laundries” [both TI]) to melancholy portraits of characters who never leave, now
no longer centered in the scenario of the heterosexual couple. A footnote: it is
during this period that Mitchell begins to repeat a pertinent story about her
ancestors. “My paternal grandmother came from Norway, and . . . the last time she
cried in her life she was 14, . . . because she knew she would never have a piano. . . .
My maternal grandmother . . . was a classical musician who came east when the
Prairies opened up by train. She was Scottish-French, and they brought an organ
in for her and a gramophone. She was a poet and musician, but she still kicked the
kitchen door off its hinges out of her frustration at being trapped in the role of a
housewife.”5 The story ends with Mitchell’s assertion that having inherited “the
creative gene” from her grandmothers, it was entrusted to her to pursue an artistic
career for the sake of those women who never had the opportunity.
QUESTS
Mitchell’s earliest period as a musician and songwriter coincided with a surge
in popularity of the (medieval) genre of the quest romance, as retold for mod-
ern readers. Her familiarity with the great writers of fantasy, J. R. R. Tolkien
and C. S. Lewis, is evident from scattered references in interviews. She named
her first publishing company after Gandalf, the grey wizard of The Lord of the
Rings.6 Tolkien’s saga had many things to recommend it to the idealistic youth
of the 1960s, among them a veneration of nature and rural folkways (as in the

pastoral Shire), a latent critique of industrialism (in the hell-realms of Mordor and
Isengard, with their subterranean forges, slavery, and pollution), and an archetypal
plot of simple folk caught up in grand deeds and epic adventure. The title of
Mitchell’s song “The Dawntreader” (SS) refers to one of the volumes (The Voyage of
the Dawn Treader) from Lewis’s children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia, about a
sea voyage in search of the islands of the “utter East.” One of the characters from
this book (Reepicheep the gallant mouse), not satisfied when the quest is achieved,
is compelled to strike out even further into the unknown, leaving his companions
behind.7 A similar spirit of adventure is present in many of the British Isle ballads
from the folksingers’ repertory, about travelers who sail the high seas, bid farewell
to tender maidens, or return to them after many a day. These evocative tropes
are carried over into folk rock and singer-songwriter genres. David Crosby’s song
“Guinnevere,” for instance, is redolent of Arthurian legend, with its golden-haired
sorceress in her garden and the male hero making a temporary landing (“the harbor
where I lay, anchored for a day”) on his ongoing voyage. Crosby’s reference to the
world of legend is dreamlike and atmospheric, distilling the quest-plot into an
unspecified romantic yearning (“We shall be free”).8
Typically in such tales, it is the woman who is left behind; Mitchell writes her
own version of the well-known scene in songs such as “Urge for Going” (Hits),
“The Pirate of Penance” (SS), and “The Gallery” (C). In “Cactus Tree,” however,
she alters the mythology of the ballads to fit her concept of a new kind of heroine.
The song begins like one more adventure tale from the man’s perspective—a man
who has been sailing to far-off places “in a decade full of dreams.” He invites
a lady onto his schooner and presents her with jewels. But all of a sudden she
is no longer to be found on the ship: “He has heard her off to starboard/In the
breaking and the breathing/Of the water weeds.” Not content with secondhand
exploits, she has gone off on her own expedition, slipping into the water like a
mermaid or selkie. Though the sailor is portrayed in the most glamorous terms,
the refrain reveals that the lady is the true figure of glamour and mystery in this
song; it is she who leaves men behind. (And the phrase structure [see chapter 6
and Ex. 6.12] confirms the status of the refrain, with its focus on the female sub-
ject, as the clinching idea to which the preceding lines inevitably move.) For most
of the poem she remains an offstage presence, provoking a wry comment from the
narrator (“she’s so busy”) about the elusiveness of her quest.
In succeeding verses there follows a list of the men she has loved from all
walks of life, who profess their constant love for her and wait for her reply. While
their accomplishments are spelled out (mountain climbing, financial success, mil-
itary decoration), the woman’s search is left tantalizingly vague, though the array
of suitors in their variety and geographical spread does imply a future of equally
bountiful possibility. Such a wide-eyed view of life (echoed in the effusive density
of the album’s cover art) is characteristic of an ingenue, in this case presented
in archetypal rather than personalized terms. Correspondingly, Mitchell’s vocal
delivery is uniformly round and resonant, in line with the tone of bardic romance.
A stronger touch of irony begins to emerge, however, in the fourth verse, where
we learn that “She has brought them to her senses.” Mitchell’s twist on the com-
mon figure of speech underscores the primacy of the heroine’s perspective but in
a way that goes too far, suggesting the demands of an immoderate ego. Likewise,
the revelation of her amoral code in the fifth verse (“She will love them when she
sees them/They will lose her if they follow/And she only means to please them”)
is scandalous in its divergence from the constant maiden role of the ballad tradi-
tion. Instead, she evokes the heartless queen (from troubadour verse) in a particu-
larly forbidding form (“And her heart is full and hollow/Like a cactus tree”). The
sweeping melodic design is built around important gestures of elation (in the sec-
ond [b] and penultimate [e] phrases; see Ex. 6.12) where the contour reaches its
high point as the tonic pedal is released (more on pedal points in chapter 5). But
it also incorporates wistful valedictory gestures in its repeated subdominant-tonic
cadences (especially in the d phrases). That is to say, the song’s persona admits to a
certain melancholy as she bids her farewells; she “seems to know that she is giving
up something important in exchange for this freedom.”9
As time goes on, Mitchell exchanges this tone of romanticized myth for more
realistic representation: the indistinct “schooners” and “galleons” of the first
album are traded in for “the thumb and the satchel,” “whitewalls and wind-
shields” (“Barangrill” [FR]), “railroad cars,” and “crowded waiting rooms” (“Just
Like This Train” [C&S]). Nevertheless, vestiges of myth persist in the retelling.
“Barangrill” is set in a truck stop where the (second-person) narrator is taking a
break for coffee.
Three waitresses all wearing

Black diamond earrings
Talking about zombies
And Singapore slings
No trouble in their faces
Not one anxious voice
None of the crazy you get
From too much choice
The thumb and the satchel
Or the rented Rolls-Royce
And you think she knows something
By the second refill
You think she’s enlightened

As she totals your bill
You say “Show me the way
To Barangrill”
The narrator’s internal monologue betrays the unease of an ongoing search for
enlightenment. Under this inner pressure, her homely surroundings take on
subliminal undertones of romanticized adventure. Chitchat about drink orders
(“zombies and Singapore slings”) conjures up the atmosphere of exotic outposts.
The sparkle of “black diamond earrings” recalls the ocean treasure of the earlier
mythology (“amber stones and green”). The trio of waitresses in their relaxed
camaraderie begin to appear as numinous figures of wisdom the narrator can
appeal to for guidance. In its tone the song skillfully combines seriousness and
humor. The speaker’s coined word for paradise pokes fun at her own overexcited
attempts to find Shangri-la in a cheap restaurant. Furthermore, the rhymes lead-
ing up to her imaginary utopia ironically call attention to the mundane activities
going on around her (“refill,” “bill,” “till”).
On the other hand, her spiritual distress is taken seriously, as a search for fulfill-
ment or peace of mind made difficult in a secular context with a lack of guideposts.
The open-endedness portrayed in earlier songs as romantic possibility is now cause
for confusion—a kind of craziness due to “too much choice.” (In a similar way, the
speaker in “Just Like This Train” complains of the craziness that comes when “you
can’t find your goodness.”) Her constant inner pilgrimage sets the narrator apart
from ordinary people. It signifies a special personal striving; but it also keeps her
wrapped up in her own head (as underscored by the second-person subject syn-
tax). A provisional answer to her open question comes serendipitously, through her
encounter with a charismatic gas station attendant, whose spontaneity enables her
to forget her self-consciousness and become “lost in the moment.” The serious char-
acter of the narrator’s “longing” is captured musically through a salient harmonic
shading. Each time the IV chord appears (Am9 in the key of E), it borrows a
minor-mode quality. At first the special poignancy of this chord is transitory (less
than a full measure, e.g.: “Talking about zombies”), like a brief twinge of the heart.
Then, in the second half of the verse, the harmony’s strong sequential movement
(up by fifths: Bm7–Fm7–Cm7–Gm7) is suddenly arrested by the same Am9
chord (“Show me the way”; Ex. 4.2). Mitchell lingers on this piercing moment,
sustaining a high dissonant note with a breathy, vulnerable voice. The asymmetry
of the closing phrase (half as long as the other three phrases) means that its closure
feels fragile. Meanwhile, amid the overall tone of light self-mockery, Mitchell high-
lights the moment of longing with the song’s most salient rhetorical gesture.
By making comparisons between songs, one can discern a cluster of seman-
tic elements that recur in connection with the theme of the quest as Mitchell
example 4.2. “barangrill,” second half of verse
(harmonic reduction)
And you think she knows some - thing by the sec - ond re - fill, you
B♭m11 Fm11
think she’s en - light - ened as she to - tals your bill. You say,
Cm7 Gm7(6)
“Show me the way to Bar - an - grill.”
Fm11 A♭m9
explores it. These include the iconography of vehicles and way stations, place
names and itineraries, and the promise of treasure or loot. The open-endedness
of the search is often connoted by key words like “somewhere” (“Treasure some-
where in the sea” [“The Dawntreader” (SS)]; “Looking for something, what can it
be” [“All I Want” (B)]). Emotional states are also important, especially the urge
or longing for adventure (“I’m porous with travel fever” [“Hejira” (H)]), and the
mental distraction arising from intense searching (“They’ll say that you’re crazy”
[“The Dawntreader”]). Finally, the searcher is sometimes marked as a breed apart
through a symbolic totem (“a diamond snake around my arm” [“Song for Sharon”
(H)]) or corporeal transformation (into a mermaid, cactus, or “black crow,” for
instance). This semantic cluster will be useful when we turn our attention to the
album Hejira and its unifying theme of travel in chapter 7. For now, I will point
out some of the recurring elements as they figure in one song from that album,
“Song for Sharon.”

This song takes the form of an autobiographical conversation with a child-
hood friend. Mitchell is writing from New York City, and her wandering train
of thought crisscrosses various locales in its dense geography (the Staten Island
ferry, Greenwich Village, Central Park), while also opening out to wider points
of reference from her travels (“a bridge up in Canada,” “a North Dakota junc-
tion”—where she left her man behind). Looking back on her small-town child-
hood (“Walking home on the railroad tracks”), it seems that she was already
destined for a life of exploration. The treasure at the end of the search is variously
expressed as the “bells and lace” of a fairy-tale wedding; the semi-exotic mandolin
(requiring a special harbor excursion); the pot of winnings at Bingo (impulsive
small-time gambles echoing the larger ones); the jewelled snake bracelet; and the
imagined “green pastures” of a settled homestead. Thus love, art, riches, danger,
and security all compete for her attention as she “chases” her dreams. There is
no guaranteed source of wisdom to appeal to for help in sorting such things out.
She sends up a prayer to “Miss Liberty,” consults a gypsy fortune-teller, and lis-
tens to friends’ advice about having children or pursuing “noble causes.” Yet, she
concludes, we all live close to the line of despair “and so far from satisfaction.”
In contrast to the words of the ingenue just setting out on her journey, this song
conveys the perspective of a seasoned pilgrim, taking stock of her journey so far.
In several ways this missive can be read as a reflection of its times. In respect to
the particular concerns of North American women, given their greater ability to
forgo the roles of housewife and mother, it represents an adjustment to alternative
identities as well as an attempt at reconciling old and new values. In respect to
the hippie generation post-Woodstock and post-Vietnam, it reflects a widespread
transition from modes of fulfillment through collective political action (the
“wide wide world of noble causes”) to individually based, introspective modes
of self-realization. (Historian Edward D. Berkowitz speaks of “the rush to join
self-help and human-potential movements, such things as psychotherapy, exis-
tential philosophy, Scientology, and EST, which asked people to expend energy
on themselves rather than on one another.”)10 Finally, however, Mitchell’s long
letter expresses dissatisfaction with this very trend. In the wake of “the dream’s
malfunction” (i.e., the failure of idealistic hopes for social change), her personal
dreams haven’t brought her any closer to satisfaction, remaining compulsive and
sporadic (“a repetitious danger”). All her intense self-exploration (“the power of
reason/And the flowers of deep feelings”) has proven to be a poor antidote against
emptiness (“a blank face at the window stares and stares and stares and stares”).
Insofar as Mitchell represents the inadequacy of the inner quest and shows how
it can easily deteriorate into shallow self-interest (“all I really want to do, right
now/Is . . . find another lover!”), her writing on Hejira carries an implicit cri-
tique of her own self-absorption. (Around the same time, some influential social
commentators were publishing critiques of what they perceived as a social trend
toward self-absorption—labeled “The Me Decade” by journalist Tom Wolfe and
“the culture of narcissism” by historian Christopher Lasch.)11
At first glance, the song “Night Ride Home,” a summer holiday nocturne,
may not seem to have strong connections to the present theme. Its narrator is
not earnestly striving but romantically settled and relaxing away from work. I
include the song here for its retrospective echoes of quest imagery from the view-
point of someone who has achieved some of her desired goals. The song’s charac-
ters are living or vacationing on Hawaii—portrayed as modernized though still
retaining the quality of a remote destination. At the moment, they are travel-
ing—not setting out but heading home. The beach is peopled with local merry-
makers (“hula girls,” “the ukulele man”). Power lines throw off a gleam of silver.
Suddenly a “big dark horse” looms out of the night, running alongside the car
like a wild spirit of nature. These are familiar symbols of adventure, but the mood
is not prospective or open-ended. The narrator is focused on the here and now:
instead of “somewhere” she speaks of “the man beside me,” instead of “by and by”
she speaks of “a night like this.” Like the pilgrim in “Barangrill,” the narrator
in “Night Ride Home” is lost in the moment as an elusive longing is fulfilled.
Moonbeams and headlight beams combine with fireworks in an intricate light
show; hula girls dance whimsically with “caterpillar tractors”; the pert sound of
crickets marks time alongside voice and guitar. The temporary paradise in this
song is an unlooked-for experience of wonder as the worlds of nature and man are
harmonized by an unseen choreographer.
BOHEMIA
On the other side of the spectrum from the men trapped in middle-class circum-
stance are a series of rebel characters that turn up in Mitchell’s work as tempters
and charmers. The first one to appear is the carnival drifter in “That Song about
the Midway” (C), gambling and playing guitar “like a devil wearing wings.”
There is the sidewalk busker in “Court and Spark” (C&S), coming to the door
“with a sleeping roll/And a madman’s soul.” There are the rock ’n’ roll rebels, like
Lead Foot Melvin (“In France They Kiss on Main Street” [HSL]) and Rowdy Yates
(“Dancin’ Clown” [CMRS]). The title character in “Carey” (B) is a cook Mitchell
met on a visit to the village of Matala, a hippie hangout on the isle of Crete. He
is a “mean old Daddy” and a “bright red devil” who does the “goat dance” very
well (he also appears in the song “California”). His diabolical aura is embellished
with fire and brimstone in Mitchell’s story of her first glimpse of the man, when
his gas stove accidentally exploded. “Kaboom! I heard, facing the sunset. I turned

around and this guy is blowing out the door of this restaurant. . . . Burned all the
red hair off himself right through his white Indian turban.”12
Such characters embody the attraction of a lifestyle unencumbered by routine
or the pressure to conform. The life on Crete, for instance, is easygoing and out
of the way. Caves provide natural shelter. One is thrown together with assorted
colorful companions (“freaks” and “soldiers”) at the local watering hole. Impulse
reigns. The music in “Carey” is full of irrepressible energy, expressed in the con-
tinuous bouncing dulcimer pedal and the tune that springs up from its lowest to
its highest point in a single leap. In the chorus, Mitchell and her friend dress up
like roadside royalty for their night out (“Come on, Carey, get out your cane”).
The village community allows for a relaxation of social conventions as well as a
pocket of alternative culture where one can freely play with the symbols of sta-
tus that prevail on the mainland. As in other bohemian enclaves, the values are
anti-bourgeois, flying in the face of repressive morals and materialist motives.
One’s liberation from so-called productive society is expressed in dionysian ges-
tures (“Come on down to the Mermaid Café and I will buy you a bottle of wine/
And we’ll laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down”).13
Significantly, however, Mitchell is careful to emphasize that she is just passing
through (“it’s really not my home”). Even in this bunch of nonconformers she is
unwilling to say that she belongs, so strong is her need to assert a distinct per-
sonal identity. Specifically, she wants to be able to encompass the full range of
lifestyle expression, moving freely between vagabond slumming and the luxury
comforts her earnings make possible (“I miss my clean white linen and my fancy
French cologne”).14 Once again, the mermaid (as in the “Mermaid Café”) comes
in handy as a symbol of her amphibious nature.
Some comments from a 1994 interview are highly illuminating. To the ques-
tion, “You were never really a hippy, were you?” Mitchell responds:
I was the queen of the hippies, but in a way I wasn’t really a hippy at
all. I was always looking at it for its upsides and downsides, balancing it
and thinking, here’s the beauty of it and here’s the exploitative quality
of it and here’s the silliness of it. I could never buy into it totally as an
orthodoxy.15
In a nutshell, this passage captures several crucial aspects of Mitchell’s personal-

ity that shape her songwriting through and through: the need to exercise critical
judgment, the dialectical turn of thought, the reluctance to belong wholeheart-
edly to any group, and the underlying assumption of an observer role. Her
maintenance of a certain perceptual distance from her milieu no doubt relates
to her perspective as a Canadian expatriate in the United States and as a female
songwriter of formidable intelligence and talent in a male-dominated industry.
But autobiographical evidence suggests that as a personality trait it was formed
much earlier. In the following passage from a 1979 interview, Mitchell casts back
to her school days:
My identity . . . was that I was a good dancer and an artist. And also, I was
very well dressed. I made a lot of my own clothes. I worked in ladies’ wear
and I modeled. I had access to sample clothes that were too fashionable for
our community, and I could buy them cheaply. I would go hang out on the
streets dressed to the T, even in hat and gloves. I hung out downtown with
the Ukrainians and the Indians; they were more emotionally honest, and
they were better dancers. When I went back to my own neighborhood, I
found that I had a provocative image. They thought I was loose because I
always liked rowdies. . . . I remember a recurring statement on my report
card—“Joan does not relate well.” I know that I was aloof. Perhaps some
people thought that I was a snob. There came a split when I rejected soror-
ities and that whole thing. . . . But there also came a stage when my friends
who were juvenile delinquents suddenly became criminals. They could go
into very dull jobs or they could go into crime. Crime is very romantic in
your youth. I suddenly thought, “Here’s where the romance ends. I don’t
see myself in jail.”16
Mitchell’s youthful assertion of nonconformity took the double form of a sartorial

sophistication and an attraction to “rowdies.” Her desire to move freely between
social groups and milieus, while maintaining a distinct identity within each,
entailed a certain aloofness.
The reference to the romance of crime brings up an important point of con-
trast between Mitchell’s bohemia and that of some of her male counterparts. Her
dionysian gestures are tame in comparison to the actions of the Beats, whose
celebration of spontaneous impulse embraced dangerous and criminal extremes
of behavior.17 A similar mystique surfaces in altered form in Bob Dylan’s songs of
the mid-1960s, peopled with characters who are either down and out or beyond
the law: peddlers, vagabonds, roving gamblers, bandits, lepers, and crooks. These
outsiders typically appear as loners rather than in groups of companions. Given
Dylan’s satiric tone and absurdist scenarios, it is hard to pin down a stable angle
of identification. Sometimes the outlaw character embodies a comic suspension
of ethical responsibility, as in “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream,” in which the nar-
rator has to flip a coin to decide whether to go back to the ship or back to jail.
At other times, he comes in for mockery, as in the little boy lost of “Visions
of Johanna,” who lives dangerously and takes himself so seriously. As Elizabeth

Brake argues, Dylan’s cumulative intent is to construct a radical outsider per-
spective from which to question “whatever society expects or requires. [Dylan’s
outlaw persona] rejects possessive love, a fixed abode, regular work, social nice-
ties, and authority of law.”18 Dionysian gestures are less evident, except in the
wicked black humor impelling the carnival of dream imagery. Even the ragged
clown of “Mr. Tambourine Man” is imagining a solitary trip of escape (“ready
for to fade/Into my own parade”). His long string of renunciations (“no place,”
“no one,” “let me forget”) acts like an emptying of personal identity. In contrast,
Mitchell’s nonconformist scenarios confirm personal identity and its uninhibited
expression. Her attractive rebels and drifters stop short of outlaw glamour. Her
acts of resistance are concrete and custom-fit rather than abstract and absolute.
They celebrate the freedom to embrace different social milieus and all sides of
one’s nature without the need to be categorized.
These themes come to the fore in “The Boho Dance” (HSL), a song in which
the bohemian (“boho”) scene is critically scrutinized. The title concept is taken
from Tom Wolfe’s book The Painted Word in which he skewers what he calls the
“mating ritual” of the modern art world. In his withering view, the “down-
town” artist clans may spurn bourgeois values, but their definition of success still
depends on acceptance by the wealthy “uptown” arbiters of fashion. The ritual has
two phases: the Boho Dance, in which the artist dedicates himself to the “sacred
squalor” of bohemia “as if . . . he has a knife in his teeth against the fashionable
world”; and the Consummation, in which the fashionable culturati scout bohe-
mia for new discoveries “and shower them with all the rewards of celebrity.” It
requires a special kind of mental “double-tracking” for the artist to let go of his
carefully nurtured antibourgeois feelings at the moment of discovery/consumma-
tion “and submit gracefully to good fortune.” There is always the danger of “get-
ting stuck forever in the Boho Dance,” maintaining a pathetic pride in remaining
a “virgin,” untouched by success.19
Mitchell sticks fairly closely to the Wolfe-ish take on things in this song,
producing the obverse of the viewpoint evident in “Carey.” In the earlier song,
Mitchell extols bohemian life while looking forward to the perks of success. In
the present song, on the other hand, the speaker takes time out from a glamorous
lifestyle for a disappointing visit to the “Boho zone.”
Down in the cellar in the Boho zone

I was looking for some sweet inspiration, oh well
Just another hard-time band
With Negro affectations
I was a hopeful in rooms like this
When I was working cheap
It’s an old romance—the Boho dance
It has not gone to sleep
The wild rebel figure of earlier songs appears here in muted form as the second-
person addressee, the “subterranean” in the parking lot (a reference to the Beat
ethos by way of Kerouac’s novel The Subterraneans). But in this tableau the char-
acter on the street is contemptuous of the speaker; in Wolfe’s terms, he is one of
those artists trapped in the bohemian phase. She in turn is stung into a harangue
against his self-righteousness and an elaborate defense of her high living. Such
issues had autobiographical relevance at this time: in 1974 Mitchell had moved
from the funky semi-rural artist’s community of Laurel Canyon to the exclu-
sive neighborhood of Bel Air. In songs such as “People’s Parties” and “The Same
Situation” (both C&S) she had already started to probe the customs and ambience
of L.A. society, and the change of milieu became more pronounced in Hissing.
When asked in 1994 to comment on this change and her concomitant transfor-
mation in style (“the chic, jazzy Joni of the ’70s”), Mitchell explained: “I can only
say that you write about that which you have access to. So if you go from the hippy
thing to more of a Gatsby community, so what? . . . Life is short and you have an
opportunity to explore as much of it as time and fortune allow. No subject matter
ever seemed barred to me, and no class ever seemed barred.”20 Mitchell seems to
have internalized the Wolfeism about submitting to good fortune, expressed in
“The Boho Dance” and echoed in this interview twenty years later.
In line with the new melodic aesthetic established in her second period (see
chapter 6), Mitchell’s vocal delivery is flexible, moving fluidly between a full
singing voice and heightened speech. This permits her to exploit the dramatic
possibilities of the situation (a blend of internal monologue and one-sided conver-
sation) through variations in expression, from quiet, letdown sigh (“oh well”) to
forceful harangue (“Jesus was a beggar”). Mitchell harshly disparages her unnamed
addressee, insinuating that his outsider status is a calculated pose (“by your own
design”) and that he hypocritically longs for the rewards he pretends to despise.
Like a priest with a pornographic watch

Looking and longing on the sly
Sure it’s stricken from your uniform
But you can’t get it out of your eyes
She goes so far as to portray his pose as a “uniform,” that is, another kind of
conformism. By the same token she represents her own brand of class mobil-
ity—roaming at will from the “cellar” to the “cocktail hour”—as more authentic
and freer from conformity. Viewed as an act of one-upmanship, the exchange is
unfairly matched: the unreported accusations of the subterranean character have

little chance of prevailing against the speaker’s hyper-articulate rationalizations
and imperious rhetoric. But the song can also be viewed as an internal reflec-
tion on the speaker’s changing relation to the “old romance” of bohemia as she
becomes aware of yet another hidden trap. For a dedication to “hard-time” liv-
ing is no guarantee of creative inspiration. It may just as easily lead to empty
affectation, moralistic attitudes (e.g., “noble poverty”), and a dogmatic rejection
of middle-class affiliations. Mitchell prefers to override the equation of personal
freedom with hippie styles of renunciation.
She does this by exposing the ideological distinction between economic classes
(the two “sides of town”) as a false dichotomy: both the poor man Jesus and the
rich king Solomon were vessels of enlightenment. The categories themselves are
psychologically restrictive and insidious: true freedom consists in ignoring or
seeking to escape categories (“Nothing is capsulized in me”). Thus even when
scrabbling for income, the speaker claims, she never totally abandoned middle-
class values (“The cleaner’s press was in my jeans”). Even when frequenting fash-
ionable restaurants, signs of hippie negligence show through (“A camera pans
the cocktail hour/Behind a blind of potted palms/And finds a lady in a Paris
dress/With runs in her nylons”). To convey her metaphorical escape, the speaker
actively restructures the poem’s symbolic space, so that “the streets” and the park-
ing lot can no longer claim the outsider position: there is an ulterior space of
freedom “outside” the Boho dance. This ulterior perspective is embodied in the
device of the mobile, omniscient camera, exposing hidden contradictions and
mirroring the speaker’s role as detached observer.
Significantly, Mitchell portrays nonconformist identity in terms of aesthetic
self-presentation (through apparel), thus merging the artistic and the personal.
Artistic expression and self-fashioning are indistinguishable, as suggested in the
reference to the characters’ “style” or their “own design.” This means that the
poetic argument about self-expression reflects indirectly on Mitchell’s newly glam-
orous musical aesthetic. According to certain well-established codes, authenticity
in rock is linked to rough performance styles and overtly rebellious gestures. In
her defense of personal glamour, therefore, Mitchell is implicitly defending her
music’s timbral sheen, slick production, and sense of decorative detail (like “lace
along the seams”) as an authentic form of expression, in defiance of arbitrary
stylistic connotations. She cues this subtext by way of audible dichotomies: the
plainness of solo piano and declamatory voice (relating the visit to the Boho zone)
versus the polished sound and sparkling highlights of the entire band (entering
when the speaker describes her improvised swank). Likewise, the occasional dra-
matic vocal outburst emerges from an ultra-suave mix of minimal horn riffs and
cool emotional control. The central image of “stepping outside” the prescribed
dance steps is dramatized in the rhythmic contrast between the verses with their
smooth groove and the instrumental interludes with their loss of momentum
and triplet figures that resist assimilation to the meter. Conversely, the harmonic
progression feels stuck in a limited set of moves that always loop back to the same
unresolved dominant chord. Overall, the musical patterns in this song project a
highly refined sensibility in line with the intellectual sophistication of its argu-
ment and imagery. It is not an easily accessible song but one that requires a bit of
effort to follow. Its unique tone derives from Mitchell’s unabashed embrace of her
quite rarefied perspective (as wealthy celebrity/loner) as well as her willingness to
flout preconceptions of genre and individual style.
“A Strange Boy” (H), from the following year, is much more accessible:
straightforward in language, its bohemian theme is framed within the popular
scenario of a romantic affair. The rebel character is a younger man full of an
untamable energy (we first see him causing “havoc” by skateboarding through a
crowded sidewalk). So far he has managed to evade the disciplinary forces of soci-
ety: the military system (“the war and the navy/Couldn’t bring him to maturity”)
and behavioral taboos, conveyed by the references to “curfew” and “house-rules,”
as well as the lifeless stare of the rows of “antique dolls.” Not even the speaker
herself has succeeded in taming him (“‘Grow up!’ I cried”). It shows a striking
variation on the main theme that she should be associated with the forces of
adulthood and discipline in this way. The boy’s attraction consists in his wild-
ness, youth, agility, and strong sense of self; the battered (“damaged,” “parched”)
speaker looks to him for rejuvenation, trading her “jewelry” and “power” for his
“crazy wisdom.” In contrast to “The Boho Dance,” this song represents a favorable
bohemian episode.
A thousand glass eyes were staring

In a cellar full of antique dolls
I found an old piano
And sweet chords rose up in waxed New England halls
While the boarders were snoring
Under crisp white sheets of curfew
We were newly lovers then
We were fire in the stiff-blue-haired-house-rules
However, the thematic elements are arranged differently: the “crisp white sheets”
now signify censoriousness rather than comfort; and the “cellar,” site of spontane-
ous music-making, is now inside the very structures of established society (“waxed
New England halls”). There is no enclave of free-minded companions here, just
two loners coming together. Nor is there an out-of-the-way community; cul-
ture and counterculture, “inside” and “outside,” are thoroughly entangled. This
motif of spatial/temporal paradox is expressed as weaving skillfully through a

grid (of intersections, of properly ordered waking hours). The regulated, squared
lines of traffic and “stiff-blue-haired” tradition are contrasted with the natural curves
of lovemaking and the “rising” forces of surf, fire, and music.
The musical patterns also pick up on the notion of weaving through a grid.
The introductory riff with its unhurried, extended chain of syncopations (see
Ex. 7.5b) expresses the familiar idea of accents playing “off” the metric pulse
(and the voice participates in this too—for instance, in the offbeat stresses of
the phrase “midday sidewalk traffic”). The lead guitar enters sporadically in
spontaneous solos, a figure of wildness against the steady background rhythm
guitar. In fact, the overall aesthetic of melodic flexibility Mitchell is exploring
in this album is a sonic symbol of freedom in the midst of established conven-
tion: verses that freely breathe within strophic divisions along with the singer’s
freedom to discover new peaks and valleys within each turn of the melodic
cycle. The one consistent melodic peak occurs in the final line of each verse,
where it emphasizes the theme of paradox (in verse 1, the strangeness of an
immature but wise boy; in verse 2, his blending of selfishness and empathy;
in verse 3, her relinquishment of power). Just as the boy’s special freedom is
portrayed as an illogical balancing act (“holding on to something wild”), the
romantic relationship involves a tug of wills or a difficult dance of mutual coor-
dination. The fullness of love ebbs and flows, as does the harmonic color, alter-
nating between the “sweet chord” of full tonic major (lines 1 and 5) and blues
inflections (especially the punctuating guitar riff in hollow parallel fifths). A
détente of sorts is reached in the final (truncated) verse when the tussling lovers
are united in opposition against the representatives of bourgeois conformity. At
the same time, in a strange sudden swerve, the last two lines (“We were newly
lovers then”) place the whole romantic episode in the unrecoverable past.
TALENT
Earlier in this chapter I pointed out how Mitchell occasionally uses the descrip-
tion of a person’s artistic talent (as in “I Had a King,” “Michael from Mountains,”
and “The Gallery”) as a metaphor for the quality of his or her personality or
dealings with other people. In many other songs, she refers in passing to her
artistic vocation (whether as painter, writer, or musician) and its related baggage.
Certain songs acquire a special status by taking art itself as their theme, ponder-
ing the different paths open to the artist given conflicting ideas of success and the
elusive nature of creative inspiration. In three early songs, Mitchell dramatizes
(or lyricizes) three different accommodations to the muse, in each case enlarging
upon the distinct emotional resonance. “Ladies of the Canyon” (LC) portrays a
bucolic, bohemian haven whose denizens are free to pursue their offbeat lifestyle.
This means nurturing their individual gifts without any intrusive influence.
Trina, working in paint and fabric, cultivates a unique sense of decoration and
“weaves a pattern all her own” (note the important connections to the “weaving”
image from “A Strange Boy” and the idea of “your own design” from “The Boho
Dance”). Estrella fills the canyon with music, which “pours” out unimpeded.
Mitchell’s description here employs the precious language of fantasy: “Songs like
tiny hammers hurled/At bevelled mirrors in empty halls.” The last image is dense
in connotation. It evokes a romanticized past (“empty” as in uninhabited and for-
gotten). In its lack of narrative detail it suggests a sense of stories yet unwritten,
appropriate to the ingenue persona. In connection with the image of mirrors, the
empty space connotes introspection and the undisturbed solitude necessary for
concentrated work. Overall, the song creates an atmosphere of simple pleasures
and deep personal fulfillment.
In “For Free” (LC), however, there is a split in the path. The lyric speaker is
a musician who has already achieved commercial success. At a stop on her tour
she comes across a clarinetist playing on the street “so sweet and high.” The sight
electrifies her; alone, undiscovered, not even asking for change, he embodies a
kind of music-making she has left far behind. In explaining her own situation,
she never even describes her music; instead, she is preoccupied with the perqui-
sites of fame (wealth, star treatment, bodyguards) which have distanced her from
her audience as well as the original source of her inspiration. The “halls” in which
she plays represent lucrative business contracts and large audiences (no longer
the resonant “empty halls” of solitude). The street musician is not weighed down
with such things; his creative gift is free to ramble where it will. He symbolizes
a state of grace from which she has fallen.21 For a moment she stands, undecided
as to whether she should cross to his side of the street. But as the signal changes
she continues on her way. Mitchell’s performance of the song is laden with grief
for the path not taken.
“For the Roses” (FR) also contains a split between the speaker and an alter ego,
but their relative positions are more complicated. This song captures the perspec-
tive of a musician seeking temporary refuge from the pressures of the business,
conducting an imaginary conversation with a friend and fellow songwriter still
in the flush of stardom.
I heard it in the wind last night

It sounded like applause
Did you get a round resounding for you
Way up here
It seems like many dim years ago

Since I heard that face to face
Or seen you face to face
Though tonight I can feel you here
Verse 1 turns on the framing sound-image of “applause,” which acts like a

Proustian sense-memory to unlock thoughts of the life left behind. Employing
relaxed, informal language, the opening lines establish the speaker’s physical dis-
tance from (yet emotional closeness to) her friend. The rustic setting, “way up
here” away from civilization, alludes to Mitchell’s property in British Columbia
to which she had retreated (with the intention of retiring) after undergoing emo-
tional trauma during the recording of the album Blue.22 Obviously, the wounds
are still fresh; the conversational flights of fancy are fueled by bitter disappoint-
ment. Verse 2 slips into an elliptical narrative mode, suggesting a cinematic mon-
tage of a star being born. His breathless rise to fame (“Up the charts/Off to the
airport—/Your name’s in the news/Everything’s first class—”) is exhilarating but
happens far too fast to absorb. Furthermore, Mitchell’s figures of speech project
intense dissonance between the musician’s sensitive gift and the voracious corpo-
rate entity ready to exploit it:
In some office sits a poet

And he trembles as he sings
And he asks some guy
To circulate his soul around
The language of sacralized art and of commodity ventures are in sharp conflict.
The poet’s “trembling” conveys the excitement and fear of the ingenue, likened
to sexual innocence.
As before, entry into the business is experienced as a fall from grace. In verse 3,
the speaker acts as a voice of conscience for her friend, recalling the days when
his guitar was a direct tool of self-communion: “you used to . . . pour your simple
sorrow/To the soundhole and your knee.” (Significantly, Mitchell recorded the
song au naturel in its solo guitar version with no additional players.) Once solid
and immediate, his music is now converted into media streams for distribution
on “giant screens.” Once whole, his soul is now cut up into company shares.
(Mitchell’s voice on the word “slices” has a memorable edge. She also places a
great deal of emotional weight on the word “glitter,” in pained reaction to the
mind-set that corrupts artistic value into purely monetary gain.) The new-fledged
star is caught up in the “caressing rev of motors”—that is, the deceptively glam-
orous machinery of profit and public relations, which has ways of seizing control
over one’s creative output (“They toss around your latest golden egg”). In short,
the industry is an elaborate, well-baited trap. Mitchell caps this motif of the loss
of artistic freedom in verse 4, by invoking the heavily freighted image of crucifix-
ion—another story of good intentions spiraling out of control:
Oh the power and the glory

Just when you’re getting a taste for worship
They start bringing out the hammers
And the boards
And the nails
Her sprawling, offhand tone couches a bitter self-mockery over past delusions.
The crucifix image is also apt in that it represents a theatrical form of martyrdom,
engineered for the public display of a personal anguish.23
Yet, in another burst of candor, the speaker admits that her condemna-
tion of the industry is compromised since she “really can’t give up” the mate-
rial rewards of fame just yet.24 (With special black humor, this verse begins
with a self-portrait as wild dog—“teeth sunk in the hand/That brings me
things”—and ends with a self-portrait as the messiah.) Nor is she entirely
free of the desire for public recognition, as signified by the ghostly memory of
applause. The speaker’s conflicted attitude toward her career is captured in the
poem’s confused sense of place, bouncing back and forth between “up here,”
“somewhere,” “up there,” as if deeply unsure of its point of identification. In
a similar way, the image of a seated musician as a focus of creative energy is
multiplied in a series of locations and ambivalent emotional contexts: the poet
sitting and trembling in the office, sitting alone with his guitar; the speaker
herself sitting in front of the TV, exiled from the music scene and reduced to
watching it secondhand. The poem rigorously adheres to this motif of dou-
bling and displacement: in the parallels between speaker and alter ego (and
thus the double signification of the pronoun “you”) but also in more abstract
perceptual metaphors. Thus the speaker’s reflections are set in motion by a
sound she imagines as echoing or “resounding” across the distance separat-
ing her from her friend. The industrialized media network represents a more
insidious kind of displacement, converting organic sounds and performances
into images for copying and repeated circulation (until they split up into pix-
els like “confetti”).
The title of the song alludes, on the one hand, to the cut-flower tributes after
a performance, passed up in bouquets or thrown singly from afar. On the other
hand, and more bitterly, it suggests the wreath placed over the winning horse
at the racetrack, thereby reducing the speaker’s subjective viewpoint to that of a
prize horse in someone else’s competition.25 But the title phrase itself is cut off,
and its exact referent is uncertain—say, “the trials we put ourselves through”
for the roses, or, “is it all just a race” for the roses, or perhaps, “thank you” for

the roses. The latter understanding suggests a farewell note from the speaker to
her audience, as if seriously commemorating the end of her career. Thus in the
incomplete verse 5, she returns to the echo of applause, recognizing it as an aural
illusion formed of the ephemeral sounds of nature. Though on the one hand this
represents a return to present reality, on the other she is still lingering over fanci-
ful reflections and wistful recollections of the past:
It was just the arbutus rustling

And the bumping of the logs
And the moon swept down black water
Like an empty spotlight
Where in verse 1, the ghost-applause evokes her friend’s success and acclama-
tion, in the final verse that scene is displaced by the idea of the speaker’s own last
imaginary bow as she retreats to the “empty halls” of solitude.
On the other end of the spectrum from this earnest head trip is a light anec-
dotal number from Mingus, “The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines.”
I’m down to a roll of dimes

I’m stalking the slot that’s hot
I keep hearing bells all around me
Jingling the lucky jackpots
They keep you tantalized
They keep you reaching for your wallet
Here in fool’s paradise!
Set on the Las Vegas strip, the song seems an unlikely place to encounter themes
pertaining to an artistic calling. But the circumstances of the album as a whole—a
collaboration with Charles Mingus, terminally ill at the time—provoked two por-
traits of the great jazz artist in the songs “God Must Be a Boogie Man” and “A
Chair in the Sky,” which meditate on his psychological makeup, his achievements,
and his place in the “divine plan.” Moreover, the poem for “Goodbye Pork Pie
Hat” places Mingus within an ongoing generational history of African American
music. In the context of its neighboring songs where the figure of the artist is such
a strong presence, “Dry Cleaner” serves as a foil, a witty burlesque on a related
theme. It is one of those songs in which a lyrical observer expresses fascination
with a stranger’s skill or charisma—for example, “For Free” and “A Strange Boy,”
as we have seen in this chapter. In “A Strange Boy,” the skill in question is iron-
ically characterized as the childish and fairly trivial art of skateboarding (“He sees
the cars as sets of waves”). The dry cleaner’s skill is even more trivial—the ability
to “clean up” in any game of chance. Mitchell sustains a comic tone by empha-
sizing the low stakes involved (“a roll of dimes”), the surreal tourist-trap setting

(“the cowgirls fill the room/With their big balloons”), and the tackiness of the
prizes (“He had Dinos and Pooh Bears/And lions pink and blue there”).
Nevertheless, the dry cleaner is amazingly gifted—and maddening to watch.
This poem can be seen as a humorous take on the “artist envy” scenario of “For
Free”: like the street musician from that song, the dry cleaner “plays real good”
while the speaker misses every time. The subliminal analogy between gambling
and playing music is carried out in a string of noisy action words: “clanking,”
“pitching,” “I blew it,” and especially the persistent sound of winning bells (“He
kept ringing bells/Nothing to it!”). There is also a suggestion of manual dexter-
ity (or “chops”) in his nimble action at the tables as well as his Midas touch (“the
cleaner from Des Moines/Could put a coin/In the door of a john/And get twenty
for one”).26 On the other hand, unlike Mitchell’s usual treatment of the artist and
in keeping with her comic purpose, the gambler’s skill is absolutely devoid of
any ulterior ethical value (such as authenticity or aesthetic ambition)—another
meaning behind the phrase “nothing to it.” This breezy vignette reflects wryly on
the haphazard allotment of worldly success and the inexplicable origin of innate
talents (“he must have had a genie in a lamp”). The speaker’s rueful refrain (“It’s
just luck!”) is at the same time a shrug of cosmic resignation and a case of sour
grapes, belittling the skill she wishes she had (“You get a little lucky and you
make a little money!”).
What makes the song witty at the level of its perspective is that even as Mitchell-
the-speaker is putting on the air of a sad sack, Mitchell-the-poet is ringing bells
with a virtuosic display of verbal skill. This tune is one of several written by
Mingus for Mitchell to set to words. It moves along at a good clip and has a
two-octave range (low E to high F). The tune follows no set phrase structure.
Instead it originally consisted of improvisation over a standard twelve-bar blues
progression, where the aim is unfolding rhythmic variation and contrapuntal
interplay with the underlying four-bar units. (In its final form the song consists
of three vocal choruses, an intervening instrumental chorus, another vocal chorus,
instrumental chorus with scat vocal, a final vocal chorus, four more instrumen-
tal choruses with vocal riffs, and a coda on the tonic.) Mitchell was faced with
a preexisting melody that was elastic and mercurial, weaving between the grid
of a repetitive formal pattern. In response she came up with a rap that is chatty,
colorful, and fluid (nonmetric)—yet projecting a strophic form (five verses) with
a clear rhyme scheme. (In verse 1, for instance, the first two four-bar units are
paired—“slot that’s hot/jackpots”—and the third unit contains its own rhym-
ing pair—“tantalized/paradise.” This basic scheme persists with variation until
verse 5, which contains four rhyming pairs spread asymmetrically.) Her poetic
lines have a great rhythmic freedom in order to accommodate melodic fragmen-
tation on the one hand (as in verse 3: “He got three oranges/Three lemons/Three

cherries/Three plums/I’m losing my taste for fruit!”) and extended enjambment
on the other (as in the following lines from verse 4, set to one melodic gesture that
bridges two four-bar units: “He picked out a booth at Circus Circus/Where the
cowgirls fill the room/With their big balloons”). The resulting dance of interlock-
ing patterns (rhyme scheme, blues progression, variable phrase structure—not to
mention Jaco Pastorius’s tight horn arrangements and hyperactive bass) is a feat
of amazing coordination, carried off with insouciant flair.
FLIGHT
The five thematic strands I am untangling in this chapter are closely related—
naturally, in an intense search for personal freedom, one’s relationships, career,
lifestyle, and creative choices will feel like overlapping aspects of a single goal.
Likewise, the desire for personal liberation may be experienced as a spiritual desire,
and this is often the case in Mitchell’s poetry. In “The Dawntreader” (SS), for
instance, her yearning for adventure on the sea (with the accompanying imagery
of treasure, mermaids, dolphins, etc.) is expressed in vague and mythical terms so
that it can metaphorically encompass a range of personal yearnings. These include
the specified desires for love and social change (“A dream that the wars are done”)
but also desires that remain unspecified (“questions there’s no answer for,” “A
dream that you tell no one but the grey sea”). In the context of wide-open hori-
zons and fabulous creatures, these unspoken desires take on a metaphysical reso-
nance. The refrain, “Like a promise to be free,” suggests a utopian longing that is
not confined to the earthly realm. We can understand this tentative mysticism as
religious expression under the influence of countercultural values (in particular,
the rejection of established institutions and doctrines, the emphasis on expanded
consciousness, and the sacrosanct value placed on personal expression). Under
these conditions, the religious impulse may take the form of a highly personal-
ized reinterpretation of traditional symbols, such as the garden in “Woodstock”
(set against cosmic stardust and psychedelic warplane/butterflies); the figures of
god and devil, reworked in a Manichean register in “Shadows and Light” (HSL);
or the notion of the Trinity, applied to Charles Mingus’s own psychology in “God
Must Be a Boogie Man” (M). It may look to alternative spiritual traditions, such
as the borrowed Native American shamanism found in Carlos Castaneda’s books
(an inspiration for “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” [DJRD]) or the Hindu belief
in reincarnation alluded to in “A Chair in the Sky” (M).27 Finally, the impulse for
countercultural religious expression may elicit new symbols, tailored for personal
use. In “The Dawntreader,” the seabird from verse 3 is a prototype for such an
idiomatic spiritual symbol. Creature of the sky (“Seabird I have seen you fly above

the pilings”), it descends to earth to commune with the speaker about vision-
ary ideals (“Fold your fleet wings/I have brought some dreams to share”), thus
embodying a bridge between human and metaphysical realms. Avian personas
such as this come to assume an important role in Mitchell’s work as a means of
evoking transcendent perspectives and visionary flights to a better world. As we
will see, her expression of utopian longing is rarely free from ambivalence and is
usually tempered with an awareness of human frailty and imperfection.
In “Song to a Seagull” (SS), the guitar’s emphasis on quartal harmony lends
a spacious but stark atmosphere (Ex. 4.3). Chords are grounded on a low, toll-
ing drone that never abates. Around this primal frame the voice circles in a free,
chanting rhythm. The sentiments distilled are pure and naive, one solitary soul
calling to another.
Fly silly seabird

No dreams can possess you
No voices can blame you
For sun on your wings
As the song opens, the speaker hails the seagull as her surrogate, partaking of
an unknowing, natural freedom. In the refrain she envisions herself joining the
gulls in their flight from the sphere of human contempt and misunderstanding
(“My dreams with the seagulls fly/Out of reach out of cry”). In Mitchell’s cre-
ation of a transcendent poetic perspective, three symbolic elements are crucial:
the projection of the speaker’s identity outward to a vicariously imagined sub-
ject; the defiance of gravity, with the associated experience of physical exhilara-
tion and widened spatial focus; and the act of disappearing, flying out of reach
of sight or sound. The last element signifies the ultimate freedom to rise above
the limits of one’s earthbound life and leave it behind. Nevertheless in this
instance it produces an uncanny and melancholy ghost-effect. That is, though
the speaker’s visionary desire is winging away out of sight, such a conceptual
image depends on a residual awareness of her actual, gravity-bound position on
shore (out of sight of whom?). Furthermore, in contrast to “The Dawntreader,”
here there is almost no content or shape to her dreams, the goal of which
belongs to another realm of knowledge. This ineffability is exhilarating in its
suggestion of an escape from mundane thought; at the same time, it implies
a conceptual divide that may very well be unbridgeable. (There are plenty of
songs in which Mitchell spells out specific social or philosophical ideals; but
these often do not coincide with the use of visionary rhetoric. For example,
in “Sisotowbell Lane” (SS), the utopian geniality of the earthy-crunchy com-
munity she portrays consists precisely in its being realizable at this moment
in the world.)

example 4.3. “song to a seagull,” intro
Mitchell goes on to place two other metaphorical sites in counterpoint with

the visionary horizon. In verse 2, the speaker cries out against the urban waste-
land and its disfigured effigy of nature (“On an island of noise/In a cobblestone
sea”)—no spiritual nurture here. In verse 3, she escapes to an earthly haven where
the seagulls are in view.28 But even here, the sad facts of mortality soon intrude
into consciousness (“But sandcastles crumble/And hunger is human”). This vein
continues into the last verse, where a question forms for the seagull, as if it could
tell us of those who came before (“where are the footprints/That danced on these
beaches/And the hands that cast wishes/That sunk like a stone”). Here the perspec-
tive widens once again, this time over a temporal horizon. Once again Mitchell
summons images of disappearance: castles that crumble, footprints washed away,
dreams that come to nothing.
Thus the powerful visionary urge, which always returns with the refrain, is held
in tension with the knowledge of frailty and transience. The rising wing is countered
by the sinking stone. At the climactic point in each verse just before the refrain, the
melody rises repeatedly to B, the seventh degree of the scale (see Ex. 6.8). In the
modal language of the song (Mixolydian; see chapter 5), this builds a questioning as
well as a directional force (creating expectations for an upward arrival on the tonic).
The verse articulations are thus poised on an updraft that is carried through only in
the guitar. During the aspirations of the refrain, the vocal melody is in fact sinking
on its way back to the tonic. Mitchell’s persona in this song may be filled with ideal-
istic longing, but she is well aware of how little effect such longing might have. The
longed-for world is incommensurable, a “world we can’t share.” Where are the signs
of the other dreamers that have been here? Her final call to the gull goes unanswered;
it seems that her wishes must also fall back to earth, leaving no sign. The final phrase
“out of cry” takes on an extra resonance. Not only does it suggest the crying bird
moving out of our range of hearing, but it also suggests the imperviousness of the
gull to the human cry. Mitchell portrays her visionary flight with an image that
evokes both exhilaration and melancholy, transcendence and separation.
In its title and central image, “Sweet Bird” (HSL) refers glancingly to the
Tennessee Williams play Sweet Bird of Youth; the song spins out a meditation on
the transience of youth without ever once speaking the word. Where “Song to a

Seagull” moved among three symbolic poles, “Sweet Bird” is absorbed in a single
dense image, suspended in time and space.
Out on some borderline

Some mark of in-between
I lay down golden—in time
And woke up vanishing
The high-flown language of the first four lines works on two levels: its most
concrete subject is the passing from one’s prime into middle age. Somewhere out
there, it says, was a line I crossed, a moment that marked, however subtly, the
onset of decline. This concrete meaning is continued with the reference to age-
defying makeup in the seventh line. Surrounded as it is by highly abstract utter-
ances, the latter image (“beauty jars”) is itself rather jarring, with its assumption
that an ideal can be packaged or even contained. The image of facial care also
has an oblique retrospective effect on line 4, evoking associations of “vanishing”
cream—one vain remedy against the erosions of time.
But the concrete level of meaning is initially quite difficult to pick out, being
ironically embedded within a transcendent level. The opening poetic figures are
powerfully vague and abstract, placing us on some unspecified horizon, which
could be in space or time. If space, it’s an airless sort of limbo; if time, it’s a
gyroscopic balance-point. The speaker is projected or abstracted “out,” away from
any worldly anchor; her states of sleeping and waking assume a metaphysical con-
notation. Metaphysical as well, it would seem, is her turn from golden fullness
to a state of vanishing, as if her identity, with its inevitable limitations, has just
dissolved in the rarefied air. With the invocation of the bird in line 5 (“Sweet bird
you are/Briefer than a falling star”), we have all the signs of transcendence: out-
ward projection, flight, and disappearance. One further element contributing to
the transcendent perspective in this song is the poetic diction itself. Abstractions
and suggestive imprecisions—“out,” “up,” “somewhere,” “horizon,” “time and
change”—continue throughout. Keeping the language consistently removed
from a mundane setting reinforces the effect of elevation and widened focus. That
is why the mundane “beauty jars” are so intrusive and why the whole topic of
aging stands in an ironic relation to the transcendent. The figurative language
(and the music, as we shall see) gives us a taste of an expanded perspective, from
which human concerns seem a small matter. This state of privileged vision is
embodied in the strange bird, who laughs at our vain anxieties (“Sweet bird of
time and change/You must be laughing/Up on your feathers laughing”). The
message of the song will turn out to be our inability to grasp firmly the ideals of
youth and beauty; but the musical experience extends the seductive illusion that
we can inhabit a world of ideals.

The song begins with a very gradual fade-in, as if we are approaching or tun-
ing in to something that’s already there. The alternation between two chords
(Bm7(6) and Em7) creates a circular rather than a forward motion. Strumming
acoustic guitar is set off against a warm glow of background vocals and wailing
electric guitars. The voices cluster and shift like a spatial mass; the electric guitars
unfurl in a high, haunting stratum; an intermittent, rocking piano is also added
to the texture. Each instrument group occupies a distinct registral layer, the
rhythmic activity of which is independent of the others; voices and high guitars
are especially free floating. A very special sound-world is created: rather static in
time, with no beginning; spatially layered, with strata that hover and float; tone
colors that combine a “golden” glow with eerily distant reverberations.
The vocal melody maintains a low range and low expressive profile. In fact,
the larger section of each verse (all but the first four lines) hovers closely around
the single note D. The relative stasis of the melody is offset by the complex har-
monic progression (Ex. 4.4). When the melody enters, the harmony breaks out of
its alternation between minor chords into a G-major area. The G center is held
largely in suspension, however, only rarely touching down as a stable tonic. At
certain points in the harmonic circuit, the chords break out dramatically from
the G center. The first point occurs at line 3. After “I lay down golden,” the
chord slips from E minor to an Emaj9 (or B/E “slash”) chord (Ex. 4.5). The
underlying voice-leading is chromatic, but the arrival on E is far down the flat
side of G—the result is something like the bottom dropping out of the key. This
effect is heightened by the pungent but open stacked-fifth spacing of the E
chord (built into the guitar tuning: C G D G B D). The tonal rupture occurs at
example 4.4. “sweet bird,” chord changes, verse 1

Guitar tuning: C G D G B D
Intro: ||: Bm7(6) | Em7 :|| Bm7(6) | Em7 G/C |
Lines: 1 2
| C(9) | Em9 | F/G | C(9) |
3 4
| C(9) | Em9 | B/E | B/E | C(9) | G |
5/10 6/11
||: A/D | C/F G/C | C(9) | G |
7/12 8/13 9/14
| C(9) | G | F/G | C(9)/G | C(9)/G :||
15
| F/G | C(9)/G | C(9)/G |

example 4.5. “sweet bird,” chord changes, lines 3–5
C(9) Em9 B♭/E♭ C(9)
G A/D C/F G/C C(9) G
the turning moment in the opening poetic gambit—the balance-point between

fullness and decline. Mitchell extends the duration of this line of text to linger
over the effect.
At “Sweet bird” (line 5) there is another rupture, this time on the sharp side
of G (an A/D slash chord). Both ruptures are momentary, quickly folding back
into G. They complicate the tonal space of the song in uncanny ways; at the same
time, their arrangement on either side of G in the circle of fifths reflects the the-
matic idea of balance. Balance is evident as well between the introductory mate-
rial (also used as interlude and coda) on the dominant, or sharp side, and the verse,
which tends to the subdominant, or flat side, of G. The flavor of flat and sharp
combines with that of major and minor to further distinguish the verses from
the interludes. The circling minor harmonies of the instrumental sections imbue
them with melancholy; in contrast, the mostly major subdominant shading in the
verses gives them a certain serenity. This polarizes the tension maintained in the
lyrics between an imagined sphere of Platonic perfection (“golden in time”) and
our real exclusion from such a sphere (“cities under the sand”). The instrumental
sections thus concentrate in themselves the ache of longing or perhaps grief over
our shortcomings. This symbolic connotation intensifies in the central interlude,
in which the regular meter is audibly truncated, confused by cross-rhythms, and
arrested by awkward accents in the guitar figuration. After the contrast of this
limping, imperfect world, verse 2 truly soars. At the end of that verse, the song
falls into a loop (“Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touch-
ing”) of alternating subdominant chords (F/G–C(9)/G). The loop repeats so many
times that it seems the song will end on this serene plateau. But at the final vocal
phrase the balance tips, and we return to the melancholy instrumental loop for
the fade-out.

“Sweet Bird” begins from an awareness of lost youth, but this awareness is
only evoked through allusion and circuitous expression. Mitchell exploits indirect
language in favor of a meaning cloaked in indeterminacy. When the bird first
appears it is “briefer than a falling star”: it must represent youth itself. At the
next invocation, it is now “sweet bird of time and change”; apparently its mean-
ing has shifted to encompass the process of loss and transience. And youth is not
all that is lost; we see “power, ideals and beauty fading.” When we come to the
final moral, it has drifted farther away from the initial concern.
No one knows
They can never get that close
Guesses at most
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
That close to what? Once again the song has moved powerfully toward the
abstract, pushing concrete circumstances to the point of disappearance. We are
left with “guesses,” a rushing sky, and shifting patterns of time and change.
In “Amelia” (H), the autobiographical speaker is a woman on the road,
wrapped up in episodic contemplation; each verse teases out a different view of
travel as a metaphor for life or love. The various strands of the quest for “para-
dise”—personal, romantic, artistic, and spiritual fulfillment—are inextricably
linked. Mitchell alludes to her rambling persona from the early seafaring period
(in the reference to the “Cactus Tree Motel”), but the landscape is now more
desolate—dusty and dry, as if the cactus metaphor has taken root. The ethereal
bird character of earlier songs has been translated into an airplane and by exten-
sion into the romantic figure of Amelia Earhart. A world-weary apostrophe to the
aviator rounds off each verse. The visionary aspect of this poem is not as pervasive;
from the mundane realm we catch intermittent glimpses of another, “higher”
perspective. Significantly, the speaker is behind the wheel of a car while all her
meditations are about air travel. Yet her skyward yearnings never quite coalesce
into a sustained stratum of privileged vision.
I was driving across the burning desert

When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
In verse 1, the sight of jet planes provides the occasion for the speaker to
project her identity outward. The image of her guitar strings (i.e., her creative/
expressive persona) spreads to fill the heavens in the wake of the planes and their

seductive engine drone. The effect of this metaphoric substitution is one of brief
release from a “bleak” physical setting into a cosmic state. But the original image
that triggered the vision—the “vapor trails”—is insubstantial and already in the
process of disappearing. The refrain brings the point home with its reference to
a “false alarm.” These words signal a deflation of the transcendent perspective
and an inability to sustain it for long. More devastatingly, they reflect upon the
speaker’s artistic confidence, which has been implicated in the insubstantiality
of the vision. (The point is underlined by the rhyming of “guitar” and “false
alarm”—and through an imperfect, failed rhyme, at that.) What if her musical
achievement itself is nothing more than a vapor trail? The refrain is indetermi-
nate enough to serve for every verse, but at each occurrence the message is one of
disappointment at the deceptiveness of appearances, or the failure of hopes and
dreams.
A gestural rhythm of elation and deflation is also conveyed in the song’s har-
monic progression (Ex. 4.6). The beginning of each verse is marked by a series
of harmonic upturns. After the intro/interlude in F, line 1 is introduced by an
unprepared shift to a G tonic. Line 2 consists of similar material, now shifted up
in a momentary tonicization of B. Both shifts are accomplished by the left hand
sliding on the strings. This upward voice-leading strand reaches its high point at
the C chord at the beginning of line 4, after which the bass line turns back down
through B, A, and G. The entire verse (except for the B chords) sits within G
major; but at the end of line 5 the descending bass overshoots and falls down into
F for the refrain and interlude. Verse and refrain thus exist in a false tonal rela-
tion with each other, and the slump into F corresponds to the disappointment
embodied in the refrain.
A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
The climactic emergence of the visionary occurs in verse 5, where Mitchell

portrays Earhart’s historical fate in mythical terms. The pilot disappears over the
horizon, following her dream; the speaker identifies her own sense of vision with
that of the pilot. But Amelia is an Icarus figure, reckless and flawed. The speaker is
admitting to ambivalence about her own “beautiful foolish” aspirations—namely,
her relationships and artistic goals, and the precarious balance between the two.
As verse 6 bears out, the special vision integral to her artistic personality entails a
risk of losing perspective, of being swallowed by the dream (“I’ve spent my whole

example 4.6. “amelia,” chord changes
Guitar tuning: C G C E G C
Intro/Interlude: circles around an F chord (6 measures)
Lines: 1 2
| G | G | B | B |
3
| Am7 | Bm | G C(9)/G | C(9)/G |
4 5
| C | Em7 | Bm | Am7 | Am7 G |
6 (Refrain)
| F | B(9)/F | F | F | (back to Interlude)
For clarity, the transcription omits some ornamental and passing chords.
life in clouds at icy altitudes”). The harmonic overshooting at the refrain has a
pointed metaphoric correspondence here to the threefold crash of Icarus, Amelia,
and Mitchell herself.
The signs of ambivalence about spiritual matters are sharpened in this song.
Take the idea of disappearance. In “Song to a Seagull” and “Sweet Bird,” this
idea was used complexly to convey the knowledge of mortality (“where are the
footprints?”; “vanishing”) and the dream of escape from mortality (“out of reach”;
“vanishing”). In “Amelia,” two things vanish: the vapor trails and Amelia herself.
Both are instances of the failure of the visionary, and Amelia’s fate offers no escape
from mortality. Likewise, in verse 6, being airborne is presented in a seriously
negative light (“icy altitudes”) as a hindrance to living fully on earth. The song
doesn’t go so far as to repudiate the visionary impulse, but it does seek to redirect
it in search of a healthier, more sustainable relation between the transcendent and
the mundane.
“The Beat of Black Wings” (CMRS) is largely cast as a dramatic monologue,
spoken by a young Vietnam veteran (“Killer Kyle”) whose experience in the maw
of the war machine has left him morally and psychologically damaged (“There’s a
war zone inside me—/I can feel things exploding”). The insidiousness of the dam-
age is captured succinctly in the story of his girlfriend’s abortion in verse 3.
He said, “I never had nothin’—

Nothin’ I could believe in
My girl killed our unborn child
Without even grievin’!
I put my hand on her belly
To feel the kid kickin’—damn!

She’d been to some clinic
Oh—the beat of black wings”
This account ruthlessly recapitulates and externalizes elements of the original

trauma: death meted out in a moral void, the obviation of grief, a preemption
of his powers of decision, a future scraped hollow. The soldier’s words are left
offensively raw, in harsh contrast with the highly crafted music. Meanwhile,
Mitchell delivers one of the most mannered vocal performances of her career,
changing expression with every line and veering from one timbral extreme to
another as if barely in control of her characterization. Given the context of
despair, one might wonder how the visionary enters into this song. The refrain
does invoke bird imagery, but the black wings that squawk, flap, and beat
belong to bats or carrion birds. Superimposed on this is the image of a mili-
tary helicopter; the sound of whirring rotors provides the fundamental rhyth-
mic track for the song. None of these winged things is associated with soaring
flight. Instead, they suggest a predatory hovering—a mockery of any wish for
transcendence.
The surprise lies in the music, for this is where the vision is to be found.
There is still an awareness of pain and outrage in the stumbling piano figures,
the jabbing percussive highlights, the plosive keyboard bursts with their reedy
edge, and indecipherable background vocal mumbles. But all these elements
are extremely stylized and fused into a tone of chilly ecstasy. The basic chord
progression is an elated affirmation of D major while the harmonic surface is
iridescent and tinted with extended sonorities and oblique shiftings. There are
also several metaphorical techniques of suspension at work. In the interludes,
for instance, the surface harmonic phenomena change every measure, while at
a deeper structural level a much slower rate of harmonic change is projected
(a new chord every four bars, as follows: I–V–I–vi; Ex. 4.7). Surface motion
is thus suspended over a slowly turning background. The electric bass during
these same passages heavily emphasizes the dominant; even during the tonic
harmonies, the bass gives the strongest metric position to the dominant, thus
suspending the tonal ground. Furthermore, the first and third phrases of every
verse extend the regular four-bar scansion by inserting a two-bar half-cadential
figure. The suspense just before these cadences is heightened by the sudden
emptiness of texture and the momentary disappearance of the harmony (e.g.,
in verse 1 at “name was Killer Kyle” and “tough one for me to sing”). The pro-
longation of such up-in-the-air qualities gives a joyous inevitability to the full
cadence at each refrain. Mitchell caps this cadence with a high, poignant key-
board descant whose prominent, shimmering overtones resemble an unearthly
organum (Ex. 4.8).29

example 4.7. “the beat of black wings,” intro (instrumental
parts)
I V
vi
One can think of the music as achieving outward projection in an emotional

sense. The soldier’s vortex of rage and despair hardly affects the musical environ-
ment—so polished, so transfixed. Mitchell’s setting places a breathtaking emo-
tional distance between her raw subject and her expressive artifice. There is also
a defiance of gravity in the multiple musical suspensions, which are not hard to
hear as gestures of buoyancy and release. The third element of transcendence—
the horizon or vanishing point—is more difficult to conceive in musical terms,
but one can interpret the moments of textural dissipation along such lines. At
these moments, it seems as if the orchestral body fades to transparency. Through
the aperture, we briefly hear the most basic stratum of sound—the rotor wings—
unaccompanied before the orchestral substance rushes back in. This basic stra-
tum is ongoing throughout the song but usually not directly perceptible. The
aperture effect approaches a privileged perspective through points of musical
vanishing.
How do the visions square? I have just interpreted the rotor oscillation almost
in spiritual terms as an intimation of fundamental reality. Yet to the poor soldier,
the wing-beats that won’t go away represent the ongoing nightmare that finally
subsumes his identity. The musical figure of disappearance offers an exhilarating

example 4.8. “the beat of black wings,” end of verse
This is his sto - ry. It’s a tough one for me to sing.
Hard as the squawk and the flap, and the
beat of, the beat of black wings.
sense of weightlessness; but the soldier’s experience of disappearance (in the last
verse) means the appalling loss of personal solidity:
There’s a man drawing pictures

On the sidewalk with chalk
Just as fast as he draws ’em
Rain come down and wash ’em off
“Keep the drinks comin’ girl

’Til I can’t feel anything
I’m just a chalk mark in a rain storm
I’m just the beat of—
The beat of black wings”
The centrifugal forces threatening to rip the young man apart (the internal “war
zone”) are countered by the music’s sublime self-possession: even the (sinister?)
helicopter track sounds like an image of perfect balance and control. What is the
point of this ironic contradiction? In my view, the affective dissociation between
words and music carries no cynical, neutralizing force; it doesn’t deaden the pain.
By surrounding the young man’s harsh outpouring with a visionary joy, Mitchell
reminds us of what he has lost. Her indictment of social ill is made all the more
piercing by the distance between corrupt reality and the possibility of grace trem-
bling in the music.
One final touch remains to be mentioned. During the interludes, Mitchell adds
a brief vocal tag—“Johnny Angel”—from the 1960 hit sung by Shelley Fabares.
The dissonance of the importation strikes multiple sparks. The quoted song
invokes the (now-distant) time of its release, probably the young man’s teen years,
before going off to war. Moreover, it is a song about innocence, a simple expres-
sion of unrequited love; it refers in its naive way to flights of celestial happiness,
in stark counterpoint to the infernal apparitions tormenting the soldier. (Lines
from the quoted song include: “Every time he says hello my heart begins to fly”
and “Together we will see how lovely heaven can be.”) Once again, music (here, a
musical recollection) is the bearer of a whole pattern of lost possibility. By now we
should realize the pathos behind the soldier’s complaint that he “can’t even hear
the fuckin’ music playin’ ” for the sound of the black wings. He has suffered a spiri-
tual impairment, cutting him off from the innocence, hope, and wholeness which,
from our favored perspective, we can hear shimmering all around him.
The pull of freedom in its multiple guises forms a grand theme running
through Mitchell’s songwriting. Right from the beginning, however, we feel the
tug of a counterweight. Imagery of weaving, dancing, dreaming, and flying is
tangled up with imagery of entrapment, stone (hardening, sinking), hollowness,
and illusion. Musical gestures play with contrapuntal possibilities of constraint
and release, elation and deflation. Following a dialectical way of thinking that
remains characteristic, Mitchell expresses the urge to be free as a tension between
love and solitude, idealism and worldliness, abstract yearnings and concrete reali-
ties. It is this skeptical turn of mind, her attraction to polarity and contradiction,
that enables Mitchell to explore such rich sources of significance in her chosen
thematic domains.

In referring to these themes as “musicopoetic,” I stress the fusion of media
at the heart of song, a correspondence having special immediacy when music
and lyrics spring from a single author. In the preceding discussion of visionary
imagery in particular, I have been at pains to emphasize the mutual interaction
of musical gesture and poetic imagery in the creation of a conceptual whole. Both
here and in chapter 2, my analyses touch upon a number of distinctive musi-
cal effects, many conveyed by harmonic means: modal complexity, unorthodox
chord progressions, over- or underexposure of tonal center, and dualities of key.
In the following chapter, I take a global perspective on Mitchell’s approach to
harmony, laying the groundwork for an appreciation of her harmonic technique
as it informs her expressive sensibility and thematic vision.

5
HAR MONIC PALET T E
Joni Mitchell learned and refined her performing and songwriting skills with-
out literacy in music notation—the various writing systems she once flippantly
described as “the numerical language, the alphabetical language, and the fly-
shit.”1 This circumstance entailed certain practical disadvantages. She had to
trust to memory to preserve details of how to play her songs, most of them in
custom tunings with unique fingerings.2 She had to depend on others for the
transcription of written records of her music, and she was unable to oversee sheet
music publication.3 When she was playing with a band, someone else had to con-
vert her music into charts for band members to play from, and she had to get by
without technical vocabulary in communicating her ideas to them. (JM: “There
were moments when I felt handicapped that I couldn’t express myself within the
number and letter system of musical talk. I would be forced to deal in metaphors
that would bewilder the players or that they would think were precious. That
put me in the position of having a ‘what-she-means-is’ guy on the session, and
generally he wasn’t equipped to speak for me. It would come out safer than I had
intended.”)4 On the other hand, notational conventions necessarily encode certain
preconceptions as to proper musical syntax (such as chord structure and harmonic
movement), and her lack of training in notation may have contributed to a rela-
tive freedom from such preconceptions.5
In the absence of a technical vocabulary, Mitchell developed a rich metaphori-
cal language to describe musical qualities and perceptions. She once asked saxo-
phonist Wayne Shorter to play “the sound of high heels clicking on stones.”6
Before discovering a compatible bassist in Jaco Pastorius, she had to find a way
to suggest the exact sound she wanted from bass players: “I wanted them to stop
putting dark polka dots all over the bottom and instead to treat it like a sym-
phony. When you listen to a symphony, the bass is not always in, it gets light and
airy for a while and then boom, it anchors again.”7 When discussing the densely
layered textures of her work in the 1980s, she resorts to graphic perceptions:
“Wherever there was a hollow I’d put a musical figure in it that had two hollows
in it like a W and in those two hollows I’d plant another figure with a hollow in
it and then put the cherry on the pudding.”8 In describing her flexible rhythmic
aesthetic from the late 1970s, the abundance of her metaphorical imagination
is evident: “I wanted everything floating around. . . . I was trying to become the
Jackson Pollock of music. I just wanted all the notes, everybody’s part, to tangle.
I wanted all the desks pushed out of rows, I wanted the military abolished, any-
thing linear had to go.”9
The lack of a technical vocabulary places no limits on one’s ear; nor does
illiteracy in itself imply a lack of subtlety or precision. Like many musicians
Mitchell learned by ear and sharpened her gift through hands-on experimen-
tation and curiosity. Particularly noteworthy in this regard is her complex,
innovative sense of harmony. Mitchell grew up conversant with the modal
harmonies of folk music and jazz and the sophisticated language of standard
American songwriters like George Gershwin and Cole Porter. She was also
drawn to certain Romantic and modern classical composers known for melodic
and harmonic invention. (JM: “[As a child] I loved Debussy, Stravinsky, Chopin,
Tchaikovsky, anything with romantic melodies, especially the nocturnes.”)10 In
fact, one of her earliest musical infatuations was with a melody by Rachmaninov,
whose late-Romantic style is celebrated for its harmonic color and fluidity.11
In Mitchell’s outlook, harmonies have strong emotional qualities; each chord
has an “emotional meaning.”12 Since harmony was such a primary medium of
what she wanted to express, she sought to explore a highly diversified field of
harmonic resources. This is what led to her extended experimentation with
alternate tunings:
It wasn’t until I began to write my own songs that I began to crave chords
that I didn’t have the dexterity with my left hand to make. The voicings
that I heard, the music that I wanted to make, I simply couldn’t get out.
And it was a frustration because, you know, I could learn your F chord and
your G chord, and your minor, and a couple of things like that, but after
a while there was no—it seemed like every variation or combination of
chords had already been a well-traveled course.13
In a number of interviews, Mitchell has been even more specific about the cen-
tral importance of harmony in her approach to songwriting and her intentions
in working with complex chords. She was not merely seeking to strike out from
the beaten path but was actively investing her music with a critical perspective
through harmonic detail:

Chaka Khan once told me my chords were like questions, and in fact, I’ve
always thought of them as chords of inquiry. My emotional life is quite
complex, and I try to reflect that in my music. For instance, a minor chord
is pure tragedy; in order to infuse it with a thread of optimism you add
an odd string to the chord to carry the voice of hope. Then perhaps you
add a dissonant because in the stressful society we live in dissonance is
aggressing against us at every moment. So, there’s an inquiry to the chords
comparable to the unresolved quality of much poetry.14
This statement reveals a view of harmonic expression as multilayered, sensitive to

personal as well as cultural significance, and precise enough to project a question-
ing force.
In this chapter I will examine Mitchell’s complex harmonic language and
her exploration of unconventional possibilities of tonal progression. I begin
with some general comments about harmonic material. Mitchell has composed
some songs in the traditional major mode.15 However, she is just as likely to
use Aeolian, Dorian, or Mixolydian modes, with their special quality due to the
lowered seventh scale-degree (7̂), and their different arrangement of harmonies
around the tonal center (Ex. 5.1).16 (For a classification of all 152 songs released
between 1968 and 1998 according to different harmonic categories, see Table 5.1.)
Modal harmony was already a common alternative for popular music in the late
twentieth century; folk-derived styles in particular grew out of a venerable tradi-
tion of modal usage. Some well-known examples of older tunes in Aeolian mode
(with its characteristic lowered 3̂, 6̂, and 7̂) are “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
(from medieval plainchant) and the carol “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen”; a
contemporary example would be Paul Simon’s “The Sound of Silence.” Older
tunes in Dorian mode (lowered 3̂, raised 6̂, lowered 7̂) include the sea shanty
“Drunken Sailor,” the hymn tune “What Wondrous Love” (derived from the ballad
“Captain Kidd”), and “Scarborough Fair”; a contemporary example is Jefferson
Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.” Older tunes in Mixolydian (raised 3̂ and 6̂, low-
ered 7̂) include the lullaby “All My Trials” (though contemporary arrangements
often mix in major harmonies), and some versions of the folk ballad “The Cruel
Mother” (“Down by the Greenwood Sidey”); contemporary examples include the
Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund
Fitzgerald.”17
Both the major and minor scales include a leading tone, that is, a seventh
degree only a semitone below the tonic with a strong tendency to resolve upward
(see Ex. 5.1). Both also contain a major dominant (V) triad, traditionally associ-
ated with a strong tendency for tonic resolution. In contrast, Aeolian, Dorian,
and Mixolydian each have a seventh degree one whole tone below the tonic, thus
HARMONIC PALETTE | 119

120
Table 5.1. Songs Classified by Harmonic Category
ALBUM 1. Modal 2. Polymodal 3. Chromatic 4. Polytonal 5. Pedal Point
Hits (1996) Urge for Going (A Mixo)

(1966)
Song to a Night in the City (G Mixo) I Had a King (A) [Michael from I Had a King (A)
Seagull Sisotowbell Lane (D Mixo*) Michael from Mountains] The Dawntreader (D)
(1968) Song to a Seagull (C Mixo) Mountains (F) Marcie (G) Song to a Seagull (C
Cactus Tree (FM*) Nathan La Franeer (G) The Pirate of Penance Mixo)
The Dawntreader (D) (D) Cactus Tree (FM*)
Clouds (1969) Tin Angel (E Aeol) The Fiddle and the Roses Blue (G) I Don’t Know Where Both Sides, Now (FM)
Chelsea Morning (E Mixo) Drum (B) Songs to Aging I Stand (D-F)
That Song about the Children Come
Midway (E Mixo) (B)
The Gallery (F Mixo)
I Think I Understand (E Mixo)
Both Sides, Now (FM)
Ladies of the Morning Morgantown (AM) For Free (C) [Morning Blue Boy (C-G) [not Conversation (FM)
Canyon Conversation (FM) The Arrangement (A) Morgantown] strongly centric] The Priest (G Dor)
(1970) Ladies of the Canyon (D Mixo) Rainy Night House (D)
Willy (CM*)
The Priest (G Dor)
Big Yellow Taxi (EM)
Woodstock (E Dor*)
The Circle Game (BM*)
Blue (1971) Little Green (BM) All I Want (D) [My Old Man] The Last Time I Saw All I Want (D)
Carey (DM*) My Old Man (A) Richard (G-A) Carey (DM*)
California (EM) Blue (B) A Case of You (DM*)
River (CM*) This Flight Tonight
A Case of You (DM*) (A)
For the Roses Barangrill (E Mixo) Banquet (E) Cold Blue Steel and For the Roses (B)
(1972) Electricity (B Mixo) Lesson in Survival (A) Sweet Fire (C-G)
You Turn Me On, I’m a For the Roses (B) Let the Wind Carry
Radio (EM*) Blonde in the Me (F-A)
Bleachers (A) See You Sometime (F-C)
Woman of Heart and Judgement of the Moon
Mind (B) and Stars (D-A-B)
Court and Court and Spark (E) Help Me (A-D)

Spark Free Man in Paris (A) Car on a Hill (F-A)
(1974) People’s Parties (D) Down to You (D-E)
The Same Situation (A) Trouble Child (C-G)
Just Like This Train (C)
Raised on Robbery
121
(C blues)
(continued)
122 Table 5.1. (Continued)
Miles of Aisles Love or Money (A)
(1974)
The Hissing Edith and the Kingpin In France They Kiss on The Jungle Line The Hissing of
of Summer (C Aeol) Main Street (E) (G) Summer Lawns
Lawns Shades of Scarlett Don’t Interrupt the (B-D) (music
(1975) Conquering (A Dor) Sorrow (G) by John Guerin)
The Boho Dance (DM/Bm) Harry’s House (C)
Sweet Bird (G/Em)
Shadows and Light (D)
Hejira (1976) Coyote (CM) A Strange Boy (D) Amelia (F-G)

Hejira (BM) Song for Sharon (E) Furry Sings the Blues
Blue Motel Room (C) (A-D)
Refuge of the Roads (C) Black Crow (E-G)
Don Juan’s Dreamland (C Aeol*) Cotton Avenue (C) [Jericho] Talk to Me (B-D) Paprika Plains (C)
Reckless Jericho (D) Paprika Plains (C) Otis and Marlena
Daughter Don Juan’s Reckless (E-B)
(1977) Daughter (C)
Off Night Backstreet (C)
The Silky Veils of
Ardor (C)
Mingus God Must Be a Boogie The Wolf That Lives
(1979) Man (G) in Lindsey (C-E)
Wild Things Chinese Café (D Mixo) Wild Things Run Fast Chinese Café/
Run Fast You Dream Flat Tires (C) Unchained Melody
(1982) (D Aeol) Ladies’ Man (D) (D-C)
Man to Man (D Aeol) Moon at the Window (D) Solid Love (D-A-F)
Be Cool (D blues)
Underneath the
Streetlight (A)
Love (E)
Dog Eat Dog The Three Great Fiction (C) (music by Good Friends (A-D) The Three Great
(1985) Stimulants (CM/Am*) Larry Klein) Dog Eat Dog (C-G) Stimulants (CM/
Smokin’ (B Aeol*) Tax Free (A) (music by Ethiopia (G-E) Am*)
Shiny Toys (GM) Larry Klein) Impossible Dreamer Smokin’ (B Aeol*)
Lucky Girl (CM*) (D-A-E) Lucky Girl (CM*)
Chalk Mark My Secret Place (DM) The Reoccurring Lakota (A-F) (co-
in a Rain Number One (B Aeol*) Dream (A) written with Larry
Storm The Tea Leaf Prophecy (CM/ Klein)
(1988) Am*) (co-written with
Larry Klein)
Dancin’ Clown (FM)
123
(continued)
124
Table 5.1. (Continued)
The Beat of Black Wings
(DM*)
Snakes and Ladders (CM/
Am) (co-written with
Larry Klein)
Night Ride Night Ride Home (CM*) Passion Play (D) Two Grey Rooms Night Ride Home
Home Cherokee Louise (DM/Bm*) The Windfall (A) (D-G) (CM*)
(1991) Slouching towards The Only Joy in Town
Bethlehem (DM/Bm) (D)
Come In from the Cold
(DM/Bm*)
Nothing Can Be Done (AM/
Fm*) (music by Larry
Klein)
Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac (DM)
Turbulent Sex Kills (C Aeol) Sunny Sunday (C) Borderline (E-B)

Indigo Turbulent Indigo (B Mixo) Last Chance Lost (B)
(1994) Magdalene Laundries (AM/
Fm*)
Not to Blame (EM)
Yvette in English (CM)
(co-written with David
Crosby)
The Sire of Sorrow
(DM/Bm)
Taming the Man from Mars (B Aeol) Harlem in Havana (E)

Tiger Love Puts On a New Face Lead Balloon (E)
(1998) (CM) No Apologies (A)
The Crazy Cries of Love Taming the Tiger (C)
(CM)
Stay in Touch (CM*)
Face Lift (CM)
In this table, the abbreviation Aeol refers to the Aeolian mode; Dor is Dorian; Mixo is Mixolydian. In the first column, single modes predominate (though
occasional modal mixture is common); the major mode is one of the modes used. An asterisk indicates a pure mode (no modal mixture). A designation of “M/m”
refers to a strong polarity between major and relative “minor” (actually Aeolian). “Polymodal” refers to multiple modes based on a single tonal center, where no
single mode predominates; the blues scale is one such type. “Polytonal” refers to multiple tonal centers; for simplicity’s sake, the modal character of these songs is not
listed. (Polytonal songs with centers a minor third apart do not conform to a simple major/relative minor relation: e.g., “Let the Wind Carry Me” [FR] moves
between F Aeolian and A Aeolian; “Car on a Hill” [C&S] between F Aeolian and A Major/Aeolian; “Black Crow” [H] between E Dorian and G
Aeolian.) Some songs are listed under more than one category. The albums Hits and Miles of Aisles each contain a single original song unreleased elsewhere.
For the Mingus album, only songs with music by Joni Mitchell are included.
125
example 5.1. modes
Major Minor
Mixolydian Aeolian
Lydian Dorian
The modes on the left begin with a major triad, those on the right with a minor triad.
with no leading-tone tendency. In addition, all three modes share a minor domi-
nant (v) and a major subtonic (VII) triad. The lack of a leading tone and strong
dominant function creates a very different sense of hierarchy among the chords of
these modes. The latter can be seen by comparing the triads built on successive
degrees of each scale. Each mode offers a unique disposition of major, minor, and
diminished triads within its scalar hierarchy. The increased use of modal harmony
in popular music goes hand in hand with certain widespread stylistic tendencies
identified by Ken Stephenson: a relaxation of syntactic rules for harmonic move-
ment in comparison with traditional tonality, a relaxed sense of forward progres-
sion and increased interest in cyclic harmonic successions, and an exploration
of alternative cadential approaches, including deemphasis of cadential function
altogether.18
Thus the modal spectrum offers an expanded field of harmonic movement. But
beyond this, whatever mode Mitchell may choose as the basis for a song, she rarely
adheres to one mode throughout; instead she breaks up the integrity of its scale
in a variety of ways, often flickering between two or more modes within a single
song. Again, the mixing of modes was not a new practice. The traditional tune
“Greensleeves” as commonly performed alternates between a lowered and raised
7̂, thus alternating between Aeolian and minor mode (Ex. 5.2). In the Beatles

example 5.2. modal mixture in “greensleeves”
Aeolian Minor
* * *
tune “Eleanor Rigby,” each of the first two phrases begins in Dorian (with raised
6̂), only to switch to Aeolian (lowered 6̂) in the fourth bar (“Lives in a dream”).
Similarly, Gordon Lightfoot’s song “If You Could Read My Mind” plays with an
alternation between major and Mixolydian modes (switching between raised and
lowered 7̂).19 But though modal mixture does occur in popular music around the
beginning of Mitchell’s career, she makes use of it to an unprecedented degree.
Out of 152 songs written or co-written by Joni Mitchell, only twenty-two are in
one pure mode with no modal mixture (these songs are starred in Table 5.1).
MODALITY
My first examples are songs based on single modes. Mixolydian is a favorite mode
in the early period, counting for a dozen songs and appearing as a shading in
others. It is used in the song “Ladies of the Canyon” (LC), conceived as a triple
self-portrait of Mitchell’s creative and domestic life in the Laurel Canyon neigh-
borhood of Los Angeles (Ex. 5.3; for an explanation of the chord symbols used in
the examples, see the Appendix).20 The particular Mixolydian flavor that Mitchell
paints with here is the juxtaposition of major I and minor v (D and Am, as in
phrase 1), an atmospheric pairing made all the more poignant by the ornamental
extension of the Am chord (Ex. 5.4). The top two tones (punctuating the guitar
figuration) retain the lingering aura of the tonic, but in this chordal context,
struck as they are off the beat and directly clashing with a melodic G, they add a
delicious sting. Thus already in the first two bars of the verse, Mitchell has fash-
ioned an evocative harmonic resonance in accord with the poem’s bardic romanti-
cization of a latterday bohemia.
But the song’s intro includes major dominant chords that do not fit into
the prevailing mode. This is an instance of modal mixture, switching between
Mixolydian and major. The very opening progression (Am–AM, or v–V) plays on
what one might call a diatonic loophole in place at the seventh scale degree, which
slips between the options of C and C. The sunny A9 chord in the intro (also used
as a coda) by its contrast enhances the atmospheric flavor of Am13. Most striking,

example 5.3. “ladies of the canyon,” chord changes
Guitar tuning: C G D F C E (capo 2)
Intro: | Am(4) A | A9 | D(4) | D(4) |
Phrase 1, 2: ||: D | Am13/C | Gmaj7/B | D(4) :||
Phrase 3: | Am13/C | Em7/B | Am13/C (+ AM) | B13sus |
Phrase 4, 5: ||: D | Am13/C | Gmaj7/B | D(4) :||
example 5.4. the extended dominant in

“ladies of the canyon” (harmonic reduction)
Am13/C
( )
The guitar plays A and “hammers on” to C;

though C is the sustained bass note,
A remains an implied part of the harmony.
however, is how, at the peak of her melodic arch (phrase 3), Mitchell weaves the
two options together. At the words, “And her coat’s a secondhand one,” over a
sustained C in the low guitar register, the voice briefly reaches to C. This simul-
taneous cross-relation is so artfully spaced that it sounds quite natural—though
it is certainly climactic, triggering as it does a move in a chromatic direction. The
move is to an extended B chord whose pungent G introduces a Lydian shading
(Ex. 5.5).21 In the densely layered vocalizations that round off the verse (phrase 5),
the cross-relation at 7̂ is once again in evidence, the guitar cleaving to C and the
vocal layers (harmonized in sevenths!) to C.
example 5.5. “ladies of the canyon,” end

of phrase 3 (harmonic reduction)
(AM)
And her coat’s a sec - ond - hand one
( )
Am13/C B13sus

The Mixolydian mode, in other words, is like a base coat, over which Mitchell
applies a shifting array of other modal highlights. This painterly conception of
harmony is reflected in the poem’s conflation of music with color (verse 4), just as
the image of filigree reflects the precisely etched guitar figuration. At all levels, in
fact, this signature song is expressive of a refined aesthetic sensibility—the poetic
structure is classically engineered, with an ingenious set of rhymes for the key words
of the refrain (canyon/secondhand one/banyans/companion), and a unique device
whereby the word order in the fourth line of each verse is inverted in the fifth. In
harmonic subtlety as in other qualities, Mitchell “weaves a pattern all her own.”
“Sisotowbell Lane” (SS) is the portrait of a place—a rustic retreat whose ameni-
ties are detailed with a quirky lack of precision (Ex. 5.6). Mitchell does not use
mixed modes here. The harmonic progression, at root, is simplicity itself—D,
G, and A chords (I, IV, and V). But Mitchell builds some eccentric structures on
those chord roots. The Mixolydian flavor in this song takes the form of an extended
chord built on the tonic (D13sus), suggesting a secondary dominant of G (Ex. 5.7).
example 5.6. “sisotowbell lane,” chord changes

Guitar tuning: C G D F C E (capo 2)
Interlude: ||: Dsus(2) D Dsus(2) | D13sus/G :||
Phrase 1/3: ||: D | D13sus | D13sus | Gmaj7/B | D |
Phrase 2/4: | A7sus | A7sus | 24 A7sus |
| 44 Dsus(2) D Dsus(2) | Dsus(2) D Dsus(2) :||
Phrase 5: | D13sus | D13sus |
Phrase 6: | D7 | D7 |
Phrase 7: | G/B | D/A |
Phrase 8: | A7sus | A7sus | 24 A7sus | 44 (to interlude)
Coda: ||: Dsus(2) D Dsus(2) | D13sus/G :|| Dsus(2) D |
| Gmaj7/B | A13sus/D |
example 5.7. the secondary dominant in “sisotowbell lane”

( )
D13sus D13sus/G

In the instrumental interlude this chord is complicated by a move in the bass reg-
ister from D to G in the same bar. The sound of the initial D is prominent, but it
competes with G for the fundamental harmonic position (D13sus/G). The D chord
and its implied resolution are oddly tangled up. In the verse, the D13sus chords
are resolved traditionally (to a clear G), but only after lingering to savor their
irresistible dissonance. As a result, the first four phrases have unusual proportions.
Phrases 1 and 3 (I–V/IV–IV–I) are slightly expanded to five bars; phrases 2 and 4
(V–I) to four and a half bars. This rhythmic dilation, especially the casual addition
of half-bars, perfectly suits the poem’s blend of indolence and eccentricity.
Those half-bars extend the effect of the song’s unusual dominant. Mitchell
chooses neither minor v (using C) nor major V (using C), but a suspended A7
chord with its own in-between quality. She then embellishes this chord’s char-
acteristic D with chromatic neighbors (Ex. 5.8). This extraordinary cadential
moment is complemented by a slight dislocation of the tonic; after every domi-
nant, the tonic has to take a moment to hitch up its suspenders, as it were. That
is to say, the upper two notes of the triad are approached quickly from below (by
“hammering on”). But after a few beats 3̂ and 5̂ are already sagging again, so on
the whole the impression at cadences is not so much of a straight D triad as of a
Dsus(2). The song’s final cadence manages to tie up these various loose ends with-
out losing the sense of open-endedness so appealingly maintained throughout.
The last chord (produced by strumming open strings) is spelled as in Ex. 5.9. It
fuses elements of A7sus, Dsus(2), and DM (i.e., simultaneous dominant, suspen-
sion, and resolution), as it rings with the dissonance and promise of a 13th chord.
Mitchell’s harmonic scheme in this song uses a series of suspensions, delays,
and implications that together create a pleasing relaxation of directedness. The
constant impression of hovering in some out-of-the-way, neither-here-nor-there
zone chimes with the spaciness of the poem, which creates its own temporal
eddies (“we always do, yes sometimes we do”). The diatonic field is intact (pure
Mixolydian), but its syntactic elements are mildly askew—a dislocation meant to
capture the essence of this spot off the beaten path.
example 5.8. the suspended dominant in

“sisotowbell lane”
A7sus

example 5.9. “sisotowbell lane,” final
cadence
Dsus(2) D D(4) Gmaj7/B
cadential
chord: + + =
A7sus D
A13sus/D Dsus(2) A13sus/D
POLYMODALITY
With the next example, we move beyond the use of single prevailing modes. In
“The Dawntreader” (SS), a lyrical seafaring fantasy, D Mixolydian and D Dorian are
so entwined that it is impossible to declare either one prevalent (Ex. 5.10). Many
of the phrases trace a movement from Dorian to Mixolydian. The guitar interlude
(which also serves to accompany phrases 2, 4, and 11) begins by picking out a Dm9
chord (Ex. 5.11). The F places this first chord in Dorian. The third bar arrives at a
D major triad, which in the context of the surrounding Cs is placed in Mixolydian.
The intervening G chord belongs to both modes. This recurrent gesture launches in
one mode and settles in another. It settles in register as well, filtering from limpid
high notes gradually down to a bottom-heavy cadence. Such a gesture of submer-
gence befits the journey imagined here, an internalized, symbolic journey, whose
initial vision is of the fabled treasure strewn across the ocean floor.
After the cadence, Mitchell trades D major for an open D (D5), a pivot to the
Dorian at the beginning of phrases 1 and 3. This open chord at the portal of each
verse encapsulates the tonal equipoise she has constructed between two modes,
one given initiatory, the other cadential importance. The harmonic base of this
song is thus truly polymodal. Mitchell applies further highlights to this dual
base in the long, climactic middle section (phrases 5–9). It begins with an oracu-
lar string of quintal structures—open 5ths moving in parallel around a pedal D
(Ex. 5.12). This is the most extended passage of Mixolydian in the song (note
the melodic Fs; see Ex. 6.10). But as the voice begins to rise from its murkiest

example 5.10. “the dawntreader,” chord changes
Guitar tuning: D G D D A D
Interlude: | Dm9 | G(4)/D | D Dsus | Dsus D |
Dorian Mixo
Phrase 1/3: ||: D5 | Dm7 | Csus2(6) | Csus2(6) |
Pivot Dorian
Phrase 2/4: | Dm9 | G(4)/D | D Dsus | Dsus D :||
Mixo
Phrase 5, 6: ||: Csus2 Bm | Csus2 Asus G5 :||
Phrase 7: | Csus2 Bm | Csus2 Asus | Gsus2 |
Major
Phrase 8: | Gsus2 | Asus |
Phrase 9: | Asus | Bmaj7 | Bmaj7 |
Aeolian
Phrase 10: | G7sus | G | G7sus | G |
Dorian
Phrase 11: | Dm9 | G(4)/D | D Dsus | Dsus D |
Mixo
example 5.11. “the dawntreader,” intro

(and instrumental refrain)
Dm9 G(4)/D
D Dsus D
depths, there is a dramatic shift to the major mode, with melodic accentuation of
C. At the moment of greatest tension (phrase 9: “he stakes all his silver”), as the
voice reaches an unexpected high point (dissonant with the chordal root), there is
yet another exotic intrusion—Bmaj7, a chord borrowed from the Aeolian. All
this tension is magically sprung at phrase 10 (“on a promise to be free”) with a

example 5.12. “the dawntreader,”
phrases 5 and 6 (harmonic reduction)
Csus2 Bm Csus2 Asus G5
new lilting rhythm, a return to the home Dorian, and a clearing of the thick, low
chordal textures that dominated the middle section. Altogether, then, Mitchell
exploits three diatonic loopholes in “Dawntreader,” not only the central switch at
3̂ between F and F, but two others at 6̂ (B-B) and 7̂ (C-C). This pushes the
scalar resources in use toward the full chromatic (only E and A are not used).
But Mitchell has carefully apportioned her use of chromatic intrusions to create
an arc of modal transformation. This arcing path embodies a siren call of long-
ing, underpinning the song’s combined dreams of personal enrichment, social
redemption, and mythicized romance.
The previous three examples give an idea of the range of harmonic effects
Mitchell can unfold within one key, D Mixolydian, by her use of complex
chordal structures, harmonic suspension, and mixed modes. In “Dawntreader,”
the modal mixture becomes an alloy of two basic modes within a single key.
Similarly complex alloys can be found in two other songs from the first album.
“Nathan La Franeer,” a lament for an inhuman cityscape, has a triple modal base.
Like “Dawntreader,” it uses suspended chords as pivots between modes. The
first two phrases, for instance, begin with a suspended pivot and move through
Dorian to tonic major. The blending of G Dorian, major, and minor creates an
eerily unwholesome tone. “I Had a King,” a requiem for a failed romance, in
ironic-medieval garb, is also a triple alloy on A. Here major and Aeolian ele-
ments are starkly juxtaposed in the opening bars. Dorian elements are promi-
nent in the second half of the verse. (The song is also notable for its portentous
extended quartal structures; see Ex. 2.1.) Such polymodal bases as these in fact
represent the most common harmonic scheme found throughout Mitchell’s
career. Their prismatic effect is tangible in many of her most beloved songs:
“All I Want” (B) in D major/Mixolydian (see Ex. 6.11), “My Old Man” (B)
in A major/Dorian, “Woman of Heart and Mind” (FR) in B major/Mixolydian/
Lydian, and “Court and Spark” (C&S) in E Dorian/Aeolian/Mixolydian. I would
say that the forked harmonic paths and expressive polarities made possible by
Mitchell’s polymodal usage form one of the most characteristic attributes of
her musical style. To illustrate further, I will discuss two well-known examples
from her third and fourth albums: “Rainy Night House” and “Blue.”

Mitchell uses piano rather than guitar to accompany “Rainy Night House” (LC)
(Ex. 5.13). There is nothing here like the inlaid busywork of layered and suspended
voice-leading found in the accompaniment to the first three examples. Instead the
harmony takes the form of forthright triads, for the most part, moving in loose-
jointed progression. In comparison to the finely strung artifice of the other songs
discussed, this song adheres to a rhetoric of natural, direct expression. The nocturnal
scenario as it is pressed into lyric form is fragmentary and blurred around the edges:
an intense but tenuous assignation, whose circumstances, lightly sketched in, do not
come close to anchoring the melancholy that threatens to overwhelm the performer.
The song begins with a long instrumental prelude, Schumannesque in its
expansiveness. The tonic Am chord is cramped and depressed by elements of a G
triad in the right hand (thus sounding as A7sus). Subsequent moves to a clear G
(VII in A Aeolian) provide a sense of alleviation. The next harmonic pass takes us
through B, whose Phrygian influence imparts another depressive shading. The
third pass expands on these dualities: G issues into a breath of C major elation,
while B harshly runs up against its tritone relation (E) on the way to cadence.
The outcome of all this preparation is a shock of dislocation as the curtain opens
with an abrupt move to the key of Dm.
The entire vocal body of the song thus exists in an uncanny relation to its soul-
ful prelude. The polymodal expressive duality is carried over but in inverted con-
figuration, as if pulled through the die of memory. The B, originally a foreign
intrusion threatening the solace of the Aeolian mode, is now integral to the fabric
of D Aeolian. The A7sus chord reappears, now bluffly on the beat, with its effect
of emotional truncation like a catch in the throat. We have to wait for the consol-
ing G. When it appears it is now the “foreign” (Dorian) intrusion, in a cycle-of-
fifths passage holding out the hope of elation. This whole passage (phrases 3 and
example 5.13. “rainy night house,” chord changes

Intro (in A): ||: A7sus Am7 | A7sus Am7 | G | G :|| C | B | Am | G | G |
Aeolian (Phryg)
| C G | F | B | B | Em | Em | Am | Am |
(Phryg)
Verse (in D)
Phrase 1, 2: ||: Dm | B | A7sus Am7 | A :||
Aeolian minor
Phrase 3: | Dm | G | C | F |
Dorian
Phrase 4: | B | Dm | C | Am | Am | G | G | Dm | Dm | Dm | Dm |
Aeolian Dorian

4) recalls distinct segments of the prelude, now interpreted in the new key. The
B and G chords have exchanged priority, and it is the earthbound modal ele-
ments that now hold sway. The prelude and the verses consist of much the same
events, yet they tell different stories. But which version—the instrumental or
the vocal—is to be taken as present experience, and which the transformation of
poetic reflection? Which is reinterpreting the other? Neither musical statement
establishes more than a dreamy unreality. Unanchored with respect to its modal
character, emotional tone, and formal framing, “Rainy Night House” steeps us
in its intense search for identity (“who in the world I might be”), a search whose
inconclusiveness is scarcely to be distinguished from outright loss.
“Blue” (B) is a devastating love song. The principals are once again imagined
as seafarers but here navigating the treacherous waters of drugs and depression
(Ex. 5.14). In an image of masterful ambivalence, Mitchell lets the sailor’s tattoo
stand for the indelible lacerations of love, the needle-tracks of addiction, and the
example 5.14. “blue,” chord changes

Intro: | no chord (D) | G | Bm | G |
Aeolian
. . . . . . . . .
Phr. 1 (a): | Bm A/B | Bm A/B |Gmaj7 D/E | E | D/E | E | A/B D/G | E/A | E/A |
Dorian mixed
Phr. 2 (a'): | Bm A/B | Bm A/B | D/E | E | D/E | E | A/B D/G | E/A | E/A |
(Aeol?/Dor?) Dorian mixed
Phr. 3 (b): | Bm A/B | Gmaj7 D/G | D/E | E5 |
Aeolian (Dor?)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Phr. 4 (b'): | 43 Bm A/B | Gmaj7 D/G | 44 D/E Em7(4) | Asus | Bm | Bm | Fm |
Aeolian
Phr. 5 (b''): | D/E A/E D/E | D/E A/E D/E | D/E A/E D/E | D/E A/E |
Pivot
Phr. 6 (a''): | Bm A/B | Bm A/B | Fm | Fm | D/E A/E | D/E | D/A | A |
(Aeol?/Dor?) [A major? ]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Phr. 7 (a): | Bm A/B | Bm A/B | D/E | E | D/E | Em7(4) | Em7(4) | Em7(4) |
Dorian Aeolian
| Bm | Fm | D/E | D/E |
Pivot
Coda: | A/B E/B | Bm7 | B7 |
Dorian blues
Note: In keeping with Mitchell’s left hand piano style, slash chords in this song include a
5th above the bass. Thus an A/B chord includes the pitches B F C E A.

ink of her own pen, filling in the empty spaces. Mitchell’s use of the piano cre-
ates a more multifaceted harmonic surface than in the previous example. Triadic
shapes in the right hand often conflict with the bass, creating extended structures
of various kinds. Thus in the characteristic gesture opening phrase 1, the right
hand moves down from Bm to A over a constant bass (Ex. 5.15). The pure tonic
triad moves to a multiply dissonant, internally conflicted chord (interpretable as
B9sus)—as if emotionally sullied, depressed, ambivalent. The weight of this one
gestural scrap is enough to send the singer into a weary tailspin before she even
starts. As her leaden arabesques give way to a more animated impulse (“I’ve been
to sea before”), the sense of rhythmic release is accompanied by a mode switch
from Aeolian to Dorian. The passage rides the uplift of the new mode’s major sub-
dominant, only to stall once again at the end of the phrase, in a progression that
hopelessly tangles the focal loophole of G and G (Ex. 5.16). These chords form
another kind of extended structure (D/G–E/A, or Gmaj9–Amaj9), whose strange
parallel dissonance arrests the flow, pulsing in stunned aftershocks.
The Aeolian element in the song (using G) appears in VI (G) and iv (Em), the
Dorian element (using G) in IV (E), and the emotional polarities between them
are set up economically but to maximum effect. Dorian emerges concretely only
three times in the body of the song, but its hopeful quality is held in potential
through much of phrases 3–6 by the use of a pivot chord, D/E, which could resolve
in either mode. Those moments when it does resolve unequivocally to an Aeolian
example 5.15. “blue,” opening of verse
Bm A/B (B9sus)
example 5.16. “blue,” end of phrase 1 (harmonic reduction)
A/B D/G E/A

Em are traumatic, knocking the wind out of the sails (see the fermatas in the
diagram, phrases 4 and 7, representing a dramatic loss in rhythmic momentum).
From a palette of such deflationary gestures, Mitchell creates a design of poignant
emotional irony. The inevitable letdowns are made more powerful because she
never abandons her passionate yearning.
The central relationship of the poem is apparently unresolved, poised between
anchored commitment and undone moorings. On a formal level, the song is cor-
respondingly torn between rhapsodic flight and broken structure. Atypically,
“Blue” is through-composed rather than strophic. The musical phrases, uneven in
length and prone to wandering, are anchored by two recurrent melodic segments.
The first segment (a) is characterized by its initial address to “Blue,” Mitchell’s
totemic name for her beloved; its melodic contour begins on a middle F, dips
low, and ends by rising toward B (“let me sail away”). The a segment is stated
freely in the first phrase, then repeated more succinctly and with a new rhyth-
mic vigor in phrase 2 (both 9 bars long). Phrases 3 and 4 state the b segment (a
repeated descending figure: “there’s so many sinking”), again with variations in
its rhythmic integrity. Phrase 5 is built from transposed repetitions of b and leads
directly into phrase 6, a climactic condensation and heightening of a (“Blue, I
love you”). The final phrase returns to the original a (though with a new close).
The underlying symmetry can be schematized as: aa' bb' b'' a'' a. But this struc-
tural clarity is brilliantly unbalanced by the unexpected, extraneous elements
introduced in the form of rhapsodic digressions. The first of these comes at the
end of phrase 4. The rhythmic flow, halted at the Aeolian iv, struggles to regain
composure. When it does, the moment is made remarkable by the introduction
of a new harmony, Fm (v)—the first dominant to appear, which will have a
cadential role from this point on in the song. Another digression occurs at the end
of phrase 6, when the harmonies seem to spin off into a new key altogether, by
cadencing strongly on A. This momentary sidetrack is patently wishful, its ges-
tures somehow not fully integrated into the song’s fabric. And in fact the piano
cadences in these four measures do represent a kind of intrusion, constituting
as they do an almost exact quotation of a passage from another love song on the
album—the introduction to “My Old Man.” They thus (subconsciously?) capture
and import the brief memory of a happier time and a different outcome.
The final phrase makes a strong move toward formal closure, on the one
hand, by melding the beginning of phrase 1 with the closing harmonies of
phrase 4 and thus recapitulating the song’s expository gestures while foreclos-
ing their hopeful turn to Dorian. Yet as the piano postlude winds down, not
only does it return to Dorian but it comes to rest on a major tonic sonority—
yet another unexpected, extraneous flight of fancy, a symbol of hope not quite
deferred. Like the previous points of departure, the song’s final moments make

a bid for freedom and open-endedness, with a wry nod to the classic musical
vehicle of ambivalent emotion, the blues.
CHROMATICISM
A third harmonic strategy in Mitchell’s songwriting, much less common than
modal and polymodal usage, is directly chromatic progression. Chromatic pas-
sages spice up the relative innocence of songs such as “Michael from Mountains”
(SS) (see Ex. 6.15) and “Morning Morgantown” (LC). A more thorough chro-
maticism lies behind some of Mitchell’s spacier tunes. A good example of this is
“Songs to Aging Children Come” (Ex. 5.17). The hallucinatory lyrics and helium-
infused vocal warbling are matched by the far-out chord progressions, which
experiment with tritone and third relations. The chorus is notable for shifting
upward first through two minor thirds (B–D–F), then again through two major
thirds (B–E–G). A no less thorough chromaticism can be found in “Marcie,”
but here careful stepwise voice-leading mitigates the unsettling effect of the far-
flung harmonic path (Ex. 5.18). Perhaps it should also be mentioned that this
example can be heard in terms of polymodality. In its melancholy cycling down
through the chromatic scale (mirroring the cycle of the seasons in the poem’s
urban backdrop), the song presents a shifting kaleidoscope of Aeolian, Lydian,
and major qualities on G (Ex. 5.19).
example 5.17. “songs to aging children come,” chord changes

Guitar tuning: B F B F B D
Intro: | B Lydian | . . .
Phrase 1: | G | F | F | B |
Phrase 2: | A | G | F | B | B |
Chorus: | D | F | F Lydian | F Lydian | B | E | E Lydian | E Lydian | G | G |
example 5.18. “marcie,” chord changes (verse)

Guitar tuning: D G D G B D
Phrase 1: | B6 | A | Am7 | G Gsus(2) G |
Phrase 2: | B6 | A | Am7 | G Gsus(2) | G Gsus(2) G |
Phrase 3: | Emaj7 | D | C | B |
Phrase 4: | B6 | A | Am7 | G Gsus(2) | G Gsus(2) G |

example 5.19. “marcie,” phrases 3 and 4
E♭maj7 D C B B♭6
A Am7 G Gsus(2)
POLYTONALITY
All the songs discussed so far in this chapter, whether modal, polymodal, or
chromatic, are defined by a single key center (save “Rainy Night House,” which
modulates once, to remain in the new key). But one of the most original paths
of exploration in Mitchell’s work has to do with the fission or doubling of tonal
center.22
JM: People started telling me that I was playing in two keys at the same
time. “Oh, really?” I said (laughs) . . . see, a lot of this is intuitive so it’s
up to other people really to analyze it. A song like “Amelia,” for instance,
modulates. It goes along for a while in one key and then suddenly it drops
down to the low chord. It’s crossed over into a whole other key refer-
ence. And then it crosses back with complete disregard to the fact that it
stepped outside of its family of colors. So I’m told (laughs).23
While the self-assured essays into dual tonalities really only begin with the fifth
album (FR), we find an isolated example from 1967 at the beginning of her out-
put (Ex. 5.20). Each verse of “I Don’t Know Where I Stand” (C) begins in D
Mixolydian and modulates by a single dramatic swerve at the end of phrase 2 to
F major (by way of a secondary dominant, V/IV [F9]). Seams between verses (i.e.,
between the F chord at the end of one verse and the D chord at the beginning
of the next) remain exposed. Furthermore, the song ultimately cadences, by a
Phrygian progression, on yet a third tonal center, as follows: D–A–G. Assigning
a key requires a double (D-F) or perhaps even triple label (D-F-G). The title (also

example 5.20. “i don’t know where i stand,”
chord changes
Guitar tuning: F F C G A C
Phrase 1: | D(9) | D(9) | C(9) | C(9) |
Phrase 2: | D(9) | D(9) | F9 | F9 |
Phrase 3: | B(9) | B(9) | Am7 | Am7 |
Phrase 4: | Bm6 | Gm | F | F |
the refrain) of this engaging song thus acquires an added pertinence to its uncer-
tain harmonic structure—although the effect is by no means confused or uneasy
but consists rather of refreshing changes of perspective.
Five years later, in For the Roses, Mitchell begins to explore multiple tonalities
in earnest. I will discuss two songs from that album, one whose tonal poles are
harmonically distant from one another, the other whose poles are closely inter-
related. The first example, “Let the Wind Carry Me,” takes personal dualities as
its theme (Ex. 5.21). From the day-to-day disagreements between her mother and
father during her formative years, Mitchell extrapolates a dichotomy between two
belief systems: the work ethic and the pleasure principle, the domestic urge and
the urge for rootlessness. She finds both urges in contradiction within her own
soul. A similar contradiction is played out in the song’s tonal structure, which is
split between Fm and Am, triads with only one pitch in common (though due
to the prevalent 7th structures, there are two common pitches, A and E, between
the two tonic chords, Fm7 and Am7). Mitchell makes the most out of this har-
monic distance by leaving the modulations very exposed—a bald exchange of one
tonic for another. Each verse modulates once; in fact, little of harmonic interest
occurs in the verses save for the focal modulation.
example 5.21. “let the wind carry me,” chord changes

Intro: | Fm E | Dmaj7 | Fm7 E | D | Fm7 | E | D | A/D | Fm7…
VERSE 1— Phrase 1: | Fm7 | E | Fm7 | Fm7 |
Phrase 2: | Am7 | Am7 | Am7 | Am7 |
Phrase 3: | G | F | Am7 | Am7 |
VERSE 2— Phrase 1: | Am7 | F | Am7 | Am7 |
Phrase 2: | Fm7 | Fm7 | Fm7 | Fm7 |
Phrase 3: | E | D | Fm7 | Fm7 |
Interlude: | Am7 | Am7 | Am7 | Am7 | Fm7 | Em7 | Em7 | Am7 | Am7 |
| Fm7 | Em7 | Em7 | Em7 | F Em | Csus | Csus |
| Fm7 | E | Fm7 | E | G | Asus | Bsus | Bsus | Bsus | Bsus |
| Am7 D | G | G | Bm7 Asus | B(4) | B(4) | Esus | Esus | Am7 | Am7 |

These building blocks, though simple, are set into a formal plan of stunning
design. Key to the overall plan is the remarkable use of commutative modulation;
that is, the verses, instead of always beginning from the same tonal pole, go both
back and forth between Fm and Am. Verse 1 begins in Fm, modulates, then
cadences in Am. Verse 2 begins in Am, modulates, then cadences in Fm. After
an extended orchestral interlude (beginning and ending in Am), Mitchell reverses
this tonal arrangement: verse 3 moves from Am to Fm, verse 4 from Fm to
Am. Given that the introduction and coda are both in Fm, the whole song thus
works as a set of interlocking palindromes:
[Fm] 1. Fm–Am 2. Am–Fm [Am–unstable–Am] 3. Am–Fm 4. Fm–Am [Fm]
In fact, another duality is evident here—between a tonal orientation of constant

volatility and its arrangement in a design of mathematical symmetry.
The volatile, rootless quality comes to the fore in the lengthy interlude. It
is difficult to ascertain any progession of keys here, since tonal allegiances are so
thoroughly adrift. Clearly this instrumental passage conveys the alluring vagrancy
captured in the poetic image of the wild seed on the wind. Yet at the same time, it
is within this passage that Mitchell explores a liaison between her two tonal poles.
In contrast to the body of the song, which preserves and exposes the distance
between Fm and Am as a leap between unrelated worlds, the interlude inter-
twines the two triads as if in pursuit of a higher synthesis. In line with the roman-
tic impulse of the song, however, such a synthesis never does materialize.24
My second example from For the Roses is “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire,” a
fiendishly cool portrayal of heroin addiction (Ex. 5.22). Where “Let the Wind
Carry Me” used a distant third relation between tonal poles, this song uses C
and G, a much closer fifth relation. Since these two keys share so much harmonic
territory, Mitchell is able to set up a more muddled, irresolute sense of duality.
To compound the experience of vacillation, the passages centered on C are cast
example 5.22. “cold blue steel and sweet fire,” chord changes
Guitar tuning: C G D G B D
Intro: | G5 F5 G5 B5 | G5 F5 G5 | G5 F5 G5 B5 | G5 F5 D5 G |
Phrase 1: | C (Lydian) | C(9) | C(9) | C(9) |
Phrase 2: | G5 F5 G5 B5 | G5 F5 G5 | G5 F5 G5 B5 | G5 F5 D5 G |
Phrase 3: | C (Lydian) | C(9) | C(9) | C(9) |
Phrase 4: | G5 F5 G5 | D | C | C |
Chorus: | C B C G | C B C | D/G F/B | C/F | C/F G |
| C (Lydian) | C(9) | C(9) | C(9) |
| G5 F5 G5 B5 | G5 F5 G5 | G5 F5 G5 B5 | G5 F5 D5 G |

in the Lydian mode, whose F carries a leading-tone momentum toward G. The
passages on G are cast in a mixed mode (similar to a blues scale) which favors F.
Another way to put this is that the C passages are infused with elements of G
major, and vice versa. Arrival on one or the other tonal pole thus usually provides
only a momentary stability, since an impetus toward the other pole is immedi-
ately set up. The first phrase is in C but already pushes toward G; phrase 2, on G,
is immediately ready to fall back down to C. Neither pole is clearly differentiated
from the other.
The only moment of clarity occurs at the end of each verse, where the poetic
lens focuses on the images of “Sweet Fire” and “Lady Release.” At this point (phrase
4) the appearance of a D chord allows the tonality to resolve to a G center. The D
chord is clearly a dominant, and the C chords that follow are clearly subdominants
of G. The way seems clear for a moment. But where does it lead?—“down, down
the dark ladder.” At these words the bottom drops out of the clear dominant.
From C we are thrown, by way of exquisite harmonic sensations (extended triadic
structures: D/G–F/B–C/F), back into the familiar muddle and vacillation. The
reigning tonal gesture thus creates an inextricable, vicious cycle, a perfect foil
for the hollow, elusive release that taunts the junkie. Tonal centers and words
blur together indistinctly for the “hollow-grey-fire-escape-thief” who can find no
escape from the concrete urban jungle or the fever burning in her veins. Yet the
tone of this song remains cool and unruffled, ironically detached from the human
pathos it portrays. The authorial voice enjoys a modernist control over the sym-
bolic language, gelid and obscure, and a modernist distance from its disintegrat-
ing subject. The suave, bluesy cadences are closer to the taunting, disembodied
perspective of Lady Release than to the addict’s private descent into hell.
STRICT PEDAL POINTS

My final category has to do with the use of pedal points. In diametric contrast
to her forays into multiple tonalities, Mitchell has written songs that explore a
strong, almost unceasing rootedness to a single pitch center. Harmonically, such
songs do overlap with the single or mixed modes of my first two categories, but
their use of insistent tonal anchors constitutes a distinct organizing principle. For
this reason I have placed them in their own category. The pedals are typically on
the tonic, but in three dulcimer songs (from Blue) Mitchell experiments with a
dominant pedal.
Mitchell uses pedal points not as a tried-and-true, folk-derived, naive expres-
sion of affirmation but as a special technique with a striking range of effects. The
textural and rhythmic profiles of the pedals vary from song to song. In “Song

to a Seagull” (SS) the pedal occupies its own registral plane, tolling at regular
intervals deep beneath the melodic surface (see Ex. 4.3). This pattern establishes a
symbol of open, multilayered space and a solemnity suitable to the poem’s oracu-
lar delivery. In “Cactus Tree” (SS), a nostalgic catalogue of past loves, the tonic
throbs in a constant pulse amid a closely knit texture as if the listener were pressed
intimately to a warm musical body. The pedal in “I Had a King” (SS) is further
in the background and more subtly crafted, merely an accompanimental fabric
that always retains the same lower limit (A). (In a further intricacy, the guitar
establishes a persistent emphasis on E near its upper limit as well, which is in fact
a secondary pedal on the dominant; see Ex. 2.1.) The harmonic effects Mitchell
achieves are just as varied. In “Song to a Seagull” the tonic C bass supports two
competing harmonic layers: the voice remains almost wholly in Mixolydian while
the guitar’s upper reaches stray onto darker modal paths. In “For the Roses” (FR)
the unchanging B pedal is set in a fluid polymodal context (Lydian, Aeolian,
and Mixolydian), as if caught in an ever-shifting play of light. “Cactus Tree”
works with a limited range of colors (only four basic chord-forms in the entire
song: I, Imaj7, IV, Vsus), deriving a great deal of sentiment from simple plagal
cadences (IV–I) on F (see Ex. 6.12).
Beyond their expressive leverage, Mitchell uses such limitations of harmony
and voice-leading to engage with the song’s thematics, by fashioning gestures of
confinement and freedom. In “Cactus Tree,” the rhythmic pedal’s gravitational
field—periodically released—is used to enact the dilemma of the song’s heroine,
caught between the pull of romantic attachments and her yearning for indepen-
dence and self-fulfillment. The pedal in “Song to a Seagull” likewise has thematic
impact, as an ironic anchor tugging against the impulse toward visionary flight.
In the faux-medieval “I Had a King,” the narrator cast as “queen” is confined
(presumably for childbirth) till the end of the year. The song’s progressions creep
by stepwise motion from one chord to the next, with dominants pressed into
unwonted positions to accommodate the tonic bass. In contrast, the dulcimer
songs from Blue, strung on dominant pedals, enjoy a much more unencumbered
harmonic activity. The poet in “All I Want” is traveling on a personal quest, look-
ing for the key to set her free. The song’s harmonies are restless and polymodal,
dancing around a joyously jangling internal pedal. The more laid-back love song
“A Case of You,” in straight D major, has cadences that unwind with a Baroque
precision and inevitability.
I would like to consider one example in greater detail. “Both Sides, Now” (C)
is one of Mitchell’s most celebrated songs, though her own dejected performance
bears little resemblance to the Judy Collins cover version from 1967 which first
made it a hit (Ex. 5.23). The harmonies are almost pure major and tend toward the
monochrome (I, IV, and V).25 By now we can appreciate how incredibly limited

example 5.23. “both sides, now,” chord changes
Guitar tuning: E B E G B E (capo 2)
Phrase 1/3: ||: F/E B(9)/D | C7sus F B(9)/F | F C7 | C7 F C7sus |
Phrase 2/4: | F/E B(9)/D | C7sus | F/E B(9)/D | C7sus (blues) :||
Chorus: | F C5(7) | F C5(7) F | F C5(7) F | F C5(7) F |
| F/E B(9)/D | F B(9)/D F | F/E B(9)/D | C7sus | C7sus |
Interlude: | F B(9)/F | F Fmaj7 B(9)/D | F B(9)/F | F B(9)/F |
such a palette is in the context of Mitchell’s style. She exploits the redundancy for
expressive purpose: the repetitive treading of the same harmonic paths captures
an appropriately world-weary tone. Yet, within this monochromatic spectrum,
Mitchell is careful to create textural variety and sculpt a precise lyrical shape with
its own highs and lows.
The tonic pedal (F) is rarely relinquished. The I and IV chords are able to
swivel freely around this axis, but many of the dominants are more constrained,
appearing as they do in a suspended form which retains the F. The pedal is not
restricted to a single plane, however, but traverses a two-octave spread. In the
guitar interludes, the pedal is present at all three pitch-levels, in a series of pla-
gal cadences whose full chords are bounded at top and bottom by F (Ex. 5.24).
During the verses, the pedal bounces between octaves. At the beginning of phrase
1 (as well as in many of the Fmaj7 chords throughout), the texture contracts
around the central F. The C7sus chords drop the central F in favor of high
F (Ex. 5.25). The sovereignty of the pedal, while harmonically constant, is tex-
turally mobile and variegated, allowing for a moving bass. But the resulting bass
example 5.24. “both sides, now,”

interlude pattern
F♯ B(9)/F♯ F♯
example 5.25. “both sides, now,” beginning

of phrase 1 (harmonic reduction)
F♯/E♯ B(9)/D♯ C♯7sus F♯

line uses tonal homing as a repetitive, despondent gesture. Again and again, the
bass E moves down to C and thence to the low F. E, having lost its upward-
leading function, is now “acting strange” and serves as the departure point for a
dispirited course downward.
Only twice does E lead directly up to the tonic, in the vocal line at the end of
phrases 1 and 3 (e.g., “ice cream castles in the air”). These parallel moments stand
out for several reasons. The voice, within a verse of generally drooping contours,
rises a full octave span. At the same time, the guitar bursts past the F which
has capped its range until now. Not least, the vocal cadence with its leading-tone
and clear unconstrained dominant momentarily revokes the tyranny of the pedal.
This elated gesture first corresponds with the high spirits at the outset of each
verse of the poem. But then something goes awry: the second half of each verse
repeats the gesture of elation, but the words are no longer joyous. The poet now
views her former joy with a jaded eye. The same music is used for both takes, the
buoyant and the disillusioned. Not only that, but the emphatically rising gesture
is followed every time by downcast gestures. First the voice peaks on A only to
fall dramatically by a major seventh (“and feather canyons”; note Mitchell’s poi-
gnant glissando over this interval in verse 2 on “and if you care”). Next, at the end
of phrases 2 and 4, the bass line breaks out into a bluesy riff in the Dorian mode,
whose E and A tug dissonantly and depressively at the otherwise uniformly
major key.
The beginning of the chorus provides a spell of relief from all this tonal grav-
ity. For four measures, the guitar interpolates dominants (C5(7)) released from
the sway of the F pedal. The voice, leaping and hovering in its highest range,
mostly avoids the tonic. In the chorus’s second half, though, the singer sinks back
to her low alto, and the sovereign pedal returns. The end of the chorus is made up
of two cadential phrases, in both of which the vocal line moves down to the tonic.
The first phrase (2 bars long) is a straightforward plagal cadence, but the second is
pungently displaced. In fact, the voice arrives at the tonic too early (“don’t know
clouds”), while the guitar has only reached the dominant. The voice’s cadential
note is thus dissonant for two full measures as the guitar picks out a humble
cadenza (Ex. 5.26). The emphasis in this final cadence is on the harmonic element
(C7sus) of the greatest tension and constraint within the song’s bland scheme.
To further the sense of constraint, Mitchell arranges for the guitar cadenza to peak
in a chord bounded by F on both sides. The voice is planted in the middle of this
chord, on a third F. When the harmony finally resolves to I, the voice has only
enough energy to turn over in a spent, anticlimactic roulade. Mitchell is treating
tonality perversely in this song, using cadential movement as a downer and using
a surfeit of tonal center as a symbol of tedium and disenchantment. To get the
full effect of this virtuosic achievement, one need only compare Mitchell’s version

example 5.26. “both sides, now,” end of
chorus
C♯7sus F♯sus(2)
to the Judy Collins cover, in which the astringent, landlocked tonal nuances are
swept away in a sugary barrage of primary colors.26
In closing, I want to offer some general comments on the harmonic categories

I have identified and their use throughout Mitchell’s career. I have tabulated the
five categories in her complete work (1966–1998) in Table 5.1.
Songs with a single predominant mode form one of the two largest catego-
ries in Mitchell’s career, numbering over sixty songs. There are three in Dorian
and nine in Aeolian. Mixolydian becomes rarer as a base after the early period;
she revisits it in “Turbulent Indigo” (TI) and “Chinese Café” (WTRF) (in this
D Mixolydian song the VII is gradually transformed into a second key center,
CM, for her nostalgic quotation of “Unchained Melody”). The major mode makes
strong appearances in Ladies of the Canyon and Blue, then becomes scarce for awhile,
to return as a favored choice in the 1980s and ’90s. (Note that all these modes are
well represented in the polymodal category. Also, given the prevalence of modal
mixture in the first category, the boundaries between the first and second catego-
ries are not completely cut-and-dried.) An interesting subgroup of major-mode
songs consists of those in which Mitchell sets up a forceful polarity between the
tonic major and the relative “minor” (actually Aeolian). She explores this exten-
sively in the late 1980s and early ’90s.27
Polymodality is an equally common and fertile harmonic scheme in Mitchell’s
work. Counting for nearly sixty songs, it never loses its fascination. Beginning
with For the Roses, polytonality grows in importance, eventually appearing in a
remarkable twenty-seven songs.
In contrast, chromaticism and pedal points have nearly exhausted their inter-
est after the early period. In two experimental songs from the second period,
Mitchell brings each technique to a climax. “The Jungle Line” (HSL), noted for
its importation of Burundi drumming as a rhythm track before such borrow-
ing was the fashion, works with a basic two-part contrapuntal texture. The syn-
thesized bass is extremely restless, moving mostly by tritone and half-step, and
traversing the chromatic aggregate save for one pitch (F). Though each verse
returns three times to a G bass vamp (by way of a Locrian scale in the vocal line),

the song’s harmonic fabric is best described as atonal. Both chromaticism and
pedal points figure in “Paprika Plains” (DJRD), which runs to sixteen minutes,
an entire side of an LP on the original release. The song’s three-verse structure is
interrupted by a vast orchestral interlude, whose far-flung harmonic wanderings
are characterized by a strikingly liberal use of dissonance.28 Equally striking is
the fact that Mitchell prints parenthetical, unperformed lyrics to correspond with
the instrumental passage. This quite extensive interpolation (72 poetic lines, in
a metric scheme unrelated to the rest of the song) gives voice, like some Yeats
of the desert, to a protean collage of oracular imagery. All such formal and tonal
expansiveness is counterbalanced in the verses by the use of marked (but inter-
mittent) pedal textures. The pedal is threefold—a chord made up of C, D, and
G—appearing in many harmonic contexts and symbolizing, among other things,
an indigenous American drumbeat. Once again the tonal techniques are expres-
sive of thematic dichotomies between the centered and the unbounded. Just as
the chromatic orchestral rhapsody is signaled by a visionary, expansive movement
in the text (“I’m floating into dreams”), the long jazzy postlude, with its apotheo-
sis of the pedal chord, follows a contraction back to earth, the present, and the
bonds of human company (“I’m floating back to you”).29
As we have seen, Joni Mitchell’s harmonic palette is multivalent, subtly
shaded, and highly distinctive, with effects that are always integrated into mem-
orable, well-reasoned poetic conceptions. She creates novel structures from the
most commonplace resources and incorporates bold experimentation into engag-
ing, exuberant grooves. As she has explained, she views such alternatives to tra-
ditional harmony in metaphorical terms, as exploring different ways of looking
at the world:
There’s one chord [in “Moon at the Window”] that changes the interval as
it goes into the C section that’s a bit shocking. It comes in a little bit odd,
but it’s a good odd. It’s no odder than any change in life. It’s kind of like
a “but.” The thing is drifting off . . .“but.” That’s how I think that chord
works. It sets up an alternative viewpoint.30
The arts at their best . . . make people look at things they wouldn’t ordi-
narily look at and maybe plant the seeds of difference, like a different way
of looking at things. . . . That’s my optimism, . . . that art could change
somebody’s course, change the way they look at things.31
On occasion in this chapter (notable cases being “Blue” and “Both Sides, Now”)
my harmonic analyses have touched on aspects of song form, phrase structure, and
melodic contour. I now turn to a more thorough exposition of these topics.

6
MELODIC T UR NS
SONG FORMS
With few exceptions, Joni Mitchell worked within the standard song forms in use
in North American popular music by the 1960s: strophic, verse-chorus, and verse-
bridge forms. Strophic form refers to a succession of verses, each with the same
musical pattern but different lyrics.1 Songs from the album Blue using strophic
form include “All I Want,” “River,” and “The Last Time I Saw Richard.” In
verse-chorus form, the verses alternate with a chorus, a self-contained section with
unchanging music and lyrics. Songs from Blue using verse-chorus form include
“Little Green,” “Carey,” “This Flight Tonight,” and “A Case of You.” In verse-
bridge form, verses alternate with a so-called bridge section, containing music that
contrasts (melodically, harmonically, and so on) with the verse while eventually
preparing for the verse’s return. Commonly, the bridge first enters after two state-
ments of the verse.2 The bridge may be stated only once (as in “Court and Spark”
and “Help Me” [both C&S]) but is usually stated twice. Songs from Blue using
verse-bridge form include “My Old Man” and “California.” Notice that in this
album Mitchell doesn’t favor any particular form over another. Her first album
(SS) likewise contains a balanced mix: five strophic songs (“Nathan La Franeer,”
“Sisotowbell Lane,” “The Dawntreader,” “Song to a Seagull,” “Cactus Tree”), three
verse-chorus songs (“I Had a King,” “Michael from Mountains,” “Night in the
City”), and two verse-bridge songs (“Marcie,” “The Pirate of Penance”). In some
albums, however, strophic forms predominate (C, LC, H).
Instrumental introductions are common; songs may also be embellished with
significant instrumental interludes or codas. Any of the three main forms may
also contain a refrain. A refrain occurs when a portion of each verse always has the
same lyrics. In contrast to a chorus, a refrain is not musically self-contained; it
begins or ends incompletely. Thus the chorus in “The Circle Game” (LC) (seven
poetic lines: “And the seasons . . .”) begins and ends in the tonic and could be sung
out of context without detracting from its sense of sectional closure. In contrast,
the refrain line concluding each verse in “California” (B) (“California I’m coming
home”) begins in the middle of a cadential progression and is completely depen-
dent on its context for formal coherence. Mitchell uses refrain elements with great
inventiveness, as one way to create variations on the standard forms.
In popular song in general around the beginning of Mitchell’s career, refrains
commonly appear at the ends of verses (often stating the title of the song). Typically
they consist of a single line with a culminating function (“Will You Love Me
Tomorrow?” [Goffin-King], “And I Love Her” [Lennon-McCartney], “The Sound
of Silence” [Simon], “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” [Dylan]). Sometimes these
end refrains are more extended (often through repetition of poetic lines): examples
include the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (three lines), Dylan’s “It Ain’t
Me Babe” (three lines), and Paul Simon’s “Bridge over Troubled Water” (four
lines). Mitchell uses the typical single-line end refrain in many strophic songs
such as “Cactus Tree” (SS) (“And she’s so busy being free”), “Raised on Robbery”
(C&S) (title line), and “Black Crow” (H) (“a black crow flying in a blue sky”). She
also uses such a refrain at the end of the verse in some verse-chorus songs (“Free
Man in Paris” [C&S], “The Only Joy in Town” [NRH]) and verse-bridge songs
(“See You Sometime” [FR], “Wild Things Run Fast” [WTRF]). Her interest in
more extended end refrains is well illustrated by the song “My Old Man” (B).
Here the refrain (five poetic lines: “We don’t need no piece of paper . . .”) is equal
in length (eight bars of music) to the opening half of the verse. The refrain would
be substantial enough to constitute a chorus if the verse opening were not so
clearly initiatory in quality, requiring the refrain for completion. (Note that the
length of this refrain is not due to any verbal repetition.) Other long end refrains
can be found in “Just Like This Train” (C&S) (three lines), “The Wolf That Lives
in Lindsey” (M) (five lines), and “Man to Man” (WTRF) (four lines).
Refrain devices are not limited to the end of the verse, however; they can also
occupy initial or internal positions. Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”
has an internal refrain: at the midpoint of every verse, the phrase “Look out kid”
marks a sectional division. The verses in Paul Simon’s “Scarborough Fair” have an
internal refrain (“Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme”) as well as an end refrain. I
will be referring to such patterns, where multiple refrain lines occur in nonadja-
cent positions, as split refrains. Another kind of split refrain places the recurring
text lines at the beginning and end of the verse, as in Paul Simon’s “Old Friends,”
the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” and Laura Nyro’s “Wedding Bell Blues” (which begins,
“Bill/I love you so/I always will”). Mitchell’s “Both Sides, Now” (C) contains an
internal refrain marking the transition between the first and second halves of each
verse: “I’ve looked at [clouds/love/life] that way/But now . . .” Internal refrains also
occur in “Furry Sings the Blues” and “A Strange Boy” (both H). The song “Chelsea
MELODIC TURNS | 149

Morning” (C) has a substantial initial refrain (“Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning,
and the first thing that I [heard/saw/knew]”). “Morning Morgantown” (LC) has a
simple split refrain with the same recurring line (“In morning, Morgantown”) at
the midpoint and end of each verse. In “California” (B), a split refrain frames the
final section of the verse: “California/California I’m coming home/[ . . . ]/California
I’m coming home.” Other examples of split refrains are more complex. In fact, one
of Mitchell’s earliest examples, “Sisotowbell Lane” (SS), has refrain elements scat-
tered throughout the verse in numerous poetic lines (but not the final one):
sec. 1 Sisotowbell Lane

[ ... ]
. . . always [every] . . .
. . . always [every] . . .
sec. 2 [ . . . ]
Sometimes [always] . . .
Yes sometimes [always] . . .
sec. 3 We have a rocking chair
[ ... ]
Sometimes we do
[ ... ]
(Sections notated here are poetic subsections articulated by metric, rhyme, and
refrain structure.) The most stable of these refrain elements occur at important
structural points: the initial line, the beginning of the final section, and the pen-
ultimate line. In “River” (B), refrain lines mark the end of the first two sections
of the verse, as well as occupying the entire final section:
sec. 1 [ ... ]
Oh I wish I had a river
sec. 2 [ . . . ]
sec. 3 I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I made my baby cry
This is another song where the combined refrain is equal in proportion to the rest
of the verse.
By factoring in the occurrence of refrains, we can see how the three standard
formal types are further differentiated. In Song to a Seagull, for instance, the five

strophic songs divide into those with end refrain (“Nathan La Franeer,” “Song to
a Seagull,” “Cactus Tree”), and those with split refrain (“Sisotowbell Lane,” “The
Dawntreader”); two of the verse-chorus songs have no refrain, while one has an
initial refrain element (“I Had a King”). The songs on Court and Spark use the
following range of forms: strophic (“People’s Parties,” “The Same Situation”),
strophic with end refrain (“Raised on Robbery” [plus vocal introduction],“Trouble
Child”), strophic with split refrain (“Car on a Hill”), verse-chorus with end refrain
(“Free Man in Paris”), verse-bridge (“Down to You”), verse-bridge with end
refrain (“Court and Spark,” “Just Like This Train”), and verse-bridge with split
refrain (“Help Me”).
It should be mentioned in passing that the difference between refrain and cho-
rus is not always cut-and-dried; both refer to passages of unchanging music and text
providing a periodic sense of return. As I use the terms, the distinction between
the two is based on notions of structural coherence: a clear-cut chorus will consist
of a complete, closed musical section, markedly distinct from the verse that is itself
a complete section. But in practice, of course, songwriters may wish to explore
ambiguity or interdependence rather than clarity of formal division. For instance,
it is not uncommon for verses to end with a phrase that is melodically or harmoni-
cally open, in the interests of continuity between verses or verse and chorus. Open-
ended verses leading into a chorus can be found in Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”
and “Like a Rolling Stone.” The lack of cadence at the end of the verse is used to
build anticipation for the chorus. In these examples, the verses are sufficiently
substantial and formally balanced to feel like a coherent musical section, even if
they are not technically closed. But in other examples, sectional divisions may
be less clear. Take Mitchell’s “Chelsea Morning” (C), for instance (Ex. 6.1). Is the
recurring section beginning with the lines “Oh, won’t you stay/We’ll put on the
day” a refrain at the end of the verse, or a separate brief chorus? On the one hand,
Mitchell sets this section apart with a lengthy and dramatic pause just beforehand
(at the end of line 3) on an open sonority, and a marked change in vocal expression
on “Oh.”3 On the other hand, the text in this section is not completely uniform
or self-contained; the final line changes with each verse, linking through a rhyme
to the previous section’s line 3 (e.g., verse 1: “drums/comes”). Thus in some ways
Mitchell emphasizes the division between lines 1–3 and 4–6 (as if they constitute
distinct verse and chorus). In other ways she emphasizes their interdependence (as
if lines 4–6 constitute a refrain, necessary to complete the poetic and harmonic
structure of the verse). Songs with similar formal ambiguity include “Tin Angel,”
“Songs to Aging Children Come” (both C) and “Harlem in Havana” (TT).4 Given
the sometimes subjective nature of the criteria for perceiving musical closure and
formal hierarchy, I acknowledge that in some cases other listeners may well inter-
pret sectional divisions and functions differently than I do.
MELODIC TURNS | 151

example 6.1. “chelsea morning,” verse 1
ao
E9 E
Woke up, it was a Chel - sea morn - ing, and the first thing that I heard
motive j
b
E9 A Emaj7 F♯m11
was a song out - side my win - dow, and the traf - fic wrote the words.
b'o
E A Emaj7 F♯m11
It came a - ring - ing up like Christ - mas bells, and rap - ping up like
c
B7sus E7sus/D
pipes and drums. Oh, won’t you stay?We’ll
A(9)/C♯ G6/9 F♯m11 E
put on the day and we’ll wear it till the night comes.
The problem presented by ambiguous cases highlights a general aesthetic

issue. As Richard Middleton has recently argued, form in pop/rock music of this
period involves a reconciliation between two general principles: sectionalism and
continuity. Various balances can be struck between the two. Sectional boundaries
and relationships can be projected with absolute clarity, or sectional definition can
be deemphasized in favor of a continuous musical flow. “In the Beatles’ ‘She Said,
She Said’ (1966), for example, the sectionality [verse-bridge] is cloaked by the
irregular lengths of sections and phrases, the changes of meter and the similarities
of melodic and harmonic material across sections.”5 The point here is not analytical

precision (the differences between verse and bridge in the Beatles example are not
in question) but the different emphases available to musicians in their execution
of musical form.
The existing conventions of sectional form provide the basic vocabulary for
formal organization in Mitchell’s work. But in many songs, she finds various
ways to emphasize continuity over sectionalism. One way to do this is to string
together short open-ended verses, with no contrasting sections and no instrumen-
tal breaks, thus creating an ongoing cyclic pattern with relatively weak punc-
tuation. (Bob Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street” is a model for such an effect.) An
excellent example is “People’s Parties” (C&S). Verses are only eight measures long
but rather wordy, giving the impression of a character whose overtalkativeness
covers her social anxiety. Several examples of this formal type (with slightly lon-
ger verses) are found on For the Roses, including the title song, “You Turn Me On
I’m a Radio,” and “Woman of Heart and Mind.” All three songs are cast as one-
sided conversations (second-person address), and the formal continuity supports
the effect of conversational flow. Another technique Mitchell uses to deemphasize
sections is to create long rambling verses, thus deferring punctuation. Several
examples are found on Hejira, including “Coyote” and the title song. Verses in
“Coyote” are around seventeen lines long, in “Hejira” sixteen. These dilatory
formal divisions are in keeping with the album’s guiding motif of wanderlust.
(Remarkably, every song on Hejira uses strophic form, avoiding sectional contrast
and contributing to the effect of constant motion.)
Other strategies favoring continuity include the use of bridges that sound
similar to the verse, as in “Electricity” (FR) and “The Wolf that Lives in Lindsey”
(M). (In the latter song, the bridge begins and ends similarly to the verse, deviat-
ing in the middle. In “Electricity,” the bridge begins differently but incorporates
the end of the verse wholesale—if the three melodic phrases of the verse are dia-
grammed abc, the bridge would be dbc.) Numerous songs employ vocal riffs that
overlap and link sections. This is true in several songs from Chalk Mark in a Rain
Storm, such as “Lakota” and “The Tea Leaf Prophecy.” Finally, in a handful of songs,
Mitchell experiments with long passages that avoid sectional repetition (verses,
etc.) altogether. In art song, such unpredictable form is described as “through-
composed.” The song “Blonde in the Bleachers” (FR) contains several distinct
sections, only one of which recurs. A piano intro leads to section 1 (introduc-
ing the main characters and their relationship), whose melodic phrases (abcdee)
resist patterning into any kind of verse. A modified version of the piano intro (the
only sectional repetition) then leads into section 2 (where the groupie “tapes her
regrets to the microphone stand”), consisting of one musical phrase repeating
over and over. When this phrase finally comes to a cadence, the music moves to
a final section, an extended instrumental jam evoking the rock concert setting of
MELODIC TURNS | 153

the song. In this song, the through-composition creates a forward-directed form,
each section introducing a new idea with minimal large-scale gestures of return.
In other through-composed songs, though there are no large sectional repetitions,
Mitchell includes partial or heavily modified gestures of return. This is true of
“The Arrangement” (LC), discussed in chapter 2, and “Blue” (B), discussed in
chapter 5. The formally ambiguous “Sunny Sunday” (TI), which may be heard
as through-composed, will be discussed later in this chapter. While the song
“Paprika Plains” (DJRD) is basically strophic in structure, it encloses a through-
composed instrumental interlude of huge proportions. In this case, the unpredict-
able progress of piano and orchestra evokes the strange exploratory visions of the
lyric speaker as she gazes out into the rain.
One the other end of the spectrum, there are songs in which Mitchell empha-
sizes sectional divisions. This can take place through strong punctuation, as in
“Refuge of the Roads” (H), where the end refrain is emphasized by a sustained
high note in the voice and rhythmic accents in the instruments. Likewise, the
refrain in “God Must Be a Boogie Man” (M) is reinforced by rowdy backup sing-
ers and aggressively marked guitar chords. (Backing vocals also provide punctua-
tion in “Ladies of the Canyon,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” and “Woodstock” [all LC]).
A similar emphasis can be achieved through strong contrasts between sections.
Musical contrast is expressed in myriad ways; one common approach is a change
in timbre or texture, such as the entrance of backing vocals in the choruses to
“The Gallery” (C), “The Circle Game” (LC), and “Free Man in Paris” (C&S). The
bridge in “Down to You” (C&S), depicting an unsatisfying one-night stand, is
set off by a change of key and meter (9-beat measures), thicker instrumentation,
slower harmonic change, lower vocal range, and more repetitive melody. All these
musical contrasts articulate the formal division between verse and bridge, a divi-
sion underlined by thematic and expressive contrasts between sections. The verse
is philosophical and temporally expansive; the bridge narrative and temporally
specific. The verse mentions “days”; the bridge “shadows,” “night,” and “black-
ness.” Thus the musical and poetic features of the bridge create a passage with a
distinct tone and focus, interrupting the cylical verse structure with a present-
tense depiction of a sexual encounter and replacing the generalized resignation
of the verse (“the days come down to you”) with a personalized, dramatic descent
(“you go down to the pick up station”). The return of the verse brings an immedi-
ate reemergence into the daylight world (“In the morning there are lovers in the
street”).
One obvious way to create strong divisions is by interpolating instrumental
passages (hence the term “breaks”). Extended, vivid or complex interludes can
create a special effect of interruption or digression from the formal scheme, as in
“Let the Wind Carry Me” (FR), “Car on a Hill” (C&S), “Sweet Bird” (HSL), and

“Paprika Plains” (DJRD). More commonly, Mitchell will use a short recurring
passage as a way to punctuate formal sections, often stating it first as an introduc-
tion that is recalled after each verse or chorus, thus using it as a kind of instru-
mental refrain. If such a passage is highly distinct from the music of the vocal
sections, the punctuating effect is made stronger. The album Court and Spark
contains a number of examples, featuring members of the band in colorful instru-
mental refrains with distinct rhythmic hooks. “Court and Spark” has piano chords
in a triplet cross-rhythm, “Help Me” has a catchy syncopated riff (see Ex. 2.3),
and “Raised on Robbery” features solo sax over a distinct harmonic pattern.6
“Free Man in Paris” has a striking fanfare-like refrain for the whole band, while
“Just Like This Train” features a chromatic chain of woodwind licks, doubling
the guitar figuration (Ex. 6.2). Notable examples from other albums include the
lyrical piano melody in “Willy” (LC), the florid guitar and drumbeat in “The
Priest” (LC), the guitar chimes and violent fingerwork in “The Wolf That Lives in
Lindsey” (M) (Ex. 6.3), and “The Beat of Black Wings” (CMRS) with its rocking
bass, distinct harmonic pattern, and strange wordless vocals (see Ex. 4.7).
But Mitchell does not always use instrumental refrains (IRs) as a means of
strong demarcation. Their punctuating effect can be softened in the interests of
continuity. One way to accomplish this is by devising IRs with strong parallels
to the music of the verse. By using similar melodic or harmonic material, the
punctuating instrumental passage will feel like an outgrowth or anticipation of
the verse. In “Marcie” (SS), the IR is parallel to the opening phrase of the verse.
In this case the parallel is exact: the figuration heard in the guitar introduction
is immediately repeated as the accompaniment for the first vocal phrase. (And in
fact, since the phrase structure of the verse is aaba, the same figuration is repeated
for phrases 1, 2, and 4; see Ex. 5.18.)7 The guitar refrain has enough harmonic and
example 6.2. “just like this train,” instrumental
refrain
MELODIC TURNS | 155

example 6.3. “the wolf that lives in lindsey,”
instrumental refrain
The marcato accents are strong enough to bend the pitch.
rhythmic interest to stand as a solo, but its punctuating effect is softened by hav-
ing the same material woven so thoroughly into the fabric of the verse. Additional
songs in which the IR anticipates the opening of the verse include “My Old Man”
(B), “Black Crow” (H), and “The Windfall” (NRH). In “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet
Fire” (FR) the IR anticipates the second phrase of the verse (see Ex. 5.22). Other
songs use an IR that grows out of the end of the verse. In “The Dawntreader” (SS),
for instance, the end refrain (phrase 11: “All his seadreams come to me”) is sung to
a complex accompanimental pattern that immediately repeats, thus emerging as
an IR (prefigured in the song’s intro; see Exx. 5.10 and 5.11).8 Likewise, the final
line of the verse in “Blue Boy” (LC) ends in a melodically drawn-out wail that
dovetails with the angular piano tune serving as an IR. In “Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac”
(NRH), the intro sets up a harmonic pattern punctuated by vocal riffs on the
song’s title phrase. When the chorus arrives it features similar vocal riffs, and the
cadential phrase of the chorus (“Romance in the back of/Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac”)
ushers in and elides with the IR familiar from the intro. Besides the types of
musical parallels already mentioned, there are several songs in which fragmen-
tary elements from an IR appear as internal punctuation scattered between vocal
phrases, as in “Sisotowbell Lane” (SS), “For Free,” “Big Yellow Taxi” (both LC),
“Trouble Child” (C&S), and “Cotton Avenue” (DJRD)—another way to weave an
IR into the fabric of the verse.
Finally, there are two songs whose form exploits the novel effect of one (quoted)
tune embedded within another. “Chinese Café” (WTRF), with its internal quotation
of “Unchained Melody” (North-Zaret), has already been mentioned in chapter 5. The

song “Harry’s House” (HSL) is a critical vignette of a man “caught up” in the phony
rituals of his corporate profession. (Subliminal metaphors suggest a fish caught in a
net.) Peripherally, we glimpse the stultifying effect this has on his wife and family. In
the midst of a business meeting, Harry drifts off into a memory of his wife when they
were first dating (a poolside setting sustains the aquatic motif). The music becomes
dreamy and transitional; specifically, a rhythmically ambiguous loop dissolves the
previous meter and leads to a new, deliberate swing tempo. In this daydream insert,
Mitchell sings a cover of the Mandel-Hendricks tune “Centerpiece,” about the excite-
ment of new love and dreams for the future. The idealized “house and garden” of the
embedded tune clashes ironically with the glossy, empty “House and Gardens” life-
style of the present. The sectional form of the double song reads as follows:
“Harry”: V1 V2 V3(part 1) . . . [“CENTERPIECE”: V1 V2(instr.) V3] . . . V3(part 2)
The quoted tune interrupting verse 3 represents the lost optimism and authentic-
ity of younger days. As the framing song resumes, Harry has a rude awakening;
while he has been busy climbing the corporate ladder, his wife has decided to
leave him. The concluding phrases mock Harry’s male initiative (in fishy terms);
despite his wife’s appearance as the alluring water nymph of his daydreams, it is
she who “reels him in” to tell him what he can do with his house and his take-
home pay.
PHRASE STRUCTURE
Focusing now on the internal structure of formal sections, we can identify some
important stylistic features. First, Mitchell characteristically avoids uniform
phrase lengths. Four-bar phrase lengths are often proposed as a norm in popu-
lar music, but the idea of an inflexible norm is misleading. The use of irregular
phrases is not unusual; many pop styles can accommodate variations in phrase
rhythm without a sense of anomaly. (Walter Everett mentions a range of examples
from the Drifters to David Bowie, implying that many more could be found.)9 In
Mitchell’s case, asymmetrical phrases sound at times like extensions of four-bar
units; at other times they correspond to irregular poetic lines. A clear example
of extension occurs in “Marcie” (SS). The first phrase of verse 1 is four bars long;
when the same guitar pattern is used for the intro and IR, it is extended to five
by repeating the fourth bar. When the same pattern occurs in the fourth phrase
of verse 1, it is extended to seven bars. All succeeding verses forgo this extra
extension at the end; they consist of phrases of 4 + 5 + 4 + 5. This design is bal-
anced, with the extensions providing articulating pauses, yet it avoids foursquare
uniformity.10 Similar subtle extensions, usually prolonging a harmony for another
MELODIC TURNS | 157

bar, are found in the verses of many other songs, such as “I Think I Understand”
(C) (5 + 4 + 5 + 5), “The Gallery” (C) (5 + 5 + 5 + 5), “Woodstock” (LC) (4 + 5
+ 4 + 5), “The Same Situation” (C&S) (4 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 6 + 5), “Amelia”
(H) (4 + 4 + 5 + 4), and “Come In from the Cold” (NRH) (5 + 5 + 5 + 4ov). (The
notation ‘ov’ refers to a phrase overlap, where the closing bar of one phrase over-
laps with the initial bar of the following, often instrumental, phrase.)11 In special
cases, Mitchell introduces longer extensions. For instance, in “The Priest” (LC)
she sets up a pattern of four-bar units in the intro (taking the drum rhythm as a
fast beat of four), then casts the verse as 7 + 7 + 7 + 8ov (Ex. 6.4). The seven-bar
phrases result from a vocal line of four bars overlapping with an instrumental
response of four bars (prolonging the final harmony). However, Mitchell holds
back the arrival of the closing word in each phrase, thus blurring the internal
point of articulation and fusing melody and response into integral phrases. The
fourth, culminating phrase is different, placing the harmonic extension in the
middle (heard as 2 + 4 + 2ov), delaying the cadence even longer and finishing
with deliberate vocal movement to the downbeat. “For Free” (LC) has wonder-
fully expansive eleven-bar phrases (11 + 11 + 10 + 9). Each phrase begins with
a four-bar segment and ends with varying lengths of harmonic extension as the
piano toys with fragments of its refrain: (4 + 7) + (4 + 7) + (4 + 6) + (4 + 5)
[+ 5IR]. The generous proportions allow listeners to luxuriate in the song’s bit-
tersweet longing for a lost musical innocence.
In some cases, asymmetries accommodate irregular poetic structures.12 A sim-
ple example would be “Electricity” (FR), with phrases of 4 + 4 + 3. Here the verse
begins with paired poetic lines, following a rhyme scheme of ab + ab; Mitchell
casts these lines as balanced four-bar phrases. A shorter phrase of three bars occurs
at every appearance of the refrain (“She’s not going to fix it up/Too easy”), which
stands alone, unpaired with any other line in the verse and thus is freer from
expectations of proportional balance. Furthermore, the line as spoken does not
fit into the prevalent triple poetic meter, which heightens its uniqueness within
the structure (as well as subtly illustrating the image of mechanical breakdown).
Another simple example is “Night in the City” (SS) whose foursquare verses are
altered by the addition of a final unpaired poetic line. The added phrase is shorter
than the rest (4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 2 [+ 2instr]). A more complex example is “Willy”
example 6.4. “the priest,” chord changes

Guitar tuning: D A D G A E (capo 5)
Phrase 1, 2 (a): ||: Gm | Gm | G9sus | Gm | Gm | Gm | Gm :||
Phrase 3 (bo): | Dsus | B/F | Am/E | D5 | D5 | D5(7) | D5(7) |
Phrase 4 (a'): | Gm | Gm | G9sus | G9sus | G9sus | G9sus | Gm(4)/D D5(7) | Gsus2 |

(LC). The poetic meter changes frequently, beginning with two clear five-beat
lines, then two four-beat lines, then an anomalous line of two beats coinciding
with the end of a sentence:
Willy is my child, he is my father

I would be his lady all my life
He says he’d love to live with me
But for an ancient injury
That has not healed
The remainder of the verse does not clearly scan into a meter, due to variable feet
and syllable counts (the two verses are wildly different in this section), though
there is a clear pairing of lines through the rhyme scheme. In support of this odd
structure, Mitchell designs a musical verse of eight phrases: 4 + 4 + 6 + 4 + 4
+ 3 + 3 + 4 (Ex. 6.5). Note how proportional balance suggests pairing of phrases
1–2, 4–5, 6–7, while the third and final phrases stand alone; this pairing is made
audible through parallel musical gestures. The first pair of phrases (4 + 4) sets
the two five-beat lines; the following single phrase encompasses the next three
poetic lines, through the odd unpaired line that completes a thought. The subse-
quent untidy lines are fit into regular paired phrases following the rhyme scheme.
The final unpaired phrase is devoted to the refrain (“There are still more reasons
why/I love him”), which stands outside the rhyme scheme as well as ending with
another anomalous, emphatic short line. (Note that the final phrase is the only
one in the song cadencing on the tonic.) Irregularities in phrase rhythm are thus
molded to specific poetic contours, endowing them with compelling musical ges-
tures of continuation and closure.
Other songs with flexible phrase rhythm in support of irregular poetic struc-
tures are “Urge for Going” (Hits) (V: 4 + 4 + 6 + 5), “Nathan La Franeer” (SS)
(4 + 5 + 3 + 3 + 4), “Lesson in Survival” (FR) (2 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 4?),13
“See You Sometime” (FR) (4 + 4 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 2), and “Paprika Plains” (DJRD)
(8 + 6 + 6ov [+ 4instr] + 8 + 5 + 6ov). Another song, “Love” (WTRF), is interest-
ing in that Mitchell has paraphrased her text from I Corinthians 13, creating five
verses with a variable poetic structure. Presumably she could have arranged the
paraphrased lines to fit a regular musical structure, but instead she chose irregular
phrases of 6 + 4 + 6. Also telling are songs like “I Had a King” (SS), in which
irregular poetic lines cut across foursquare musical units. The first eight bars of
this song project regular four-bar segments in their harmonic motion and guitar
figuration; but the poetic lines fall into odd lengths (4 beats/5 beats/3 beats),
resulting in vocal phrases (2 + 3 + 3) out of synch with the underlying segmenta-
tion. Similar effects occur in “Edith and the Kingpin” (HSL) ([2 + 3 + 3] + [2 + 3
+ 3] + 3 + 5) (Ex. 6.6) and “Two Grey Rooms” (NRH) (8 + 8 + 6 + 4 + 6). In
MELODIC TURNS | 159

example 6.5. “willy,” verse 1
ao
C6 G
Wil - ly is my child, he is my fa - ther.

bo co
C6 F Em Dm
I would be his la - dy all my life. He says he’d love
D7/F♯ G C F Em
to live with me But for an an - cient in - ju - ry that has not

do
Dm G
healed. He said I feel once a - gain like I gave my heart too soon.
do
Am G
He stood look -ing through the lace at the face on the con-
eo
Am F Em Dm
- quered moon. And count - ing all the cars up the hill
fo g
F Dm7 G
and the stars on my win - dow - sill, There are
F C
still more rea - sons why I love him.
the latter case, we know that the music was composed first, the poem (and precise
melody) written much later (the initial demo, without words, is included in The
Complete Geffen Recordings). Here is a song in which Mitchell responds freely to a

example 6.6. “edith and the kingpin,” verse 1
a bo
Cm7 G9sus A♭(9)
The big man arrives, dis -co dan - cers greet him, plain - clothes cops
co
F9sus A♭(9)
greet him. Small - town big man, fresh lip - stick glis-ten - ing.
a bo
Cm7 G9sus
Soph - ’more jive from vic - tims of type - writ-

c
A♭(9) F9sus
ers, the band sounds like type - writ - ers; the big man, he’s not
do
C(9) C9 A♭(9)
list - ’ning. His eyes hold E - dith, his left hand holds
eo
G9sus E♭maj9
his right. What does that hand de - sire that
A♭(9) G9sus G9 G9sus G9
he grips it so tight?
regular set of chord changes, devising an irregular poetic construction in counter-

point with the underlying rhythmic/harmonic motion.
As I mentioned, such flexibility of phrasing is not uncommon in popular
music (although the number of songs in which Mitchell avoids uniform phras-
ing is remarkable). More unusual are her experiments with metric disruption, in
MELODIC TURNS | 161

which the underlying unit of rhythmic grouping is momentarily disturbed. Her
interest in such experiments began with her first album and climaxed in the early
1970s with the albums For the Roses and Court and Spark. One way she plays with
the metric flow is by occasionally slipping in extra half-bars. This happens three
times in “Sisotowbell Lane” (SS) (see Ex. 5.6). The hiccup in the metric scheme
is associated with a recurring cadential figure that defines three subsections of
the verse. The phrase lengths fall out as follows: (5 + 4.5) + (5 + 4.5) + (2 + 2
+ 2 + 3.5ov). (Note that the 5-bar phrases are due to irregular poetic lines.) The
metric quirks are also in line with the quirky tone maintained in the poem (“We
always knew that he always knew”). Mitchell has saturated this song with irregu-
lar phrases, while arranging them in a clearly articulated, elegantly balanced pat-
tern. Recurrence of melodic material also helps to shape this pattern; the phrases
can be diagrammed ab + ab + cdeb. Mitchell also introduces half-bars into “All
I Want” (B) (see Ex. 6.11). The first part of the verse has parallel melodic phrases
(abab) but irregular phrase rhythm (4 + 2.5 + 4 + 3.5). In this song, the metric
quirks match well with the spontaneous outpouring of words as well as the rest-
less emotional tone (e.g., the first added half-bar occurs on “Looking for some-
thing, what can it be”). Other songs with occasional half-bars include “A Case of
You” (B) (Ch: 4 + 3.5 + 4), “Barangrill” (FR) (5.5 + 5.5 + 4 + 2.5), “Court and
Spark” (C&S) (in the IR), and “The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey” (M) (V: 5 + 5
+ 5 + 4.5 + 3).
Another type of metric disruption occurs when the meter distinctly changes
for a few bars or longer. This can take a number of different forms. “Blue” (B), for
example, is mainly in 4/4. A striking shift occurs during the b section: when the
poetic lines shift from around seven syllables (“Well there’s so many sinking”) to
five syllables (“Acid, booze and ass”), the meter shrinks to 3/4, grinding to a halt
after a few bars before being able to resume (see Ex. 5.14). The verse in “Banquet”
(FR) shifts back and forth between 6/4 and 4/4. “Cactus Tree” (SS) contains a more
prolonged shift from 4/4 to 6/4 at midverse when the rhyme scheme changes (see
Ex. 6.12). While “Trouble Child” (C&S) is in 4/4, its intro/IR shifts to 3/4 every
other bar. As already mentioned, the bridge in “Down to You” (C&S), depicting a
one-night stand, presents a sharp contrast to the verse. Though the harmony here
is nearly motionless and the vocal line not strongly metric (contributing to a feel-
ing of suspended momentum), close listening reveals the piano vamp marking off
measures of 9 beats, until the culminating phrase when the spell is released (“You
hurry/To the blackness”). In “Harry’s House” (HSL), mentioned in the previous
section, the transition to the embedded tune “Centerpiece” involves a metric
modulation. The bass line introduces a syncopated riff ( ) cutting across the
4/4 meter, previously heard in the IR but now greatly prolonged. By the time the
embedded tune begins, the previous dotted-quarter duration has become the new

(slower, shuffle) beat ( = ). The same process occurs in reverse at the transition
back to the framing song ( = ).
In other songs, the meter changes are more irregular. “Lesson in Survival” (FR)
is in 4/4, with occasional interpolated bars of 5/4 and 2/4 (= half-bar). The end
of each verse, however, unexpectedly becomes stalled in repetitive piano arpeg-
giation suggesting 3/8. In “Jericho” (DJRD), the 4/4 verses are punctuated by
a few bars of 6/8 (or 3/4). But the song’s intro allows any clear sense of meter
to peter out into an unregulated rhythmic loop (an effect which returns in the
coda) (Ex. 6.7). The instrumental interlude in “Sweet Bird” (HSL) is suddenly
extremely syncopated and plagued by dropped beats, thus suggesting irregular
alternation between 3/4 and 4/4, although in the context it is difficult to distin-
guish between syncopations and downbeats. Such an absence of metric guideposts
is distressing—an effect which seems to illustrate the song’s contemplation of
human imperfection and “compromise.”
We have seen how through a variety of devices—harmonic extension, odd
poetic structures, and metric disruption—Mitchell explores a flexible phrase
rhythm. Her verses too are variable in proportion, generally ranging from two
example 6.7. “jericho,” intro
MELODIC TURNS | 163

musical phrases, as in “Songs to Aging Children Come” (C) (see Ex. 5.17) and
“Big Yellow Taxi” (LC), to eight phrases, as in “That Song about the Midway” (C),
“Willy” (LC), and “Hejira” (H), with some songs even longer. This leads me to
the second important characteristic of phrase structure in Mitchell’s work: phrases
relate to one another (and cohere into formal sections) through audible patterns
of parallelism, contrast, and complementarity. In particular, Mitchell makes use
of hierarchic cadences whereby certain phrases are more inconclusive than others
(e.g., in harmony or linear motion), setting up the expectation of eventual closure.
Phrases can be paired through complementary relations in which the inconclusive
aspects of one phrase are answered in a later, conclusive phrase; open phrases are
generally treated as structurally subordinate to closed phrases. Melodic structures
based on open/closed patterns are common in many popular song repertories,
but not all.14 They seem especially appropriate to the singer-songwriter genre:
usually intended for spectatorial or private listening (rather than participatory
music-making or dance), the genre valorizes literate verbal texts and individual
expressive styles—all of which encourages attention to subtleties of construction
(or “internally articulated ‘shapeliness,’” as Middleton puts it).15 Nevertheless,
the singer-songwriter genre is not homogeneous in this respect. A few examples
from the music of Bob Dylan will introduce the basic concepts.
“Blowin’ in the Wind” is strophic in form. Verses are four phrases long, the
fourth phrase being the refrain. Phrase lengths are entirely uniform (8 + 8 + 8
+ 8). The melodic material in the first three phrases is repetitive, with phrase 2
varied at the end (diagrammed as aa'ab). The refrain is set apart with different
music. So far, my description covers relationships of parallelism and contrast. To
investigate complementary (open/closed) relationships we need to consider other
factors. Harmonically, the phrases end on I, V, I, and I; only the second phrase is
open (I will diagram this with a subscript o, as follows: aa'oab).16 But this situa-
tion is modified by the linear design. In linear terms, closure consists of motion
directed toward the tonal center (the first degree of the scale, or 1̂). The first three
phrases end inconclusively on 5̂, 2̂, and 5̂; only the final phrase closes on 1̂. Thus
through the interaction of musical elements, phrases can project differing degrees
of conclusiveness. In phrase 2 (the midpoint of the verse), harmony and linear
motion work together to create the most open-ended phrase; this is answered (and
structurally completed) by the strongest closure in phrase 4. In other words, the
second half of the verse complements the first half in harmonic and linear terms.
When each member of a complementary pair begins with the same material, as
here, the pair is known as a period. (In this case, the verse is a single period, each
member comprising two phrases: aa'o + ab.)17 Note that complementary or period
structures are not necessarily complex. “Blowin’ in the Wind” has a fairly simple,
pleasing symmetrical structure appropriate for communal singing.

“Like a Rolling Stone” presents a contrasting sense of relationships between
phrases. The sectional structure is more complex, with a verse of irregular lines
and a chorus of uniform lines. Musical phrases fall mostly into repeated pairs: the
verse ao ao bo bo c c do the chorus eoeoeoeoeo(4 bars each). Each phrase pair is
8+8+4+4+4+4+8
an exact musical repetition. But though the phrase structure is consistently par-
allel, it is not complementary; open phrases are not answered by closed phrases.
The only phrases that close on a tonic harmony are the c phrases, but the melody
is inconclusive here (ending on 5̂). Even in the chorus, the harmony continually
cycles through I-IV-V, without closure (though the melody finally closes on 1̂
in the concluding phrase). There is a strong sense of arrival in the chorus due to
the climactic vocal range and the tonic chord that initiates each phrase. But the
structure is not based on complementary relations. Instead, the effect is basically
a string of open gestures, some more intense than others.18 The looser relation
between phrases (parallel but not subordinate) is reflected in the way Dylan casu-
ally adds an extra line to subsequent choruses without upsetting the formal bal-
ance. (Note that noncomplementary structures are not necessarily simple.)
“Like a Rolling Stone” showcases a literate, highly personalized poem by way
of a looping, additive melodic design. In contrast, Joni Mitchell’s melodic designs
persistently feature interlocking relations of symmetry and complementarity. Her
melodies work in tandem with the details of poetic structure to create a coun-
terpoint of musical and verbal shapeliness. Individual phrase patterns are excep-
tionally diverse. “Woodstock” (LC) follows a regularly alternating complementary
structure of open/closed pairs: V: aobaob Ch: cod. Harmonically, a and c end on
the subdominant (A); b and d return to the tonic (Em).19 The linear contour
is made up of parallel melodic arches that repeatedly strive and fall. The a phrases
initiate an arch by moving up from 1̂ to 7̂; the b phrases close the arch by attain-
ing the tonic octave, then falling to 1̂. (The d phrase falls past 1̂, the resulting
inconclusiveness evoking unfulfilled longing; see Ex. 2.7a.) Note that this song,
while complementary in phrase structure, has no period construction; the comple-
mentary phrases lack parallel material.20 The open/closed pairings group phrases
into slightly larger formal units. These in turn combine into a comprehensive
formal plan that spans the entire verse and chorus. The first two phrases (aob) state
the basic idea, which is then restated; these parallel statements have an initiatory
or presentational function. The c phrase develops the basic idea (by compress-
ing its contour, by moving directly to the subdominant, and by dividing into
two-bar subphrases); while d moves to closure (in this case by the most active,
complex harmonic progression occurring in the song). The functional sequence of
statement/restatement/continuation/closure is a formal model basic to a number of
popular song repertories.21 The model is at work in many of Mitchell’s songs; she
MELODIC TURNS | 165

uses it flexibly, playing with the proportions of individual sections at will. We will
encounter a variety of examples in the ensuing discussion. Other songs, similar to
“Woodstock” in using a regularly alternating open/closed pattern, may be briefly
mentioned. In “The Last Time I Saw Richard” (B), the regular complementarity
(aobaobcod) is somewhat blurred by the dense poetic lines and breathless deliv-
ery.22 The verse in “Chelsea Morning” (C) is also regularly complementary, though
the melodic material is asymmetrical: aobb'oc (see Ex. 6.1). Here Mitchell extends
and punctuates the open b' phrase to build anticipation for the end refrain (c).
Mitchell employs the standard phrase pattern aaba in a number of songs. (This
is the most succinct expression of the statement/restatement/continuation/closure
model. It is related to the aaba pattern of the Tin Pan Alley ballad while smaller
in scale.) When the pattern is combined with a closed/closed/open/closed struc-
ture, the result is a parallel phrase pair followed by a complementary pair in which
the a phrase returns to answer and complete the b phrase (aaboa). Such a pattern
occurs in the verses of “Marcie” (SS) (see Ex. 5.18), “The Gallery” (C), “The Priest”
(LC) (see Ex. 6.4) and “Ladies of the Canyon” (LC). In the last song there is an
added nonverbal phrase extending the refrain: aaboaa' (see Ex. 5.3). In the verse
of “My Old Man” (B) there is a modal change at the end of phrase 2 (from tonic
major to tonic Dorian) which modifies the parallel relation between the initial
pair (aa'boa). In other songs, the aaba pattern has a different distribution of open
and closed. One example is “Yvette in English” (TI), with the intriguing pattern
of aoa'boa''o (the first two phrases form a period; the last phrase has a beautiful
deceptive cadence, wavering between VI and vi). In “For Free” (LC), though the
a phrases are closed in linear terms, no phrase attains harmonic closure: aoaoboao.
(Phrases end on IV, IV, V, and IV–vi–V. Mitchell elaborates on the cadential dis-
sociation in the song’s coda: the piano’s cadence on the tonic C has no connection
to the overlaid clarinet solo, which eventually closes on G.) Here, Mitchell’s char-
acteristic dialectical irony operates on the level of phrase structure, in the tension
between the two systems of melodic completion and the melancholy that results.
Mitchell explores other four-phrase structures as well, combining various
patterns of repetition and open/closed relations. The aabc pattern is similar
to aaba (though not as well rounded). She uses it in “I Don’t Know Where I
Stand” (C) (aoa'oboc) (see Ex. 5.20), “Rainy Night House” (LC) (aaboc) (see Ex.
5.13),23 “Blue Boy” (LC) (where she adds a final vocal tag: aaobcd; see Ex. 4.1),
“Song for Sharon” (H) (aa'boc), “The Only Joy in Town” (NRH) (V: aa'obc Ch:
ddodo), and others. No two of the specific variations I have listed are identical.
She uses aaab (with one contrasting phrase placed at the end) in “The Circle
Game” (LC) (aa'oa''ob), “Ladies’ Man” (WTRF) (aaa'ob), and “Last Chance Lost”
(TI) (aaa'b) (see Ex. 6.23); and the nonrepetitive abcd in “The Fiddle and the
Drum” (C) (aobocd), “The Silky Veils of Ardor” (DJRD) (abocod), and “Be Cool”

(WTRF) (V: abcod). It is clear from the examples listed so far that Mitchell treats
her open/closed structures flexibly; regular alternation is not a norm but one pos-
sibility among others. Many four-phrase songs close with a complementary pair
while varying the sequence at the beginning of the verse. For instance, a closed/
closed/open/closed structure is found in “Be Cool,” “Ladies’ Man” (as diagrammed
above), and “Turbulent Indigo” (TI) (aaboc) (besides those examples already listed
under aaba and aabc). Other songs, like “The Circle Game” (LC) (see above),
“Little Green” (B) (V: aa'oboc), and “You Dream Flat Tires” (WTRF) (V: aaoboc)
use closed/open/open/closed.24 Quite a few begin with three open phrases in a row
before closing, for instance “Tin Angel” (C) (V: aoboaoc), “Amelia” (H) (aobocod)
(see Ex. 4.6), “Man to Man” (WTRF) (aoaoboc), “Cherokee Louise” (NRH) (V:
aoaoboc), and “Borderline” (TI) (aobocoa').25 But some four-phrase verses end with
an open phrase, as a way of leading into the chorus. This occurs, for example, in
“I Think I Understand” (C) (V: abab'o Ch: cdd') and “Both Sides, Now” (C) (V:
aboabo Ch: cd) (see Ex. 5.23). Some verses are entirely closed, as in “Morning
Morgantown” (LC) (V: abab Ch: cd). (These last three songs all conform to the
overarching four-section [statement/restatement/continuation/closure] model.)
By no means, however, does Mitchell limit herself to the standard length of four
phrases. “Big Yellow Taxi” (LC) has a verse that’s short and sweet, with a chorus that
echoes the end of the verse: V: aa' Ch: ba'. “Let the Wind Carry Me” (FR) has a short
verse of three phrases (aab) set off by a long intro and interlude. “You Turn Me On,
I’m a Radio” (FR) has a short verse (aobc) that cycles continuously without punctua-
tion. Sometimes Mitchell plays with ambiguous phrase boundaries or subdivisions,
allowing for more than one way to understand the structure. If one goes by the
standard four-bar phrase length, the song “Court and Spark” (C&S) has two phrases:
aob (with a bridge of codo). But those four bars cover a lot of text, and the melody
emphasizes internal repetition and pauses; it makes just as much sense to subdivide
the verse further into three or four shorter phrases. Likewise, “People’s Parties” (C&S)
can be heard as two densely packed four-bar phrases (aobo), or four short phrases
(aobococ'o). (Note that some of these examples are noncomplementary.)
“Song to a Seagull” (SS) has a pattern of five phrases in which the final phrase
(the refrain) is strongly set off from the rest by guitar punctuation: aoboaob'o/b''
(Ex. 6.8). Note the highly asymmetrical phrase structure here. Most of the verse
proceeds in a series of parallel arcs, all remaining open; then one final statement
of b attains closure, its single arc absorbing the anticipation built up over the
previous four phrases. (Interestingly, closure is attained primarily in linear terms,
as the harmony remains suspended at verse’s end.) In effect, this song truncates
the four-section functional model, presenting statement(ab)/restatement(ab)/
closure(b), with no medial function. “Car on a Hill” (C&S) (Ex. 6.9) has a six-
phrase pattern of irregular phrase lengths with split refrain:
MELODIC TURNS | 167

ao ao /bo b'o co d
4+5+2+2+2+3.5ov
This verse also audibly divides into subsections. Mitchell punctuates the first
phrase pair with a refrain line, a harmonic extension, and backing vocals. The
move to the b phrases is marked as a departure by a temporary modulation as well
as a reduction in phrase lengths—that is, a quickening in phrase rhythm. (While
some listeners may prefer to group the two short b phrases together into one in
order to preserve the four-bar grouping, I base my groupings here on the unit of
melodic repetition. With the a phrase the melody doesn’t start repeating until
after a four-bar statement; with the b phrases repetition begins after two bars.)
These qualities of contrast and fragmentation mark phrases bbc as the continu-
example 6.8. “song to a seagull,” verse 1

ao bo
freely
C5 C7sus C5 C7sus C5
Fly, sil - ly sea - bird, no dreams can possess you, no voic - es can
ao
C7sus Csus C
blame you for sun on your wings. My gen - tle re-
b'o
Csus C Csus C Csus
la - tions have names theymust call me for lov - ing the free - dom of
b"
C7sus C5 Csus2(6) C5
all fly - ing things. My dreams with the
C7sus A♭maj7/C Csus2
sea - gulls fly out of reach, out of cry.

example 6.9. “car on a hill,” verse 1
ao
F♯m7 E/F♯ F♯m7 E/F♯
I’ve been sit - ting up wait - ing for my su - gar to show, I’ve been
ao
E7sus A/D F♯m7 E/F♯
list-’ning to the si-rens and the ra - di - o. He said he’d be o - ver three
F♯m7 E/F♯ E7sus A/D
hours a - go, I’ve been wait - ing for his car on the hill.
bo b'o
D/G G
He makes friends eas - y, he’s not like me, I

co
D/G G D/G G F♯m7 E/F♯
watch for judg - ment anx - ious - ly. Now where in the cit - y can
d
D/E A/D
that boy be? Wait - ing for a car
F♯m7 E Dsus2 A E/A
climb - ing, climb - ing, climb - ing the hill.
ation section in the overall plan; in this case, the continuation section is longer
than other sections. Note that this song, like the previous one, has a long string
of open phrases before closure at the end refrain.
Through devices such as these (articulation of subsections, changes in phrase
rhythm, and deferred closure), Mitchell is able to sustain formal interest and
MELODIC TURNS | 169

coherence over the span of even longer verses. “The Dawntreader” (SS) (Ex. 6.10)
has the following phrase pattern:
ao b ao b /co co c'o do eo fo g
4+4+4+4+2+2+3+2+3+4+4
example 6.10. “the dawntreader,” verse 1

ao
D5 Dm7 Csus2(6)
Per - i - dots and per - i - win - kle blue me - dal - li - ons,

b
Dm9 G(4)/D D Dsus D
Gild - ed gal - leons spilled a - cross the o - cean floor.

ao
D5 Dm7 Csus2(6)
Trea - sure some - where in the sea and he will find where.
b
Dm9 G(4)/D D Dsus D
Nev - er mindtheir ques - tions there’sno an - swer for.

co co
Csus2 Bm Csus2 Asus G5 Csus2 Bm Csus2 Asus G5
Theroll of the har - bor wake, the songs that the rig - ging makes,
c'o
Csus2 Bm Csus2 Asus Gsus2
the taste of the spray he takes and he learns to give,

do eo
Asus B♭maj7
he aches and he learns to live, he stakes all his sil -

(continued)

fo
G7sus G
- ver on a prom - ise to be free.

g
G7sus G Dm9
Mer - maids live in col - o - nies. All his
G(4)/D D Dsus D
sea - dreams come to me.
The statement and restatement of the basic idea (ab) form a presentational subsec-
tion defined by regular complementarity, with a narrow range of melodic motion.
Its b phrases also restate the instrumental refrain in the guitar accompaniment,
thus reinforcing the cadential function for each pair. The second subsection (“The
roll of the harbor wake”) is immediately differentiated by quicker phrase rhythm.
At the same time, its goal orientation operates over a longer span. The melody
climbs gradually in pitch, peaking on phrase f. Its short phrases set up a concate-
nated string of musically rhyming pairs, even more than I have been able to show
in my diagram: e.g., the end of d echoes the end of c', the beginnings of d and
e are parallel, while f contains two similar falling subphrases. Finally, harmonic
closure is deferred until g (the refrain), where the guitar again states the IR,
establishing a cadence parallel to that of section one. “All I Want” (B) (Ex. 6.11)
exhibits a similar pattern:
ao b ao b /co co co c do eo
4+2.5+4+3.5+2+2+2+2ov+4+4ov
The presentational section is punctuated by a harmonic extension, while the

continuation section (“I want to be strong”) is marked off by a chain of open
phrases and a quickening in phrase rhythm. In this case, however, Mitchell con-
tinues and intensifies the phrase acceleration. The final statement of c is con-
densed and elided with the beginning of d (hear how the cadence on the tonic
arrives a measure earlier than expected [skipping a bar of A] according to the
established phrase rhythm).26 This feels like a further acceleration from two bars
MELODIC TURNS | 171

to one bar. Then the d phrase begins with even quicker melodic repetition at the
half bar (“Do you want—do you want—do you want”). The phrase rhythm is
propelled forward from four bars through two, then one, down to the breathless
excitement of half bars. Mitchell maintains the excitement and forward propul-
sion through the lack of closure at the end of the verse (building expectation for
the return of a).27
The song “Cactus Tree” (SS) (Ex. 6.12) has different proportions and a differ-
ent arrangement of complementary relations. Its phrase pattern is
ao bo co /d d d eo f
2+2+3.5+1.5+1.5+1.5+3+2
example 6.11. “all i want,” verse 1

ao
D♭ G♭ A♭ B♭m
I am on a lone - ly road and I am tra - vel - ing, tra - vel - ing, tra-
b
B♭m7 C♭ G♭ C♭ A♭
vel - ing, tra - vel - ing. Look - ing for some - thing, what can
ao
D♭ G♭ A♭ B♭m
it be? Oh, I hate you some, I hate you some, I love you
b
B♭m7 C♭ G♭ C♭ A♭ D♭
some. Oh, I love you when I for - get a - bout me.
co co
B♭m7 E♭m7 A♭
I want to be strong, I want to laugh a - long, I want to be - long

(continued)

co
B♭m7 E♭m7 A♭ B♭m7 E♭m7
to the liv - ing. A - live, a - live, I want to get up and
c do
A♭ B♭m7 A♭ D♭
jive, I want to wreck my stockings in some juke - box dive. Do you want? Do you
eo
A♭
want? Do you want to dance with me, ba - by? Do you want to
C♭
take a chance on may - be find - ing some
B♭m7 A♭
sweet ro - mance with me, ba - by, well come on.
(The odd bar lengths in the diagram connote a metric shift from 4/4 to 6/4, equiv-
alent to the addition of half-bars.) The presentational section abc (in this case, not
conforming to the statement/restatement model) builds anticipation through a
string of open phrases (and a harmonic extension). The continuation section (“He
has called her”) is differentiated by its prolonged affirmation of closure as well as
its initial metric shift (from duple to triple groupings). In this melody, Mitchell
creates a satisfying sense of linear arrival on 3̂ (low in the voice). Section one hov-
ers on 5̂, ultimately to pause on an unresolved 4̂. In answer, section two cadences
four times on the same low 3̂ . Other songs using accelerated phrase rhythm in the
second half of the verse are “Sisotowbell Lane” (SS) (abab/codoeb), “Just Like This
Train” (C&S) (aobcb/dododoe), and “Trouble Child” (C&S) (aoa'oboboa'o/coccod).
MELODIC TURNS | 173

example 6.12. “cactus tree,” verse 1
freely
ao bo
F♯maj7 B(9)/F♯
There’s a man who’s been out sail-ing in a dec - ade full of dreams and he
co
F♯maj7 B(9)/F♯ F♯ F♯sus(2)
takes her to a schoon - er and he treats her like a queen, bear - ing
F♯maj7 B(9)/F♯ F♯maj7 B(9)/F♯
beads from Cal - i - for - nia with their am - ber stones and green.
d d
F♯ B(9)/F♯
He has calledher from the har - bor, he has kissed her with his
d eo
F♯ B(9)/F♯ F♯
free - dom, he has heard her off to star - board, in the
B(9)/F♯ F♯sus(2) F♯
break - ing and the breath - ing of the wat - er weeds,
f
F♯sus(2) F♯maj7 B(9)/F♯ F♯
while she was bus - y be - ing free.

Three additional songs with long verses deserve mention for their unique
designs. “Willy” (LC) (see Ex. 6.5), unlike the other songs I have been discussing,
has no strong internal punctuation:
ao bo co do do eo fo g
4+4+6+4+4+3+3+4
Instead, the melody feels like one thread, spun into heavenly length through
deceptive harmonic motion. Mitchell creates an elegant proportional balance by
casting phrases into matching pairs (with two exceptions). No pair is comple-
mentary (thus closure is deferred), yet links are created through parallelism and
sequence. The a and b phrases begin the same way, then move in different direc-
tions; the end of b is marked by a melancholy harmonic gesture, sinking from
F down by step to Dm (in the key of C). Phrase c rises to a high point, then
moves by sequence (note the melodic pitches on each downbeat: D–B, C–A)
before breaking the parallel construction to accommodate the odd poetic line.
Note that this phrase extension restates the melancholy chords: F, Em, Dm. The
next two phrases, closely parallel, are stalled in the low range and in harmonies
that evade cadence (G to Am). Phrase e returns to the melodic peak, the earlier
sequential pitches (now twice as fast), and the melancholy chord progression,
knitting these elements together. Phrase f has a contour that answers that of e,
while finally moving the harmony forward to cadential preparation. Phrase g
stands alone, diving to the melodic depths for the climactic expression of love,
while the chords move directly from F to C, thus breaking the melancholy pattern
to achieve tonic closure.
“Coyote” (H) (Ex. 6.13) has a cyclic phrase pattern, moving twice through the
same melodic and harmonic succession:
ao bo co do a'o bo co do a''
4+4+4+4+2+4+4+4+5ov
This would be a straightforward case of internal repetition, were it not for the
sleight of hand brought about by a discrepancy between melodic and harmonic
cycles. The melodic unit of repetition (phrases a to d) appears to be sixteen bars
long the first time around; it takes this long to complete the rhyme scheme. But
the harmonic unit of repetition is only fourteen bars long; the harmonic progres-
sion starts to repeat before the melody has finished! The beginning of the progres-
sion is audibly highlighted with a special chord: E in the context of C major, an
instance of modal mixture. The first a phrase begins with the modal shift to E,
then a dominant chord (G13sus). The d phrase ends with the shift to E, continu-
ing on in the next (a) phrase to G13sus and so on. This means that the second
a phrase (“Just how close to the bone”) has to drop half of its material to catch
MELODIC TURNS | 175

up with the harmonic progression. (The poetic rhymes normally occur every four
bars, but the rhyme scheme picks up here with the odd two-bar a phrase: “bone/
alone,” etc.) Another way to describe the disruption in phrase structure here is in
terms of the song’s four-bar hypermeter. (Hypermeter refers to the grouping of
measures into larger rhythmic units.) In the first a phrase, E occurs on a hyper-
metrically strong downbeat (bar 1 of a four-bar group), the following G13sus on
a weak downbeat (bar 3). In the d phrase, however, E occurs on a weak down-
beat (bar 3), and the following G13sus now occurs on a strong downbeat. The
subsequent tonic arrival is strong as well, restoring the regular hypermeter after a
example 6.13. “coyote,” verse 1

ao
E♭sus2 G13sus
No re - grets, Coy - o - te. We just come from such
bo
C(9) G13sus/C
dif-f’rent sets of cir - cum - stance. I’m up all night in the stu - di - os and you’reup
co
Gsus(2) G Fsus(2)
ear - ly on your ranch. You’ll be brush - ing out a

do
F Fsus(2) F Fsus(2)
brood mare’s tail while the sun is a - scend - ing, and I’ll just be
C(9) G13sus/C E♭sus2
get - ting home with my reel - to - reel. There’s no com - pre-

a'o bo
G13sus C(9)
hend - ing just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes and the
(continued)

co
G13sus/C Gsus(2) G Fsus(2)
lips youcan get and still feel so a - lone, and still feel re-
do
F Fsus(2) F Fsus(2)
lat - ed like sta - tions in some re - lay. You’re not a,
C(9) G13sus/C E♭sus2
a hit - and - run dri - ver, no, no, rac - ing a - way.
a"
G13sus
You just picked up a hitch - er, a
C(9)
pris - ’ner of the white lines on the free - way.
strange two-bar glitch. For the concluding statement of a (the refrain), Mitchell
prolongs the dominant chord, restoring the regular phrase length, breaking the
cyclic pattern, and leading at last to tonic closure.
“Harlem in Havana” (TT) (Ex. 6.14), unusually, has not a single open phrase:
a a b b b c d d'
4+4+2+2+2+6+4+4ov
Though every phrase ends on tonic E, Mitchell creates internal variety through
changes in modality, phrase rhythm, vocal range, and instrumentation. The tonic
goal (E major, except for the final phrase) is approached by way of different chords
at different times. Harmonic tension is produced by varying the length of time
between E major resolutions (every fourth bar in a, every second bar in b, not
MELODIC TURNS | 177

example 6.14. “harlem in havana,” chord changes
Standard guitar tuning
Phrase 1, 2 (a): ||: Em7 | Em7 | D | E(9) :||
Phrase 3, 4, 5 (b): ||: D Bm7 | D E(9) :|| (repeat 2x)
Phrase 6 (c): | A9 | A9 | G13 | G13 | E Emaj13 | Emaj13 |
Phrase 7 (d): | Em6 Em/maj9 | Em7 | E Emaj13 | Emaj13 |
Phrase 8 (d'): | Em6 Em/maj9 | Em7 | D/E | Em |
until the fifth bar in c). But formal extension is created without recourse to com-
plementary relations.
A special case of noncomplementary structure occurs when all phrases are
open, creating continuous forward momentum. This is the case in “Roses Blue”
(C) (aoaoaobo), “Electricity” (FR) (V: aoboco B: doboco), “Woman of Heart and
Mind” (FR) (aoboaobo), and “People’s Parties” (C&S) (aobo). In “Woman of Heart
and Mind,” Mitchell adds a brief tag at the end of the entire song (verse 3) to
achieve final closure. “Conversation” (LC) has an open first half and a periodic
second half: aoboaobo/coc'. In essence, this song consists of a continuous chain of
open phrases punctuated by one emphasized tonic arrival at the final poetic line
(“I want to free him”).28
In their seemingly endless variety, these examples show Mitchell’s careful
attention to detail work, her highly individualized treatment of each song, and
her nonformulaic, exploratory approach to phrase construction.
CONTOUR
In my discussion of phrase structure, I have made occasional reference to melodic
contour, speaking of arcs, high points, hovering, and so on. Now I would like
to address this musical aspect directly. In turning to the vocal line as it moves
through musical space, we seem to be isolating what many would consider the
most memorable aspect, perhaps the core, of Joni Mitchell’s songwriting—the
tunes. However, I would emphasize that a “tune” is more than just a linear pitch
succession; it is a musical whole, foregrounding specific linear gestures but also
encompassing distinct rhythmic, harmonic, and formal qualities from which the
linear aspect is inseparable. My discussions of contour will necessarily refer to
these other qualities in the interests of an integral picture of Mitchell’s melodic
composition. I would also emphasize that in approaching melodic shape and ges-
ture, it is less meaningful to think in terms of technical labels. While harmony
and phrase structure, for instance, deal with specifiable units of perception and
syntactic relations for which an analytical vocabulary has been developed, con-

tour is a more elusive aesthetic quality.29 How does movement through musical
space contribute to emotional expression? Why are some shapes more beautiful or
memorable than others? In considering a relatively small number of tunes, I aim
to illustrate the issues involved rather than provide exhaustive classification.
“Michael from Mountains” (SS) (Ex. 6.15) is a modest tune, moving in con-
junct motion with occasional triadic descents, mostly remaining within an octave
reach (C to C) and mostly sticking to the F major scale. Mitchell sets up all
these parameters in the first two phrases; any movement outside the expected
bounds later in the song constitutes a salient gesture. Thus the entry of chromatic
pitches in phrases 3 and 4 reinforces the sense of departure in that portion of the
melody.30 In the chorus, melodic intervals expand, especially in the upward leaps
on “go to” and “know you.” On the latter phrase, the voice also scoops below its
previous floor. Expanding pitch space is used expressively, to capture the special
speech situation in the chorus (second-person address, asserting commitment and
devotion). Mitchell creates other salient moments by means of hooks, motives,
and special harmonic colors. A hook is an appealing musical figure meant to grab
the listener’s attention.31 In this song, the opening phrase is marked by a synco-
pated accent pattern (332, in both voice and guitar) that serves as a gentle hook,
suiting the song’s delicate character. A motive is a short figure that recurs as a
unifying element. An example in this song is the descending figure B–A–F–C,
occurring at the end of phrase 1 in the verse and at the end of the chorus (“I may
know you”), as well as in varied form in phrase 2 of the verse and in the first part
of the chorus. Mitchell adds a special dash of color with the Bm guitar chord
in m. 3: the voice does not leave its limpid diatonic path here, so the chromatic
borrowing in the accompaniment imparts an unexpected poignance. A similar
moment occurs upon the unusual cadence via A at the end of the chorus. One
final characteristic to mention is the consistency of the melody over its several
strophic restatements; the changing text does not disturb the original contour in
any significant way (this feature will become clearer when we encounter contrast-
ing treatment in other examples).
“Little Green” (B) (Ex. 6.16) has a slightly wider vocal range (an octave and
a fifth: F to C). The opening phrases are enhanced by a guitar hook combin-
ing several elements: a 332 rhythmic pattern, a major-seventh sweetening of the
tonic, and a iii–ii–I cadential progression.32 After the low placement of the first
two phrases, the sense of departure in phrase 3 is due to its sudden quick rise to
the melodic highpoint. In contrast, the chorus returns to the low range; its salient
features include the touches of color added through modal mixture (e.g., on the
word “color”). This song also has a prominent motive (E–D–B–F) introduced
in phrase 1 and brought back repeatedly to close the chorus, each statement of
the motive exploiting a different dissonant relation with the changing cadential
MELODIC TURNS | 179

example 6.15. “michael from mountains,” verse 1 and chorus
j
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2
F B♭m6/F
Mi - chael wakes you upwith sweets,he takes you up streets and the rain comes
F(9) F
down. Side - walk mar - kets locked up tight, and um - brel - las bright
j'
B♭m6/F F(9) E♭(9)
on a grey back ground. There’s oil in the pud - dles in
D9
taf - fe - ta pat - terns that run down the drain in
D♭(9) C(9)
col - ored ar - range - ments that Mi - chael will change with a

Chorus: freely
F(9) Gm11 F(9) Cm9 F
stick that he found. Mi - chael from moun - tains,

j''
B♭(9) Am11
go where you will go to, know that I will know you.

j
Gm11 Am11 B♭(9) A♭(9) F
Some - day I may know you ver - y well.

example 6.16. “little green,” verse 1
j
freely
Bmaj7 Bmaj7/D♯ C♯m11 Bsus B Bmaj7
Born with the moon in Can - cer. Choose
Bmaj7/D♯ C♯m11 Bsus B B9
her a name she will an - swer to. Call her
C♯m11 B E
green, and the win - ters can - not fade her, call her green for the chil - dren
Bmaj7 Bmaj7/D♯ C♯m11 Bsus B
who’ve made her.Little green, be a gyp -sy dan - cer.
harmonies (thus expressing the “sorrow” just beneath the surface). In fact, this
motive is the same descending motive that appeared in “Michael from Mountains”
(transposed down). The motive (4̂–3̂–1̂–5̂) is a favorite of Mitchell’s in her first
style period; it is so prevalent as to constitute something of a stylistic signature in
the early years. Prominent statements of the motive occur, for example, in “I Had
a King” (SS) (chorus, guitar part), “Chelsea Morning” (C) (see Ex. 6.1), “Both Sides,
Now” (C) (varied form, chorus), “Ladies of the Canyon” (LC) (phrases 1, 2, 4), “The
Circle Game” (LC) (close of verse), and “The Last Time I Saw Richard” (B) (IR,
varied form). I will refer to it as motive j.
Both of the previous examples are quiet songs and restrained in their ges-
tures; even delicate changes of shading stand out as salient features. In contrast,
“The Gallery” (C) (Ex. 6.17) is a more showy melody. It begins immediately with
an upward octave leap, following with three prominent leaps of a sixth just in
phrase 1 (articulating the midpoint and close of the phrase). The voice inhabits its
full range of motion right away, evoking an exuberant persona who leaps before
she looks. (The vocal opening is also recklessly mismatched with the harmony.)
In the chorus Mitchell creates contrast by turning to a more restricted motion
by step. This continues for six measures, building expectation for a return to
MELODIC TURNS | 181

example 6.17. “the gallery,” phrase 1
F♯ E(2) F♯
When I first saw your gal - ler - y,
B(9) F♯ F♯sus(2) F♯
I liked the ones of la - dies.
melodic freedom (just as the speaker chafes against the restrictions of her relation-
ship). The tension is sprung in the final line, which reclaims the entire space in
a unique melodic hook (“I can be cruel”—a distorted version of motive j) with
deliberate grinding emphasis on a dissonant tone. Other songs using dramatic
leaps and reckless motion through melodic space are “Conversation” (LC), whose
opening line establishes a high point, then plunges without a net; “Carey” (B),
whose b phrase springs up irrepressibly by an interval of an eleventh; and “The
Arrangement” (LC), which sets up a persistent registral divide between the grov-
eling a phrase (ending on low B) and the keening b phrase (beginning on high
D), echoing the protagonist’s personal alienation in his anonymous eyrie “on the
thirty-third floor.”
Some songs segment their space by way of important nodal pitches. Movement
between nodes is used to project qualities of expressiveness or directionality. In
“Tin Angel” (C) (Ex. 6.18), for instance, the verse is placed rather low. There
is a modest arching motion between the nodal pitches of B–E–B–G, with an
inconclusive ending on G (3̂ in the Em context). The chorus projects elation
(and closure) by moving to a higher set of nodal pitches (E–G–E). The overall
motion here is restrained and classically balanced. “Blue Boy” (LC), on the other
hand, is less predictable in its movement. Nodal pitches (C,A,G,D,C in various
successions) do not conform to any underlying tonal structure as they do in “Tin
Angel.” The voice’s expressive swooping between nodes feels almost random, as
if unstructured (or lost).
So far all my examples have been taken from the early period. As Mitchell
moved into her second style period, her approach to melody changed. In inter-
views since the 1980s, she has expressed irritation with reviewers who found fault
with her melodic style as it evolved. Her shorthand reference for such critiques is
the claim that her songs had “no melody” in comparison with the earlier hits. The
following interview excerpt provides some useful context for her compositional
perspective.

example 6.18. “tin angel,” verse 1 and chorus
freely
Esus2/B Gmaj9 Esus2/B
B
Var - nished weeds in win - dow jars, Tar - nished beads
Gmaj9 Esus2 Gmaj9

E B
on tap - es - tries kept in sat - in box - es are
Bm Esus2
G
re - flec - tions of love’s mem - o - ries.
Chorus:
C/E D Esus2/B Esus Em
E G
Guess I’ll throw them all a - way.
G D/F♯ Esus2 E
E
I found some - one to love to - day.
Musician: Comparing this album [WTRF] to Court and Spark, it’s

apparent that you’ve learned how to bend and stretch the music to
complement the lyrics and the emotional tone of each song. [. . .]
Mitchell: [. . .] I’ve been trying to do that with the music and lyrics for
years, but I don’t think it worked as well in the past because
I wasn’t as anchored to the rhythm. I was pushing it, kind of
creating a certain friction against the rhythm. “Coyote,” for
instance, is a lot of stacking up. When I first started doing
that years ago, there was a lot of criticism along the lines of
“Hey, there’s no melody, and it sounds like she’s talking.” In
other words, the limitation of meter became oppressive, and
wouldn’t contain the poetry anymore, ’cause it wanted to go
in a more blank-verse direction.33
MELODIC TURNS | 183

Mitchell speaks of her stylistic evolution in terms of a conscious pursuit of chang-
ing artistic goals: in the new aesthetic, she identifies a productive tension between
the dual demands of a less regulated text declamation and an underlying rhyth-
mic groove. (For the time being, I will set aside her negative judgment regarding
past endeavors. This self-critique may have been colored by the circumstance that
at the time of these remarks she was embarking on yet another style transition,
into period three.)34 Before examining the music for evidence of the changing
aesthetic, I would like to go back to the reviewers and take a close look at the
actual nature of their critiques.
Pertinent reviews appeared in major publications in the mid-1970s, as
Mitchell followed her greatest commercial success (C&S) with increasingly
adventurous projects. In a review of Hissing of Summer Lawns, Stephen Holden
takes Mitchell to task for her musical choices, with a significant focus on melody:
“Mitchell’s tunes for the first time often lack harmonic focus. They are free-form
in the most self-indulgent sense, i.e., they exist only to carry the lyrics. . . . The
only catchy melody is the non-original ‘Centerpiece.’” The following year, in a
review of Hejira, Ariel Swartley makes similar observations but with more allow-
ances for ongoing stylistic exploration:
It is true that she has all but abandoned melodies anyone can whistle, and
her brief fling with the standard bridge seems to be over. But if she has
denied her listeners memorable tunes and conventional formats, Mitchell
displays other musical charms. . . . While Hejira . . . represents a retreat
from the inviting accessibility of Court and Spark, it is a retreat with a self-
renewing purpose. . . . Mitchell has taken advantage of the music’s struc-
tural freedom to write some of her most incisive and humorous lyrics. . . .
In fact, her voice is often flexible enough to create the continuity and the
climaxes that her melodies lack.
Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter provoked several telling responses. For Kristine
McKenna, the “lyrics are rambling free verse that fight against the structure of the
melodies, which are fragmented and oblique.” For Michael Watts, the “adoption
of a more implied melody has thrust greater emphasis upon her lyrics, [and] has
also demanded of her music a great degree of tension and range of careful nuance to
ensure that her songs do not become elegant Muzak, best suited to dinner parties.”
For Janet Maslin (the harshest overall), Mitchell has “let her music become shape-
less as she tries to incorporate jazz and calypso rhythms that eventually overpower
her.” Stephen Holden, meanwhile, has come to a new understanding of Mitchell’s
artistic aims: since Blue, he claims,

she has amassed the most impressive body of work of any post-Dylan
singer/songwriter, elaborating the free-form narrative ballad form that
Dylan thrust into popular song and polishing a melismatic melodic line
more flexible than Dylan’s and many times more sophisticated. Mitchell’s
finest verse-music fusions on Hejira and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter rep-
resent an incredible formal achievement. Whole poems scan so freely one
would hardly suspect they were song lyrics, and although some melodic
accessibility has been sacrificed, “Amelia” [H] and “Cotton Avenue”
[DJRD] stand up as great pop and jazz tunes.35
All in all, while the critics are not as appreciative as they could be, their judg-
ments are not without nuance, certainly not as blunt as crying “no melody.”36 The
picture that emerges is of intelligent listeners grappling with the strong vision of
an artist on a path of dynamic and very rapid change, making unwonted demands
on her audience to keep up.37 Only two years had elapsed, after all, between
Holden’s two reviews cited here, in which time Mitchell had released three idio-
syncratic, challenging albums.
These reviews invoke rules of thumb valuing tunes that are accessible, catchy,
and well structured. Accessibility implies appeal for a broad audience (“melo-
dies anyone can whistle”). There is a consensus that Mitchell is moving toward a
more specialized appeal by pursuing musical goals that are more “sophisticated,”
that is, that take more effort to appreciate. (In its hostile form, the term is “self-
indulgent.”) A catchy tune is one that is easily remembered, probably due to the
skillful placement of hooks. These first two aesthetic criteria are fairly subjective.
Consideration of melodic structure, however, requires some objective description.
The reviewers claim (on the negative side) that Mitchell’s tunes lack focus, conti-
nuity, and climax; viewed positively, the tunes possess special freedom, flexibility,
and complex (“melismatic,” “oblique”) contour. (Technically, “melismatic” refers
to florid text-setting, that is, a flourish of pitches set to one syllable.) The related
issue of poetic structure also comes up, with references to rambling or free verse.
“Coyote” (H) is a good example of Mitchell’s exploration of free verse. The
poem is rhymed but nonmetric, each verse with an erratic sequence of syllables per
line. Line 1, for instance, is a short six syllables in verse 1 (“No regrets, Coyote”),
ten syllables in verse 3 (“I looked a Coyote right in the face”). Line 2 ranges from
ten (“He’s staring a hole in his scrambled eggs”) to fourteen syllables (“In the
middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night”). Such poetic variation requires a
highly elastic sense of melodic identity. Whereas an early tune like “Little Green”
is designed with a stable number of pitches per phrase in a fairly precise, tightly
patterned succession, the vocal phrases in “Coyote” stretch and contract according
MELODIC TURNS | 185

to the verse. Mitchell treats both the rhythm and the pitch succession as variable.
The placement of long and short durations changes according to speech inflec-
tion; the rhythmic activity and span of each phrase can also shift in relation to the
regular underlying groove (what Mitchell describes as “stacking up”).38 Mitchell
handles this variation by conceiving of the melody as an imprecise basic contour,
strung between nodal pitches and incorporating recurrent internal shapes while
allowing for modification in detail. In “Coyote,” the melody in mm. 1–2 (when
not spoken) hovers around B, in mm. 3–6 around E, in mm. 7–8 around G, and
so on (see Ex. 6.13). The vocal range is diffuse, that is, fairly wide but without
dramatic emphasis on movement through melodic space; a lot of time is spent in
the middle range. Mitchell places minor peaks or rhythmic stresses at the end of
each c phrase (marked by a IV chord in the harmonic progression); but in general
the contour is low in relief. In contrast to the melody, the harmonic progression
is stable and regular, supplying the music’s endoskeleton and forward impulse.
The most audible hooks adorn the punctuating passages, namely, the refrain and
IR. Otherwise, the free vocal melody moves in a fluid duet with Jaco Pastorius’s
equally elastic bass playing.
Judged by an earlier aesthetic, this tune is weak in focus, climax, and dramatic
shape. But Mitchell is after an altogether different effect, where these qualities are
secondary to flexibility of motion and greater independence from the rhythmic
groove. ( JM: “I think that around the time of Hejira, I let the writer, the poet,
take precedence over the singer. But my feeling is that a lot of those songs were,
in fact, superior to the earlier stuff. Yet they were jazz melodies. Conversational
improvisation around a given melody. But as such it wasn’t always necessary to
state the melody. And often I didn’t.”)39 Though the negative reactions in the
press didn’t appear until 1976, she had already been exploring freer melodic con-
struction in songs as far back as Blue. Daniel Sonenberg has analyzed the verses of
“The Last Time I Saw Richard” in terms similar to those I have just proposed, as
variable interpretations of an “underlying melodic scheme” or “blueprint.”40 This
song is notorious for its wordy, unruly poetic lines. The verses in “A Case of You”
project a melody every bit as elastic as that of “Coyote.” “A Case of You” does
include some dramatic leaps, however; its chorus also provides contrast through
its stable recurring elements as well as its rhythmic hooks (“I could drink”), strong
cadential motion, and clearly directed melodic voice-leading (traversing an octave,
D down to D). These features contribute to the song’s accessibility, offsetting the
freer form of the verse with more conventional musical salience and structural focus.
Likewise, “California” contrasts a rhythmically elastic verse with a chorus of clearer
rhythmic shape and direction. In this case, though the verse is rhythmically free,
its pitch content is rather consistent: a strong pattern of three-note groups based
on a single shape (G–B–C, C–E–F, B–C–E). (The chorus shares the same

motive.) The album Court and Spark also intermittently explores melodic flexibil-
ity; “Help Me” is a good example. Again, Mitchell adorns the freer melodic struc-
ture with accessible features such as dramatic upward sweeps, special harmonic
colors (parallel major sevenths), and a catchy refrain.
By the time of Hissing, however, the flexible approach to melody is more per-
vasive. Contours are flatter. Many of the instrumental arrangements are mellower
than those on Court and Spark; in addition, it sounds as if the band is more thor-
oughly blended and mixed down in relation to the vocal. Mitchell seems to have
muted the showiness and drama of the tunes in order to direct attention more
fully toward her delivery of the lyrics. In “Edith and the Kingpin,” for instance,
the melody starts with a “tumbling” contour, repeatedly falling through the same
melodic space (see Ex. 6.6). The range is very narrow, mostly staying within a
six-note span (G down to B). When in the very last line of the verse the voice
reaches up an octave, the gesture has particular salience within the low-key con-
text (though the vocal delivery always remains cool). Musical interest encom-
passes an overall polished sound in which subtle details are telling: moments of
special warmth or gloss in the vocal, momentary shifts in timbre, one-note horn
licks like added brushstrokes. Much the same can be said for “Shades of Scarlett
Conquering.” This is the new aesthetic which gave the critics pause.
In general, then, there are basic aspects to be aware of when considering
melodic shape: the precision or flexibility of a tune from verse to verse, the exploi-
tation of tonal space (overall range, register, intervallic motion, directionality,
patterning, constrained or dramatic gestures, etc.), in conjunction with other
ways of creating moments of musical salience (hooks, motives, harmonic shad-
ing). Certain aspects may be more or less significant in specific cases, depending
on text expression and overall aesthetic aims. But these categories provide a useful
set of tools for analysis. I will end with assorted highlights from a few examples
later in Mitchell’s career.
The bitingly satirical “Otis and Marlena” (DJRD) has the amorphous melodic
contour of the later 1970s, though not devoid of hooks. In fact, the song obses-
sively harps on a single hook—a rhythmic snap from D to E. The hook’s punchy,
relentless repetition in the guitar borders on the maladroit. The voice shadows
the guitar’s pitch focus while ironically offsetting its manner with an extremely
suave and unctuous persona. Also ironic in its exaggeration is the vocal decoration
of the melodic line in plentiful miniature curves. It comes as a relief and a promi-
nent feature when the voice sustains a pure undecorated note at the refrain.
“Ladies’ Man” (WTRF) (Ex. 6.19) exemplifies the move in the 1980s from
the imprecise, elastic melodic conception of period two to a melody that is more
rhythmically anchored and articulated into more well-defined segments. Melodic
phrases are relatively stable in length and rhythmic placement, though Mitchell
MELODIC TURNS | 187

still allows for a certain amount of adjustment to textual expression in different
verses. Most of the phrases of this song begin with an identical hook: a chromatic
snippet high in the vocal range, with a sassy anticipation of the downbeat. Many
phrases are also punctuated by a refrain-like response low in the voice (on the title
phrase), always on the same pitches and in the same rhythmic position (similar
to the initial hook). These salient features provide stable structural landmarks.
The melody distinguishes itself from first-period style in its dry delivery—many
short rhythmic values, few sustained notes, and lots of air between phrases. In
“Impossible Dreamer” (DED) (Ex. 6.20), Mitchell continues to explore dry vocal
delivery, in this case setting up a severe dichotomy between two vocal manners.
The opening of the verse alternates between pithy, highly disconnected, bitten-off
example 6.19. “ladies’ man,” verse 1

Cm11 Gm11
Well, I’ve known heart - break - ers but you take the cake,
D7sus Dm7 Cm11
la - dies’ man. You could charm the dia - monds off a
Gm11 D7sus Dm7
rat - tle - snake, la - dies’ man. La - dies
Cm11 Gm11 B♭m11
bring it on o - ver when you give ’em a glance; they don’t stand
Fm11
a chance. First, you un - fold them,
Gm11 D7sus
then you pi - geon - hole them, la - dies’ man.

example 6.20. “impossible dreamer,” phrases 1 and 2
A/D E/D C/D Bm7 A/B
The street was loud from an an - gry crowd and
G/A A G/A A E/B
I thought of you, I thought of you, dream - er.
phrases (“The street was loud”) and more lyrical triadic curves in Mitchell’s unique
whiskey baritone range (on the refrain lines, e.g., “And I thought of you”).41 The
“impossible” hope for a better world is linked to a performance aesthetic in which
the singer only reluctantly drops her defenses and relaxes into generous contours
and fuller timbre.
In contrast, “Night Ride Home” (NRH) (Ex. 6.21) from period four has a
melody of grand sweeping curves. Its beauty does not depend on ornament or
rhythmic complexity but on the elegant counterpoise of bold movements through
space. Lyricism is sustained through a stately structure that spans the verse and
bridge. Likewise, “Sunny Sunday” (TI) (Ex. 6.22) is composed of shapely arches.
Mitchell separates subphrases with significant pauses, but the secondary curves in
example 6.21. “night ride home,” verse 1

C(9) Am9 Dm11
Once in a while, in a big blue moon, there comes a night like
this, like some sur - real - ist in -
Gsus(2) G C(9)
vent - ed this Fourth of Ju - ly night ride home.
MELODIC TURNS | 189

example 6.22. “sunny sunday”
a
A(9) B(9) F♯(9)
She pulls the shade, it’s just an - oth - er
G♯(9)
sun - ny Sun - day. She dodg - es the light like Blanche Du-
a
C♯(9) A(9)
bois. Brightcol - ors
B(9) F♯(9)
fade a-way on such a sunny Sun - day. She waitsfor the
G♯(9) C♯(9)
night to fall.
bo
F♯(9) G♯(9) A♯m9
Then she points her pis - tol through the door,
and she aims at the street - light while the free - way
(continued)

bo
D♯m11 F♯(9) G♯(9)
hiss - es. Dogs bark as the gun falls to
A♯m9
the floor. The street-light’s still burn ing; she al -

co
D♯m11 F♯(9) G♯(9)
- ways miss - es. Butthe day she hits, that’s the dayshe’ll
A♯m9 F♯(9) A♯m9
leave. That one lit - tle vic - t’ry, that’s all
a
E(9) F♯(9) A(9)
she needs! She pulls the
B(9) F♯(9)
shade, it’s just an - oth - er sun - ny Mon - day.
G♯(9) C♯(9)
She waits for the night to fall.
each subphrase never lose their place in a larger melodic arc. While the verse in
“Night Ride Home” is relatively succinct, in “Sunny Sunday” the formal span is
much more protracted. Mitchell prolongs the expectation of forward movement
through long-range harmonic and linear goals. F (IV) is treated as a pivotal
MELODIC TURNS | 191

chord. In the first two (a) phrases, vocal statement of the F triad (“She dodges
the light”) leads to closure through an authentic cadence (IV–V–I). In the next
two (b) phrases, the chord initiates a deceptive progression (IV–V–vi) (“Then
she points her pistol through the door”). At the same time, the melody sets up a
sequence of gradual upward movement, only to plunge dramatically at the end of
each b phrase. Finally, in the c phrase, the melody attains its desired high point,
A (“That one little victory”). Harmonic movement at this point is still decep-
tive, however. But with the return of a, the crucial IV chord once again leads to
closure. The form of this song is unique, implying two distinct interpretations.
With its return to the opening phrase, it implies a truncated strophic structure
(aaboboco, a . . .), as if the music could continue through another cycle (just as
the protagonist cycles through a futile daily routine). But in fact, as we have
seen, the return of a brings closure to an overarching harmonic gesture. Thus the
song’s form can be heard as through-composed, with no sectional repetition, but
rounded off and complete as it is (aabobocoa). In this reading, the arching melodic
plan extends not merely over the span of one verse, as is typical, but over the span
of the entire song.
“Last Chance Lost” (TI) (Ex. 6.23), on the other hand, moves in stops and
starts, as if hampered by the hazardous emotional situation surrounding the
breakdown of a relationship. Most phrases consist of two opposed elements: a
hook on the title phrase, sounding like a stark, stylized wail with minimal con-
tour, and a shapely flourish unscrolling in response (“in the tyranny of a long
goodbye”). This pattern is stated three times with little development, as if taking
shelter in ritual repetition. The closing phrase disintegrates into two-note frag-
ments, drifting apart. The expressive power of this melody is enhanced by its
failure to cohere into a long-range span.
Earlier in this chapter I spoke of tunes as holistic concepts, encompassing qual-

ities of rhythm, harmony, and form as well as melodic contour. For analytic clarity
I have chosen to focus on song form, phrase structure, and contour each in its turn,
but they are not separate phenomena. The same qualification applies to the overall
structure of this book. As befits a preliminary study, I have paid scrupulous atten-
tion to basic concepts. A division of the songwriter’s art into distinct parameters
has allowed me to develop a precise methodology appropriate to the various topics
of style, voice, theme, harmony, and melody. But once the method is absorbed, the
goal for future analysis is to show how such properties go hand in hand. With that
in mind, I have tried to design an approach to Mitchell’s work as a whole that is
multifaceted, highly adaptable, sensitive to subtle detail, and exacting in descrip-
tive power while respecting the more elusive qualities of music and poetry.

example 6.23. “last chance lost,” verse 1
Fm11
Last chance lost in the tyr -an - ny of a
B♭(9) B♭9 B♭11 Fm11
long good -bye. Last chance lost.
B♭(9)
We talk of us with dead - ly ear - nest
B♭9 B♭11 E♭m11
eyes. Last chance lost.
B♭(9) B♭9
We talk of love in terms of sac - ri - fice and
B♭11 E♭m11
com - pro - mise. Last chance,
Fm11 B♭(9) Gm11
last chance lost.
B♭(9) Gm11 B♭(9) Gm11
Lost.
From considerations of formal coherence within individual songs I now turn

to the succession of songs on specific albums and their arrangement into larger
formal spans.
MELODIC TURNS | 193

7
COLLECT IONS AND C Y C L E S
I first started listening avidly to Joni Mitchell’s music as a teenager in the 1970s,
after being introduced to her albums by a college roommate, who adored Ladies of
the Canyon and Blue. We were attending conservatory in Baltimore, both studying
piano performance. Officially, we were there to discover our callings as musicians,
to be initiated into music’s secrets and gain some control over its brute power.
Just as importantly, though not listed on the curriculum, we were learning to sort
through our own raw and confusing emotions as we formed our adult selves, and
for both of us, the two programs of study were inseparably linked. My roommate
was especially drawn to the hyperexpressive style of Blue, treating Joni’s roman-
tic, vulnerable persona as a key to unlock the impulsive emotional outpourings
we were being asked to perform. I remember coming home one evening to find
him lying on the living room couch in the dark, listening to Blue for the ump-
teenth time. This time, though, he told me he had had a revelation: Joni intended
the album to be heard as a song cycle. As I look back at this moment of insight
from thirty years on, it seems to have brought about a much-desired reconcilia-
tion of the competing spheres of personal development, professional acumen, and
artistic value. By applying high-art concepts to popular music, my friend legiti-
mated his private musical pleasures. At the same time, he proved that our newly
acquired technical knowledge was not limited to the world of connoisseurs but
had relevance for everyday life. He validated Joni Mitchell’s status as a composer
by recognizing her creative ambitions in the pursuit of organic unity and large-
scale formal planning, even in the case of an album usually understood in terms
of immediate, uncalculated expression. Finally, his epiphany touched on a matter
of expressly personal significance. It was well known that Mitchell had experi-
enced intense psychological distress during the making of Blue: “I was absolutely
transparent, like cellophane. If you looked at me, I would weep. . . . Socially I was
an absolute wreck.”1 Yet from such emotional turmoil she had wrested an artistic
creation with an enduring structural arch. Her achievement of musical coherence
against the odds held out hope for those of us struggling to achieve psychic coher-
ence and maturity.
As my story suggests, the magical shift in perception whereby a casual col-
lection of songs resolves into an ordered, interrelated whole conjures up notions
of aesthetic legitimation, interpretive insight, and the ethical formation of the
self. But the setting of the darkened living room implies a fundamentally private
scene of listening. That is to say, the distinction between collection and cycle may
be decided at the point of consumption. The recognition of connections between
individual songs arises from repeated listening: the more one listens to an album,
the greater one’s chances of perceiving connections. Furthermore, the attribution
of a special overall coherence is often a question of degree, resting on subjective
judgments. After all, in assembling an album, even one without a unifying con-
cept, most artists are careful to arrange songs in a suitable order, considering such
matters as effective initial and closing gestures, internal groupings (such as sides
of an LP), general emotional progression, and specific relations between adjacent
songs (whether rhyming, contrasting, or linked by transitional material). I prefer
to understand the possibilities of large-scale form on popular music albums in
terms of a continuum stretching from the haphazard through the loosely coherent
to the firmly coherent. In the middle of this continuum, there is room for disagree-
ment over whether an album may be considered a collection or a cycle. One’s per-
sonal perceptions and listening history will be the deciding factors. Ruth Bingham
has made a similar claim for art song genres in the nineteenth century:
The only unqualified characteristics [of a song cycle] are multiplicity—

three or more poems—and coherence—achieved through the poetry, the
music, or the interaction between them. Inevitably, collections approach
cycles, particularly if the collector possesses some skill. The definition dic-
tates only that the songs cohere, not that they cohere to any particular
degree, yielding an unbroken continuum where carefully arranged collec-
tions neighbor loosely constructed cycles.2
In the context of pop music intended for release as recordings, the song cycle
genre is commonly represented in the notion of the concept album, in which
songs are unified or framed by a ruling idea. Pop music historians usually point to
the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1968)—with its framing
concept of a fictional concert performance, its thematically linked cover art, and
its connective passages between tracks—as the album that ignited a widespread
interest in such a form.3 Some would argue that the distinction of the “first”
COLLECTIONS AND CYCLES | 195

concept album belongs either to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds or Frank Zappa and
the Mothers of Invention’s Freak Out! (both released in 1966).4 One can identify
other artists who were experimenting with the idea of the concept album before
the release of Sgt. Pepper, including Joni Mitchell in her debut recording (March
1968), as we shall see.5 It should be pointed out, however, that the possibility of
grouping songs by genre, occasion (e.g., the holiday album), theme (e.g., Johnny
Cash, Ride This Train [1960]), or mood was inherent in the format and marketing
of the long-playing record from the time of its development in the 1950s.6
In Bingham’s description of the cycle, she emphasizes that coherence is not
necessarily achieved through musical means, and in fact when Mitchell con-
structs cycles she works primarily with textual connections, concepts, or frames.
Musical connections are supportive of a guiding textual rationale—in some cases
perhaps accidentally so. Before turning our attention to specific concept albums
in Mitchell’s work, it will be helpful to identify a range of techniques used in
the construction of cyclic coherence. Poetic techniques include the use of cen-
tral themes, recurrent motifs, unifying expressive tones, or overarching plans.
Examples of Joni Mitchell albums with strong central themes would be Hejira
(travel), Hissing (bourgeois disillusionment), and Wild Things (love).7 Note that
the occurrence of one of these techniques in isolation does not necessarily make a
concept album: Wild Things, for instance, is thematically unified, but by a topic
that is so diffuse (and ubiquitous in the pop song genre) that only a loose coher-
ence is created. A good example of a recurrent motif would be the use of color
imagery in Blue. Six out of the ten songs on that album make striking reference
to “the blues” or the color blue; the remaining songs make subsidiary mention of
red, black, white, and green. The penultimate song, “A Case of You,” consum-
mates the motif with the line “I live in a box of paints.” Blue is also unified by
melancholy and bittersweet tones; Dog Eat Dog by tones of righteous indignation.
(Note that expressive tones encompass both poetry and music.) An overarching
plan may take the form of a framing structure, as in Mingus, with its interspersion
of verbal “raps,” featuring Mingus’s recorded voice, providing oblique introduc-
tions to every song but one. Alternatively, it may take the form of an emotional or
narrative progression, as in the jazz standard album Both Sides Now, whose songs
were chosen and ordered to “trace the arc of a modern romantic relationship” (as
explained in the liner notes).
Musical techniques include motivic relations, continuity between adjacent
songs, and overarching plans.8 A series of motives connect individual songs in
For the Roses. Most audible are the rising sixteenth-note pickups prominent in
both “For the Roses” and “Woman of Heart and Mind” (Ex. 7.1). The adjoining
songs “Barangrill” and “Lesson in Survival” begin with similar syncopated figures
(Ex. 7.2). The opening and closing songs, “Banquet” and “Judgement of the Moon

example 7.1. pickup motives in FOR THE ROSES
a. “For the Roses” b. “Woman of Heart and Mind”
example 7.2. opening motives in FOR THE ROSES

a. “Barangrill” b. “Lesson in Survival”
example 7.3. opening motives in FOR THE ROSES

a. “Banquet”
b. “Judgement of the Moon and Stars”
and Stars,” also share similar beginnings (a falling figure followed by offbeat chords;
Ex. 7.3). Nevertheless, as this album shows, individual connections between songs
do not by themselves necessarily add up to overall tight construction. Adjacent
songs can be connected by continuous musical transitions. This occurs twice on
Court and Spark: “People’s Parties” segues into “The Same Situation” by way of
a transitional piano solo, and “Trouble Child” segues into “Twisted” by way of a
trumpet solo. It also occurs on Hissing, where “The Boho Dance” leads into “Harry’s
House” by way of a Doppler effect in the horns. Even without transitions, continuity
between adjacent songs can be effected by close affinities between the final sonority
of one song and the initial sonority of the next. On Clouds, for instance, the final
chord of the gloomy “Tin Angel” (spelled E-B-E-F-D) and the opening chord of
the upbeat “Chelsea Morning” (E-B-F-D) are identical in pitch (though the guitar
tunings are very different). On Ladies of the Canyon, the song “Willy” ends with the
chord G-B-G in the piano; after the pause, the top two notes are carried over, now

clothed in the anguished piano harmony that begins “The Arrangement” (A-E-B-
D-G; see Ex. 2.2). (Given that “Willy” is in C major, the harmonic move between
songs resembles a deceptive cadential progression.)
As for the musical construction of an overarching plan, one way this can be
done is through a key scheme. Songs can fall into internal groupings (adjacent or
nonadjacent) according to key relations.9 For instance, the final three songs on side
1 of Song to a Seagull are all in G; the first three songs on side 2 are all in D. All the
acoustic piano songs on Ladies of the Canyon are related to the key of C or its rela-
tive minor key, A. (“For Free” and “Willy” are in C; “Blue Boy” is ambiguously
centered between C and G. “The Arrangement” is in A Aeolian/Dorian; “Rainy
Night House” is in A Aeolian/Phrygian for its long introduction, then moves to
D.) In Court and Spark, four tonal centers (E, A, D, C) account for all eleven songs
(see Table 7.1); songs related by tonal center form interlocking subgroups. Rarely,
however, does the tonal structure of an album show a rigorous logical progression
accounting for all songs (this is true for classical song cycles as well).10 Besides
tonal planning, there are other possible means of musical patterning. One such
possibility is a progression made up of genres or musical idioms, such as Peter
Kaminsky finds in Paul Simon’s album Still Crazy after All These Years.11 Another
is the use of explicit musical return, as in Sgt. Pepper, with its reprise of the title
song near the end of the album; or as in the variation-rondo forms used by Frank
Zappa in the 1960s.12
Table 7.1. Tonal Centers in Court and Spark

Song Key Key + Mode
SIDE 1
1. “Court and Spark” E E Dorian/Aeolian/Mixolydian
2. “Help Me” A–D A Mixolydian/Aeolian–D major/Aeolian
3. “Free Man in Paris” A A major/Aeolian
4. “People’s Parties” D D major/Mixolydian
5. “The Same Situation” A A Dorian/minor/major
SIDE 2
6. “Car on a Hill” F–A F Aeolian–A major/Aeolian
7. “Down to You” D–E D major/Dorian–E Mixolydian
8. “Just Like This Train” C C major/Lydian/Mixolydian
9. “Raised on Robbery” C C blues
10. “Trouble Child” C–G C major/Lydian–G Dorian/major
11. “Twisted” D D blues

For analytical clarity, I have listed the poetic and musical techniques sepa-
rately, but in reality they are interdependent. (Recall Bingham’s definition of
cyclic coherence, “achieved through the poetry, the music, or the interaction
between them.”) Mitchell emphasizes this fact in her liner note to Hissing, which
she explicitly identifies as a concept album: “This record is a total work conceived
graphically, musically, lyrically and accidentally—as a whole. The performances
were guided by the given compositional structures and the audibly inspired
beauty of every player. The whole unfolded like a mystery.” In this statement,
Mitchell calls attention to two further factors not to be forgotten when consider-
ing the totality of an album concept: graphic design and the element of chance.
From the beginning of her career Mitchell has maintained control over album
design, usually creating the cover art herself; we can expect central themes or
motifs to be reflected visually in some way. The nod to chance is an acknowledge-
ment that, despite the impossibility of planning every aspect of a recording, some
of its unforeseen, “accidental” features (subconscious, intuitive, or collaborative)
end up reinforcing its coherence fortuitously.
In my view, ten of Mitchell’s records are inarguably concept albums. (Some
listeners may wish to present arguments in favor of others as well.) Of the sixteen
original albums, six are “conceived as a whole”: Song to a Seagull, Blue, and the four
consecutive albums beginning with Hissing (Hissing, Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless
Daughter, and Mingus).13 Of the seven compilations, four are organized around a
concept: Both Sides Now, Travelogue, The Beginning of Survival, and Songs of a Prairie
Girl. I plan to examine the nature of the formal coherence—graphic, musical,
lyrical and accidental—in three different albums.
SONG TO A SEAGULL
In her first album, Mitchell organizes the ten songs according to an explicit poetic
frame. The record’s two sides are grouped thematically under headings taken from
the lyrics of the title song: “Part One: I came to the city,” and “Part Two: Out of the
city and down to the seaside.”14 All of the songs on side 1 have an urban setting.
Most of the songs on side 2 have a seaside setting, while the final song, “Cactus
Tree,” bridges city and seaside in its more expansive geographic scope.15 The strong
thematic break between sides is supported by the tonal shift between the G center
of songs 3–5 and the D center of songs 6–8 (see Table 7.2). Central themes include
heartbreak (especially in “I Had a King,” “Marcie,” “The Pirate of Penance,” and
“Cactus Tree”), people’s relation to their natural surroundings (alienated or nur-
turing), and the struggle between personal ideals of domesticity and freedom. In
regard to the latter, on the one hand, “I Had a King,” “Michael from Mountains,”

Table 7.2. Aspects of Musical Coherence in Song to a Seagull
Song Key Cadence: Harmonic/Textural
a) Harmony b) Melody Motive
PART 1: I came to the city
1. “I Had a King” A sus2 5̂ M/m, pedal, quartal
2. “Michael from Mountains” F triad 1̂
3. “Night in the City” G triad 1̂
4. “Marcie” G sus(2) 5̂
5. “Nathan La Franeer” G triad 3̂ M/m
PART 2: Out of the city and down to the seaside

6. “Sisotowbell Lane” D V13sus/I 5̂
7. “The Dawntreader” D triad 1̂ M/m, pedal, quartal
8. “The Pirate of Penance” D +4 1̂
9. “Song to a Seagull” C open 5 1̂ M/m, pedal, quartal
10. “Cactus Tree” F triad 3̂ Pedal
“Sisotowbell Lane,” and “The Pirate of Penance” paint various pictures of home
life; on the other, all but two songs (“Night in the City,” “Sisotowbell Lane”) the-
matize abandonment, travel, or escape. In support of the polarity between the
domestic and the fantasy quest, there are strong subsidiary motifs based on cloth-
ing (“gingham,” “taffeta,” “satins,” “Persian lace”) and treasure (“silver,” “peri-
dots,” “amber stones”). Again, “Cactus Tree” has a summational role in bringing
together a number of important symbols and motifs from preceding songs, such
as the sailing ship (from songs 4, 7, and 8), the queen (song 1), the mountains
(song 2), the unanswered letter (song 4), and the dreamer (songs 7 and 9).
The album’s cover art elaborates many of the same symbols in graphic form,
especially the ship, the queen, clothing, and the natural world. The iconic lady on
the front is sumptuously attired in paisley, with a diadem of daisies and leaves and
a veil of beads. Her lemon-gold hair streams outward in abundant, unconstrained,
lyrical waves. The bipartite structure of the album is echoed in the dissonance
between the pastoral watercolor portrait on the front—the lady engulfed by a
fantasy bouquet of flowers and birds—and the dystopic photographic portrait on
the back, in which Joni picks her way through a sooty, garbage-encrusted can-
yon in Manhattan, clutching her childlike belongings while huddling beneath a
flimsy rose-tinted umbrella. But rather than contrasting these two visual realms
through static juxtaposition, Mitchell sets up a dynamic interaction between
them. A smaller version of the photographic urban space appears on the front, as
a bauble hovering above the lady’s head, thus suggesting a thought bubble—a

memory internal to the utopian persona and transformed through imagination
into a glossy adornment. But if the cover art is viewed in a progression from front
to back (following the gaze of the lady, the goose, and the peacock), the urban
image becomes intrusive, expanding and crowding out the fantasy images. The
wide-angle lens adds to the effect of bulging dimensionality. The circle shape of
the photograph, decorative on the front, is transformed on the back into the sink-
hole shape of the open garbage can. Another circle, the Gulf sign in the distance
above Joni’s head, subtly (accidentally) alludes to the chasm or gulf between the
urban and pastoral as well as the idea of engulfment implied in the composition,
whereby each spatial realm is poised to swallow the other. Yet a third spatial
area, the transcendent ocean expanse on the right front cover, is drained of color,
rhyming with the lady’s strikingly white face and thus perhaps symbolizing her
“seadreams.” Upon opening the gatefold of the album, one encounters a graphic
reconciliation of all three visual realms. The inside image is a photographic self-
portrait, now pastoral in tone, capturing the wind in Joni’s hair in an echo of the
flowing fantasy tresses. The background of the photo is completely featureless,
however, as if we have entered the third, infinite, oceanic space.
In a similar fashion, the bipartite structure of the song cycle does not merely
express a polar opposition (city/seaside) but involves a dramatic progression.
Songs 2 and 3 (“Michael from Mountains” and “Night in the City”) express
happiness in love and excitement about the colorful urban setting. In song 4
(“Marcie”), the title character is sadly disillusioned with both her absent lover
and her life in New York (rooms are collecting dust, the faucet needs fixing,
colors are fading, the shipyards are wintry cold). Song 5 (“Nathan La Franeer”)
dramatizes an escape from an increasingly toxic environment. Side 2 opens with
two songs (“Sisotowbell Lane,” “The Dawntreader”) expressing contentment and
emotional fulfillment in the new setting. Song 8 (“The Pirate of Penance”), like
song 4, is a tale of heartbreak, translated from New York harbor to a mythical
harbor town. Song 9 (“Song to a Seagull”) embraces the utopian associations of
the seaside, while tinged with regret over human failings and a longing to soar
“out of reach.” The inner eight songs (2 through 9) thus form a double, parallel
emotional arc, from happiness through disillusionment to the wish to escape.
The two outer songs project another kind of symmetry, presenting opposing
poles in the struggle between settling down and cutting loose: song 1 (“I Had
a King”) warns against the pitfalls of commitment and domesticity, while song
10 (“Cactus Tree”) warns against the dangers of restless self-exploration. But the
framing songs also carry a dynamic temporal charge. In relation to the emotional
arc of side 1, the opening song is already leaping ahead to disillusionment and
escape from a toxic environment. At the other end, song 9 is backward-looking,
recapitulating the emotional and geographic journey traveled so far (recall that

the album’s headings are taken from this song). In song 10, however, the lady is
still “in the city,” as if she has yet to make the crucial crossing. Just as in the cover
art, the two symbolic realms interpenetrate in the cyclic narrative, but in this case
by way of a shifting temporal perspective.
The overarching plan in this album is primarily poetic, but there are motivic
connections in the music that strengthen cyclic coherence (see Table 7.2). For
example, if one considers the quality of cadential closure in each of the songs, one
finds a prevalence of inconclusive or weakly conclusive endings. Mitchell creates
this open-endedness both melodically and harmonically. The melodies of songs
1, 4, and 6 end on 5̂, essentially hovering in linear space. In songs 5 and 10 (that
is, at the close of Parts 1 and 2), the melodies end on the weakly conclusive 3̂.
Harmonically, songs 1 and 9 end on open sonorities (“I Had a King” on Asus2,
“Song to a Seagull” on C5). “The Pirate of Penance” ends with a dissonant tritone
in the backing vocal (“I don’t know”). Songs 4 and 6 end with more complex
suspended sonorities (“Marcie” on Gsus(2), “Sisotowbell Lane” on A13sus/D).
The only songs that end with linear closure on 1̂ and a cadential triad are songs
2, 3, and 7—three of the songs expressive of personal fulfillment. Such constant
open-endedness helps sustain a sense of forward progression; it also underlines
the ambivalence and self-questioning associated with the cycle’s lyric personae. A
similar open-endedness is conveyed through a verbal motif first introduced in the
second bridge of “Marcie,” where we learn the reason for her emotional suspen-
sion: her lover’s false words—“wait for me”—ring out, hovering on 5̂ and fading
in a long decay. Song 6 ends with an echo of this phrase: “we wait for you” (also
ending on 5̂). The following song, “The Dawntreader,” has a refrain concluding
with the words “come to me” in an exaggerated sustain. (The song “Cactus Tree,”
in another instance of its culminating function, ties these various open-ended
relational phrases together in the passage stating “She has brought them to her
senses.”)
Another cluster of motivic connections is more subtle (accidental?). The open-
ing song foregrounds a stark juxtaposition of major and minor tonic triads; similar
struggles over modal identity are to be found in songs 5, 7, and 9. The opening
song is texturally constrained by a constant pedal; songs 7, 9, and 10 are also set
in pedal point textures. The opening song features passages of bold quartal har-
mony (especially notable leading into the chorus; see Ex. 2.1); similar passages
are featured in songs 7 and 9 (song 7 has both quartal and quintal progressions).
This set of connections has two important consequences. First, it suggests a pat-
tern of musical germination, springing from the motivic density contained in the
opening song. Second, it creates a subgroup of songs (1, 7, and 9) linked by all
three harmonic/textural characteristics. The symbolic effect of this close motivic
relationship is not obvious, given that the first song is landlocked while the latter

two (“Dawntreader,” “Seagull”) are littoral. One could understand the quartal
harmony as conveying a bardic resonance, ill-fitting in the urban setting and only
coming into its own in the later songs; thus the harmony reflects the character’s
movement through symbolic space. The pedal point texture, at first a symbol of
spiritual constraint, is respaced in Part 2 to suggest wider horizons. Yet the modal
quandary of the opening song carries over into the pastoral realm, suggestive of
many things: the persona’s youthful confusion, the questions still unanswered
(“where are the footprints”), the fragility of her hopes for a better world, perhaps
even the importation of dangerous knowledge into her innocent Eden.
The lyric terrain of this cycle allows the listener to interpret formal relation-
ships in terms of psychic coherence and the formation of identity. Parts 1 and 2 are
defined in relation to decisive moments in a personal trajectory (e.g., “I came to
the city”). Harmonic complications—“my keys won’t fit” (song 1)—correspond
with quandaries over one’s place in the world. The ordering of song sequences into
dynamic temporal spans (projecting defiantly forward or wistfully backward) can
be felt as an attempt to gain a better vantage point on one’s disparate intellectual
and emotional experiences. Nevertheless, just as with individual song structures,
large-scale form can be mined for a sense of ambiguity. Coherence and closure, in
Mitchell’s aesthetic vision, are bound to be compromised and contradictory. Thus
while the album’s final song, “Cactus Tree,” has features that serve a culminating
function, as we have seen, it also has elements that complicate closure, keep-
ing the end of the cycle ambiguous both formally and psychologically. The song
expresses an encompassing perspective which is ironically detached—a personal
stocktaking done in the third person. The implicit speaker recapitulates romantic
interludes with intense nostalgia, while her alter ego, the hollow-hearted lady of
the poem, looks only to the future and her own freedom. The song’s final verse
(“She will love them when she sees them/They will lose her if they follow”) car-
ries a temporal and ethical double edge: is it pronouncing the wry moral of an
old story or New Age words to live by? No doubt one reason Mitchell was drawn
to cyclic frameworks like this was the greater scope they offer for developing her
favored themes of self-education and self-interrogation.
HEJIRA
In both Song to a Seagull and Mingus, the overarching conceptual framework is
explicitly presented as an aspect of the album’s packaging (bipartite headings in
SS, details of collaboration and homage, as well as the interspersed “raps,” in M).
The listener, given the overt framework, is invited to make further connections
among individual songs. On the other hand, in the notes to Hissing, Mitchell simply

tells the listener that the album is conceived as a whole, without revealing any
overarching plan (“It is not my intention to unravel that mystery for anyone”).
Listeners may well have come to the same conclusion without any prodding,
from their own perception of numerous, pervasive connections woven through the
album. The albums Blue, Hejira, and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter are similar to
Hissing, in that their conceptual coherence is implicit rather than explicit.
Hejira is without question Mitchell’s most tightly unified album. Written
in late 1975 and early 1976 and inspired by her experiences on the road during
that time, every song reflects in some way on the speaker’s own feelings of root-
lessness and transition.16 The grand themes of the album are fortune, mortality,
and of course, travel—in particular, flight for the purpose of survival. This is the
connotation conveyed by the album’s title, an Arabic word translated in the pub-
lished songbook as “a journey esp. when undertaken to seek refuge away from a
dangerous or undesirable environment.”17 The poetry is unified by a consistency
of style. As a conduit for a subjective sense of time, Mitchell treats poetic meter
as extremely elastic, allowing for a great deal of variation in line length. In accor-
dance with the album’s pervasive cyclic patterns, form is consistently strophic
(though verses vary in length from six lines in “Amelia” to eighteen in “Blue
Motel Room”). All but two of the songs incorporate refrains (see Table 7.3). The
verbal discourse is freely associative, marked by frequent lateral shifts in type of
utterance. This is evident right away in the opening verse of “Coyote,” which
begins by casually breaking off an affair, in direct address (“No regrets, Coyote/
We just come from such different sets of circumstance”), then suddenly shifts
to a more generalized observation about relationships (“There’s no comprehend-
ing/Just how close to the bone . . . you can get/And still feel so alone”), before
returning just as suddenly to direct address (“You’re not a hit and run driver, no,
no”).18 Even so, every song without exception is spoken in the first person. Thus
we identify closely with Mitchell’s lyric persona as she sings her hymns to the
open road and relates passing encounters along the way.
The rhythms and emotions of solitary travel (wanderlust, melancholy contem-
plation, fatigue) set the underlying tone. Verbs of motion—racing, rolling, driv-
ing, weaving—provide a constant backdrop. Moments of poetic reflection take
place in temporary stops like motels, service stations, and cafés; surroundings are
strewn with props such as road maps, postcards, and “highway hand-me-downs.”
The pervasive leitmotif of the car on the highway shifts by free association into
other shapes (a 747, a limo, a ferryboat) and blurs into an indistinct symbol of the
transitory: “I’m traveling in some vehicle” (“Hejira”). The coordinates of the jour-
ney are never precisely mapped out but flow past with the logic of a dream. Thus
the imprecise location of the opening song (“the middle of nowhere”) gives way
to the “burning desert” of the second song, followed by Beale Street (Memphis),

Table 7.3. Aspects of Musical Coherence in Hejira
Song Key Form Motive Instruments
(+ JM on gtr)*
SIDE 1
1. “Coyote” C 4v., end refrain III JP bass, lead gtr,
(final ref hand drums
altered)
2. “Amelia” F–G 7v., end refrain III–iii; lead gtr, vibes
(final ref wrong-key
altered) ending
3. “Furry Sings A–D 4v., internal III; open MB bass, drums,
the Blues” refrain (final 5th harmonica
verse adds end
refrain)
4. “A Strange D 3½ v., internal open 5th lead gtr, hand
Boy” refrain drums
(final verse
incomplete)
5. “Hejira” B 3v., no refrain III; wrong- JP bass, hand
(partial return) key drums,
ending clarinet
SIDE 2
6. “Song for E 10v., no refrain III MB bass, drums
Sharon”
7. “Black E–G 4v. + instr., end III JP bass, lead gtr
Crow” refrain (noise)
8. “Blue Motel C 2v., internal III; only acoustic bass,
Room” refrain (partial song with acoustic gtr,
return) no intro drums
hook, no
fade-out
9. “Refuge of C 5v., end refrain iii; wrong-key JP bass, drums,
the Roads” (varied ending; horns
interludes, coda
final ref quotes
altered) song 5
* JP = Jaco Pastorius; MB = Max Bennett; gtr = guitar; v = verse; ref = refrain

then New England, Staten Island, Savannah, and the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile,
Mitchell’s ongoing internal monologue calls up personal landmarks from her ear-
lier life in Canada (Baljennie, the Bay of Fundy, Maidstone)—the present land-
scape in counterpoint with the geography of memory. Though the itinerary is
imprecise, Mitchell does create an overarching gesture of wandering and return.
After the single mention of home in the first verse of “Coyote” (“I’ll just be get-
ting home”), all the songs on side 1 are outward bound (moving east). At exactly
halfway through the album (at the end of the fifth song, “Hejira”), the traveler’s
thoughts begin to turn toward home (“A defector from the petty wars/Until love
sucks me back that way”). The homebound direction becomes more palpable
as the songs progress. Thus “Song for Sharon” contains just a peripheral men-
tion (“walking home on the railroad tracks”), but “Black Crow” a more heartfelt
cry (“How’m I ever going to know my home/When I see it again”), and “Blue
Motel Room” returns repeatedly to the homecoming scenario, incorporating it
into the refrain (“When I get back to L.A. town”). The album’s concluding line
(“Westbound and rolling”) signals the last leg of the journey.
The grand theme of travel is supported and fleshed out by a dense network of
recurrent motifs. Most of these are introduced right away in the opening song,
“Coyote.” The first to be noted is the motif of the wild animal. In this case Mitchell
evokes the figure of the coyote to characterize her partner in a passing affair: a
sexually appetitive loner and attractive scoundrel. She overlays her description of
the affair with a memory of the animal in its natural setting:
And a hawk was playing with him

Coyote was jumping straight up and making passes
He had those same eyes—just like yours
Under your dark glasses
In this scenario, Mitchell occupies the position parallel to the hawk who evades
the coyote’s predatory attentions. In the remainder of the album, the animals that
appear serve to characterize Mitchell herself, as mediums for her restlessness: the
ragged black crow scavenging for trinkets; the “white-assed deer” running from
danger (“Refuge”). This motif is carried over to the cover art, where Joni is draped
in fur: a protection against the wintry landscape but also an expression of affinity
with the animal spirits. On the album’s inner fold and record sleeve, Joni spreads
her arms to stretch the black stole like a set of ersatz wings.19
Mitchell portrays her encounter with Coyote in part as a clash of strong wills:
And the next thing I know

That Coyote’s at my door
He pins me in a corner and he won’t take “No!”

This motif carries over into the other relationships featured throughout the
album. For instance, “A Strange Boy” hinges on the quarreling dynamic between
Mitchell and her immature skateboarder. “Blue Motel Room” affectionately calls
for a truce in an ongoing battle of egos:
You and me are like America and Russia
We’re always keeping score
We’re always balancing the power
And that can get to be a cold cold war
Such skirmishes have left their mark; the damage inflicted by life and relation-
ships is another pervasive motif. At times the idea is expressed in terms of vio-
lent accidents—a hit and run (“Coyote”), an airplane crash (“Amelia”), a suicide
(“Sharon”). At other times, the damage is more insidious, figured as poison, fever,
or simply a “haggard face in the bathroom light” (“Black Crow”). The flight reac-
tion provoked by these toxic conditions provides the psychological motivation at
the root of the entire album. In “Coyote” the flight reaction is represented as a
matter of self-preservation: “Either he’s going to have to stand and fight/Or take
off out of here.” In “Hejira” Mitchell casts it in a more ironic light, as a consci-
entious objection perhaps but also as a failing on her part: “I’m sitting in some
café/A defector from the petty wars/That shell shock love away.” In “Coyote,”
furthermore, Mitchell imagines that her hotel is filled with people looking for a
similar retreat from their own personal traumas:
And peeking through keyholes in numbered doors
Where the players lick their wounds
And take their temporary lovers
And their pills and powders to get them through this passion play
The image of licked wounds reinforces the analogy to animal behavior. But these
like-minded sufferers don’t run in packs; each is cooped up in his or her own cell.
In effect, Mitchell gives the mystique of solitude and self-reliance precedence
over fellow-feeling. In the final song (“Refuge”), she wears her loner attitude as
a badge of pride: “And it made most people nervous/They just didn’t want to
know/What I was seeing in the refuge of the roads.”
However, Mitchell does not invariably portray travel as a defensive reaction—
a running away from troublesome aspects of life. Some of the travel she chronicles
in Hejira was undertaken professionally, for the purpose of concert tours, inviting
a more positive psychological construction, as in “Black Crow”: “In search of love
and music/My whole life has been.” Here, the roadway metaphor extends to cover
a lifelong search for musical self-fulfilment. Given that for a singer-songwriter
the pursuit of music virtually coincides with the realization of one’s personal and

professional identity, we can expect the motif of musical performance to encom-
pass a complex field of associations. In “Amelia,” Mitchell rhymes the strings of
her guitar (visually and conceptually) with a visionary longing to be swallowed by
the sky. In “Song for Sharon,” on the other hand, the reference to the mandolin is
wholly mundane—something she needs for work. Her shopping trip is nothing
but a pretext for a sequence of meditations on the cultural myth of everlasting
love, triggered by the sight of a wedding dress display. The whole poem is struc-
tured by the notion of the side trip, with Mitchell veering off to pursue compul-
sions or momentary distractions, just as her thoughts veer off on secondary paths.
Meanwhile, the opening image of the musical instrument sets off a subliminal
motivic thread of phonetic association (“mandolin . . . mannequin . . . Manhattan
. . . malfunction . . . Maidstone”) connecting the self-styled, urbane yearnings of
the present with those of the virginal past. Eventually, Mitchell’s thoughts come
back around to music, as she compares her own life accomplishments and sacri-
fices to those of her friend, singing for her family at home. In “Coyote,” a mention
of a portable tape recorder serves to underline the differences in lifestyle between
the two principal characters: “You’ll be brushing out a brood mare’s tail/While
the sun is ascending/And I’ll just be getting home with my reel to reel.” The reel-
to-reel recorder is a symbol of her trade; it is also a bulky machine, part of the
baggage that sometimes gets in the way of human relationships. Its spools move
in circles, in parallel with the automobile tires and other pervasive symbols of cir-
cularity. Though at a mechanical remove from the emotional substance animating
her music (and causing her to “reel”), the recorder preserves a physical trace of
those experiences, much like the tracks Mitchell lays down in her journey along
the freeway. Finally, in “Furry Sings the Blues,” the musical theme is central, as
Mitchell takes another side trip to pay her respects to an elderly blues singer. In
response to strong impressions of darktown Memphis’s glory days, Mitchell seeks
a spiritual connection to that milieu by which she can lay claim to its musical
legacy. But the connection fails (“He points a bony finger at you and says,/“I don’t
like you”) in the face of disparities of wealth and history.
In this poem the musical motif is woven together with the larger theme of
mutable fortune. The landmarks of Beale Street, redolent of a glamorous past,
are being torn down. Old Furry (“Propped up in his bed/With his dentures and
his leg removed”) has also fallen into ruin due to “hard luck/And time and other
thieves.” In contrast, Mitchell’s material success is broadcast by her ostentatious
limousine out on the street as well as other symbols of wealth (like the jewelry
alluded to in “Strange Boy,” “Sharon,” and “Black Crow”). But if success is mea-
sured in other ways, Mitchell repeatedly admits to her own shortcomings (“I tried
to run away” [“Coyote”], “Maybe I’ve never really loved” [“Amelia”], “He asked
me to be patient/Well I failed” [“Strange Boy”]). The culminating instance of this

motif reverts to an ancient metaphor: “Like a wheel of fortune/I heard my fate
turn, turn, turn” (“Refuge”). In “Amelia,” Mitchell associates the motif of failure
(“false alarms”) with a meditation on mortality (in Amelia/Icarus’s fall to earth).
Aging and mortality figure strongly in the portrait of Furry; in the “antique,”
“blue-haired” setting of “Strange Boy”; and the story in “Sharon” of the woman
who drowns herself in a well. In the third verse of “Hejira,” Mitchell makes ref-
erence to her own age, in the immediate context of thoughts about death, fame,
and vanity:
Well I looked at the granite markers

Those tributes to finality—to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality
In this passage she is depressed and self-deprecating as she takes stock of her
songwriting achievement. Yet in the numerous references to her earlier record-
ings scattered throughout the cycle, one senses a more confident stocktaking.
The most overt is the reference to the Cactus Tree Motel in “Amelia,” alluding
to her early paean to the travel impulse (in SS). There is a clear reminiscence of
Blue in “Blue Motel Room,” and of Clouds in “Amelia” (“I’ve spent my whole life
in clouds”). More covertly, spread over two adjacent songs, she makes reference
to “paradise” (“Amelia”) and “parking lots” (“Furry”), thus recalling the opening
line of her famous song “Big Yellow Taxi.”
The passage of time figures as a “wrecker” (“Furry”), as we have seen, and as
the fabric of memory. Mitchell also highlights cyclical, circadian rhythms: sunrise
and moonrise, sleeping and waking, “the pull of moon on tides” (“Strange Boy”),
the ebb and flow of love (“first you get the kisses/And then you get the tears”
[“Sharon”]). In line with the ongoing, episodic rhythm of travel, she includes
multiple symbols of seriality: “stations in some relay,” “numbered doors” in
motels (“Coyote”), “sets of waves” (“Strange Boy”), votive candles (“Hejira”), the
sequential legs of a long journey (“I took a ferry to the highway/Then I drove to
a pontoon plane/I took a plane to a taxi/And a taxi to a train” [“Black Crow”]).
Fickle shifts in weather and the inevitable change of seasons play out both exter-
nally and internally. Thus in “Coyote” Mitchell speaks of her emotional dualities
in terms of climatic extremes: “wrestle . . . with this flame/You put here in this
Eskimo.” In later passages she evokes “parched ribs of sand” (“Strange Boy”), “icy
altitudes” (“Amelia”), and “winter chimneys” (“Hejira”). In the last-mentioned
song, the image of snow gathering “like bolts of lace” conjures up another recur-
rent motif: that of the bride in her finery (a central icon in “Sharon”).20 The idea
of the winter landscape emerges to form the flat black-and-white expanse behind
Joni on the cover photo; the figure of the bride appears in the distance, surreally

exposed in the middle of a frozen lake, her demure pose offset by the curves of a
male figure skater.
I have already mentioned the recurring pattern of a clash of wills; in “Coyote”
Mitchell also admits to an ongoing internal struggle with her own ego. Therefore,
a special symbolic meaning accrues to those moments where the ego and its
burdens seem to drop away. This trope is first introduced in “Amelia,” where
Mitchell’s attention is repeatedly drawn heavenward, and her visions temporarily
dissolve egocentric gravity. In “Hejira,” we catch a glimpse of this point of view:
“We’re only particles of change, I know, I know/Orbiting around the sun.” And
the cycle concludes with such an image, in its strongest formulation yet. Struck
by a photograph on a wall calendar of earth as seen from space, Mitchell empha-
sizes the feat of her own disappearance:
And you couldn’t see a city

On that marbled bowling ball
Or a forest or a highway
Or me here least of all
Note that this illusion or revelation is made possible through an unusual nesting
of different perspectives, as the traveler in a roadside stop is lifted out of her visual
orbit courtesy of the view from a lunar module. The same relay of visual perspec-
tives is at work in the concluding image of “Hejira”—the winter moon, reflected
in a glass-clad office building, as seen through a hotel window. It is captured as
well in the self-portrait collage on the album’s cover, where the artist’s torso dis-
solves and recedes into irrational space, revealing a road stretching to the vanish-
ing point and a horizon piled with clouds.
Turning from poetry to music, we also find a remarkable consistency of style.
Mitchell has described how she devised a distinct guitar sound for this album:
On Hejira I doubled the guitar and I doubled it in a way that Wayne

Shorter and Miles double up on Nefertiti. It’s like silkscreening—it’s not
tight doubling. I’m playing the part twice but there’s some variations on
it so they’re not perfectly tight—they’re shadowing each other in some
places.21
This sonic effect—a heterophonic, slightly out-of-phase texture—suggests a sense

of echoing space and a haunting, reflective state of mind. Mitchell uses this spe-
cial sound on her rhythm guitar in combination with bass, lead guitar, and drums
to create a basic instrumental palette. Yet she crafts variety within this palette
by working with two different drummers and two different bass players, trying
out different combinations, and bringing in additional featured instruments (for

these and other musical aspects, see Table 7.3). Thus in the end, each song has
its own unique instrumentation. The lead guitar, when it appears (particularly
in “Amelia,” “Strange Boy,” and “Black Crow”), extemporizes in such a way as
to emphasize space, texture, and the ambient sound environment. Four songs
feature the highly unique, unconventional style of bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius.
(This is the first album of four on which Mitchell works with Pastorius.) His bass
line refuses to stay grounded in the low register or settle for a supporting role;
instead it becomes a floating, questing, melodic bass. Its melodic quality is espe-
cially sustained in the central, title song, which comes across as a duet between
voice and bass guitar. As for rhythmic character, every song except “Blue Motel
Room” begins with an instrumental introduction based on a distinct repeating
hook with a strong rhythmic profile (Ex. 7.4). These hooks generally serve to
initiate propulsive, restless textures (the most propulsive occurring in songs 1, 5,
6, 7, and 9—thus concentrated in the second half). Correspondingly, every song
except “Blue Motel Room” ends with a fade-out rather than a cessation of energy.
Over these rolling, agitated progressions, Mitchell projects her muted, hovering,
elastic melodic spans.
example 7.4. rhythmic hooks in selected intros from HEJIRA

a. “Coyote”
b. “Hejira”
c. “Black Crow”

Songs 3 and 4 are linked by similar open 5th motives in their intros (Ex. 7.5);
they are also linked tonally (the concluding D harmony of song 3 matches the
initial harmony of song 4). Songs 2, 5, and 9 all end by veering off into the
wrong key. (“Amelia” is mainly in G, but ends in F; “Hejira” is in B, but stalls
on C minor at the fade-out; “Refuge” is in C, with unstable interludes, even-
tually settling on A at the end.) A much more pervasive motive, occurring in
all but two songs, centers on the special harmonic color of III imported into a
major tonic. To take just two examples: the intro to “Coyote” establishes a clear
C major, but the opening of the verse is accented by a momentary move to E.
(The same imported chord also returns at the midpoint of each verse and just
before the refrain). In “Hejira,” the key of B major is unchallenged during the
verse, while the intro and interludes are haunted by D major. “Amelia” incorpo-
rates a special treatment of this motive. The verse begins with a direct emblem-
atic move from I to III, in this case, G to B (“I spotted six jet planes”). But
three bars later (“vapor trails”), the harmony turns to B minor (iii), and for the
remainder of the verse it is the B minor color that prevails (with an emphatic
appearance on “the strings of my guitar”). In this way, the song sets up a dialec-
tic between the imported major chord on III and the intrinsic minor chord
on iii (as if commenting on the trickiness of the path—leading to “paradise,”
or “harm”?). No other song features this particular bifocal harmonic element;
but the final song, “Refuge,” recalls it by emphasizing the iii chord (E minor)
throughout. E minor is the initial sonority of the intro, the second sonority of
the verse (“a friend of spirit”), and the chord that ushers in the refrain (“I left
him then”). In contrast to almost every other song, “Refuge” forgoes the III
sonority, and the song’s harmonic uniqueness supports its placement as closing
song in the cycle.
The III motive has additional significance in the overall tonal plan: the
C–E progression salient in song 1 is played out structurally in the sequence of
example 7.5. open 5th motives in HEJIRA

a. “Furry Sings the Blues,” intro
b. “A Strange Boy,” intro

key centers between songs 1 (C), 6 (E), 7 (E), 8, (C), and 9 (C). This sequence
suggests a kind of arch form, which is further heightened by the harsh modula-
tion in song 7 (“Black Crow”) from E Dorian to G Dorian—a distorted ver-
sion of the III motive. In its arrival on G by such a disjunct move, “Black
Crow” represents the apogee of the traveler’s orbit away from the home key of C.
Meanwhile, the preceding song (“Sharon”)—in its extended length, its lack of
refrain, and its inconclusive final verse—represents the climax of the open-ended
cyclic procedures on the album. Where all other songs demarcate their final verses
somehow (by alteration, truncation, or partial return to the opening), “Sharon”
neglects to differentiate its tenth verse as providing any formal closure. After
these two songs, “Blue Motel Room,” back in C, with a relaxed, intimate jazz
combo instrumentation, stands out as extraordinarily closed and self-contained:
the only song without a rhythmic hook, and the only song with a final cadence
rather than a fade-out. “Refuge” reaffirms the home key (though veering off at the
end, as noted). In a final (fortuitous?) gesture of cyclic return, as the song’s coda
winds down, the careful listener can hear Pastorius’s melodic bass slyly quoting
the opening phrase of the title song.
DON JUAN’S RECKLESS DAUGHTER

In certain ways the album that followed Hejira presents more overt musical
gestures of large-scale coherence than its predecessor. Its key structure is more
unified, with side 1 opening in C, side 3 closing in C, and sides 2 and 4 based in
C throughout (see Table 7.4).22 The presentation and grouping of songs implies
a sequence of musical “movements” at a level of organization higher than the
individual song. Thus the opening song of side 1 is prefaced by a substantial
Overture (almost 3 minutes long) whose initiatory function exceeds its imme-
diate context. Song 4 (“Paprika Plains”) with its interpolated orchestral passage
expands to fill an entire side of the album, thus comprising a distinct move-
ment in itself. The three songs on side 3 are recorded to play without breaks
while the first two of these are linked by transitional material. And the final
song of side 4 presents conscious echoes of the preceding song while using
more intimate performing forces, thus embodying a strong coda function at the
album’s close.
Connecting motives are also more audible. The primary melodic motive is
a three-note figure (rising third, rising second) highlighted in the instrumental
refrains of songs 1, 9, and 10. In each of these cases, the motive moves from
tonic to subdominant (C-E-F; Ex. 7.6a-c). Songs 1 and 9 emphasize the open-
endedness of this movement by prolonging F at songs’ end without returning

Table 7.4. Aspects of Musical Coherence in Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
214 Song Key Closure Motive Idiom Instruments
SIDE 1
Overture . . .C segue improvisation gtr, bass
1. “Cotton Avenue” C polymodal ends on F; horn coda C-E-F R&B gtr, bass, drums
(ends on C7) [+ horns]
2. “Talk to Me” B–D (weakly centric) ends on Am JM idiolect (strumming) gtr, bass
3. “Jericho” D polymodal ends on Bm fusion gtr, bass, drums,
bongos, sax
SIDE 2
4. “Paprika Plains” CM CM cadence G-B-C; Csus2 ballad→improv. pno, bass, drums,
→fusion sax, orchestra
SIDE 3
5. “Otis and Marlena” EM–BM ends on F; segue C-E-F JM idiolect (figuration) gtr, electric gtr,
drums, pno
6. “The Tenth World” . . .B. . . rhythmic cadence; attacca Afro-Caribbean percussion
7. “Dreamland” C Aeol [E in drums] rhy. cadence [E] F-E-B-C Afro-Caribbean percussion
SIDE 4
8. “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” C Mixolydian C cadence JM idiolect (style of Hejira) gtr, bass, percussion
9. “Off Night Backstreet” C polymodal ends on F C-E-F blues gtr, bass, drums,
strings
10. “The Silky Veils of Ardor” C polymodal CM cadence C-E-F; Csus2 folk ballad gtr
to the tonic, while song 10 provides firm tonic closure. The same motive occurs
less obviously in transposed form at the very opening of the piano intro to song
4 (without recurring in the body of the song; Ex. 7.6d). In song 5 it is promoted
to the vocal melody, at the pivotal moment of the refrain (Ex. 7.6e). The open-
ing phrase of song 7, meanwhile, can be heard to expand on the contour of the
primary motive in its inverted form: F-E-B-[E-D]-C (the bracketed segment
is variable in pitch from one verse to another). In a secondary motivic connection,
the referential, obsessively returning chord of song 4 (Csus2 or C,D,G) returns at
the same pitch level as the upper portion of the cadential chord of song 10: C(9)
or C,E,G,C,D,G. Consequently, side 2 and side 4 close on related chord structures
derived from Csus2: side 2 with a greatly expanded orchestral sonority on C6/9,
side 4 with a simple guitar strum on C(9).
Side 3 of the album, already linked by continuous music, is further unified
by internal motivic connections (see Table 7.5). Most overtly, each song features
vocal tags with the words “Dream on,” in acknowledgment of the special sense
of a dreamlike excursion sustained in this section. The tags are closely related
in pitch. As song 5 comes to a close, the melody dissolves into a spacy tangle of
brief vocal curls (at the beginning of track 6 on the CD); blended into the tangle
are statements of the tag on F-E and G-F. In the middle of song 6 (at 2:55),
Mitchell superimposes the tag over the Spanish-language backup vocals, at the
same pitch level, now fused into one double statement: F-E-G-F (“Dream on,
dream on”). In song 7, the tag becomes a triple statement on G-F, present in
backing vocals as rhythmic punctuation at the midpoint and end of each verse.
What began as an amorphous musical idea has now been woven throughout the
structure of the song. The salient pitches of F and E are further highlighted in
Table 7.5. Internal Coherence on Side 3 of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter

Song Motivic Connections: a. b. c.
SIDE 3
5. “Otis and “Dream on” (coda): B-E (intro) E-F (intro, guitar);
Marlena” collage of F-E (coda,
fragments—F-E, piano)
G-F, etc.
6. “The Tenth “Dream on” (descant): F-E-G-F (descant)
World” F-E-G-F
7. “Dreamland” “Dream on” (refrain): B-E (drum) F-E-B-[. . .]-C
G-F (3x) (melody)

example 7.6. the primary motive in DON JUAN’S RECKLESS
DAUGHTER
a. “Cotton Avenue,” intro
b. “Off Night Backstreet,” intro
c. “Silky Veils of Ardor,” intro
d. “Paprika Plains,” intro
e. “Otis and Marlena,” refrain
While Mus - lims stick up Wash - ing - ton

the guitar figuration at the opening of song 5 (Ex. 7.7), the sustained piano ped-
als in the transition between songs 5 and 6, and the opening melodic gesture of
song 7. Finally, the dominant-to-tonic hook that opens side 3 and establishes the
key of E for song 5 is paralleled by a similar drum figure undergirding song 7.
The music on side 3 is thus not only continuous but tightly interconnected.
And yet these features of musical coherence are supported by no obvious uni-
fying poetic rationale. In contrast to the unity of perspective, tone, and poetic
style found on Hejira, Don Juan comes across as multifarious and sprawling. Songs
of wildly contrasting tone cohabit uncomfortably with one another. “Talk to Me,”
for instance, is a snapshot of Mitchell in breathless, babbling one-sided conversa-
tion with an intriguing silent type. She lets her hair down with a realistic por-
trayal of awkward, spur-of-the-moment, casually structured language. However,
the persona in the song immediately following, “Jericho,” is carefully poised
and collected, hair back in place, every personal motive scrutinized and every
phrase elegantly turned. The song after this, “Paprika Plains,” though grounded
at first in precise scenic description, gradually floats off into mythic imagery and
dreamily expanded horizons, while the following song, “Otis and Marlena,” aban-
dons the first person entirely in exchange for distanced satiric commentary. The
excursion into Spanish dialect in “The Tenth World” (with guest artist Manolo
Badrena taking lead vocals) shows how open Mitchell is in this album to relaxing
the effect of a consistent poetic/musical persona. A number of songs conjure up
the allusive presence of exterior voices. Thus in the third verse of “Talk to Me,”
Mitchell cribs from Shakespeare (as she freely confesses: “I stole that!/From Willy
the Shake!”), just as Jaco quotes the opening of Stravinsky’s ballet Rite of Spring
in the song’s introduction. In the title song, Mitchell incorporates snatches of the
American national anthem (as commentary in the backup vocals) as well as over-
laying her own singing voice in the first verse with that of a male vocalist to form
a composite, double-gendered utterance (representing the numinous speech of a
“split-tongued spirit”).23 The lyrics for the final song on the album, “The Silky
example 7.7. “otis and marlena,” intro

Veils of Ardor,” present a quodlibet of anonymous preexistent texts, rework-
ing and patching together excerpts from three well-known traditional ballads:
“Wayfaring Stranger” (verse 1), “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies” (verses 2,
3 and 4), and “The Water Is Wide” (verse 4).24
The music too is more wide ranging in sound and idiom than Hejira (see
Table 7.4). Instrumentation runs the gamut from solo guitar (song 10) to full
orchestra (song 4), though these extremes stand out as exceptional. Songs 6 and
7 resort to Latin percussion ensembles. More commonly, Mitchell works with
varied subsets of a fusion combo (guitar, bass, drums, sax), with the addition of
piano on songs 4 and 5. The disparate musical dialects include, on the one hand,
strong evocations of R&B (song 1), blues rock (song 9), and folk ballad (song 10),
and on the other, substyles unique to Mitchell’s own artistic development rather
than referring to any conventional genre. Song 2, for instance, uses an upbeat,
rhythmically accented strumming technique reminiscent of other talkative songs
such as “Conversation” (LC), “Help Me” (C&S), and “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow”
(HSL). Song 5 employs the motoric, elaborate, registrally stratified figuration that
distinguished Mitchell’s guitar style since her debut album while introducing
a newly heightened, percussive attack. Song 8, meanwhile, is an unmistakable
return to the traveling sound prevalent on the previous album.
In tension with this persistent disparity of style and tone, a few important
themes provide coherent strands of thought. One such theme is the dual nature of
human instincts. Dualism is expressed in various registers. It is spatialized in the
thematic contrast between open country and man-made enclosures—a contrast
underlying the reverie of “Paprika Plains” (“It’s stifling in here . . ./I’ve got to
get some air”), the psychological oppositions of “Don Juan” (“I come from open
prairie” in verse 2 set against “Behind my bolt locked door” in verse 4), and the
central metaphor of “Jericho”: the heart as a constricted, walled city. It is racial-
ized (“Tar baby and the Great White Wonder”) and climatized (“On a plane fly-
ing back to winter/In shoes full of tropic sand”) in the vivid juxtaposed images
of “Dreamland.” Most pervasively, it is cast as a defining polarity of character
motivation: expressed in terms of the wild and the gentle (“Jericho”), the reck-
less and the coward (“Talk to Me,” “Don Juan”), pleasure and pain (“Off Night
Backstreet”), and the spirit and the flesh. The latter dichotomy is played out
structurally in the tension between the album’s Dionysian songs, like “Cotton
Avenue,” “Talk to Me,” and “Tenth World,” and the visionary impulse evident
in “Paprika Plains,” “Don Juan,” and “Silky Veils.” It is also distilled into an
extended meditation in the album’s title song.
Here, the dual poles of spirit and flesh are introduced in verse 1 in a schema
of counterbalanced but interlaced images. In keeping with the shamanistic teach-
ings popularized by Carlos Castaneda’s books at the time (in which “Don Juan”

is the medicine man and master of Yaqui spiritual lore),25 dualism is evoked in
the form of animal spirits, which Mitchell superimposes upon artifacts of modern
industrial society:
And [the split tongued spirit] says:

“Snakes along the railroad tracks”
He says, “Eagles in jet trails . . .
Coils around the feathers and talons on scales . . .
Gravel under the belly plates . . .”
He says, “Wind in the wings . . .”
He says, “Big bird dragging its tail in the dust . . .
Snake kite flying on a string”
In this schema, railway and airplane appear in a double exposure with spirits of
earth and sky. The spirits are represented in dynamic terms: racing across the
landscape, locked in struggle with each other, and venturing headlong into for-
eign elements. As the song progresses, the imagery hews resolutely to the same
emblematic animals while continuing their motile interplay, first couching it
internally (verse 4: “The eagle and the serpent are at war in me/The serpent fight-
ing for blind desire/The eagle for clarity”), then projecting it out into the physical
environment of the protagonists (verse 5: “There are rivets up here in this eagle/
There are box cars down there on your snake”). In the final verse, the plane in
which Mitchell is traveling catches up with the train carrying her lover; she looks
down on the landscape as their paths cross. With this image the symbolic thread
is resolved in a synthesis that is simultaneously erotic, Jungian, and familial in
connotation:
I touched you on the central plains
It was plane to train my twin
It was just plane shadow to train shadow
But to me it was skin to skin
[. . .]
Man to woman
Scales to feathers
You and I
In another thematic thread, Mitchell spins out variations on a sense of place.

The opening song introduces this theme in its chorus: “If you’ve got a place like
that to go/You just have to go there/If you’ve got no place special/Then you just
go no place special.” But over the course of the album, spatial settings split into
multiple points of view and switch from one mode of representation to another.
“Cotton Avenue” paints a shiny picture of contemporary urban night culture.

“Jericho” alludes to the ancient biblical city in a poetic figure of speech. The mys-
tical geography of “Paprika Plains” is set against the detailed satirical description
of a Miami resort in “Otis and Marlena” (which also includes passing references to
Washington, D.C., and Iran [“Muslims”]), followed by the sonic tourism of “The
Tenth World” and “Dreamland.” These disparate points of reference—past and
present, real and imaginary—do not connect in a straightforward itinerary as they
do in Hejira. Even so, though the songs were written separately, Mitchell found
that they came together fortuitously to suggest an overall design in the form of
a symbolic journey.
The fact is, even though they were written from other years, miraculously
they made this trip. It starts off rurally, city lights are in the distance and
you’re anticipating going to the dance and how wonderful it’s going to
be—there’s a storm brewing. By the time you get down to the dancehall,
you get drunk, you come on to somebody, there’s no real outcome. Then
there’s kind of a pledge in the song “Jericho” as to what you will do, what
love is—it’s a pretty realistic thing, it’s not cynical, I don’t think. Then
“Paprika Plains”—the rain’s hit now, the storm comes in. You go to the
washroom and the girls are powdering, and that strange smell that women’s
restrooms have, a combination of perfume, sanitation equipment and barf!
And then it gets nostalgic and it goes back to childhood, and that’s the flat-
land and sky-orientation. And then it returns back to the dancehall. Then
the trip is taken to Miami, and from Miami, which is the point of departure
into the Third World, you jump off into the Third World countries with
the drum piece and the jungle sounds—a purely Latin thing. You get on
a plane in “Dreamland” and you head back to New York. The last side of
the album could be anywhere, geographically. But up to there it’s a journey
through a dream world and it’s a journey through a real world.26
To accommodate the disparate perspectives of individual songs, Mitchell con-

ceives this narrative progression in thoroughly flexible terms, combining move-
ment through time, space, emotions, and imagination. I would add that the sense
of an episodic journey is enriched by one’s encounters with different natives along
the way—for instance, the street hustlers in “Cotton Avenue,” the aboriginal
Canadians in “Paprika Plains,” and the Caribbean islanders in “Dreamland.”
The loose narrative progression Mitchell envisions here is also supported in
subtle ways by symbolic patterning in the instrumentation. Such an idea—instru-
mental sequence as a form of, or in service of, narrative—first figures strongly on
side 2 of the album, within the large sectional form of “Paprika Plains.” This
song departs from the prevailing sound of the fusion combo by introducing piano

for the first time. At first (from the introduction through verse 1) the solo piano
resonates with the lyrical voice to create a special sense of intimacy and intro-
version. Then, cued by the modal and temporal transition at the end of verse 1
(“I’m floating off in time”), the second verse “goes back to childhood,” and this
retrogression is registered in sound by the addition of a warm string descant.
The transition at the end of verse 2 (“I’m floating into dreams”) signals a deeper
move into fantasy. At this point—the inception of her dream—Mitchell brings
in an entire orchestra (made up of strings, winds, harp, and some percussion).
Verse 2 had used the piano and strings in one passage to mimic a child’s Indian
drum (“I’d beat the drum like war”), and when the orchestra enters (“I dream
Paprika Plains”), it does so with two explosive chords, reinforced with a gong, as
if channeling the force of a more cosmic drumstroke. After the far-flung orchestral
excursion, the entry of verse 3 marks a return to reality and the present tense.
The succession of accompanying instruments as the verse progresses is precisely
calibrated to achieve a smooth modulation between mental states. The first half
of the verse is warmed by strings, prolonging the afterglow of the dream state. At
the very moment the speaker reenters the dance hall (“coming back for more”), sax
and bass subtly make their entrance. A few lines later the drum sneaks in, and we
have gradually emerged into the sonic world of the present locale, so that at the
verse’s conclusion, the full band can launch into an extended jam. The coda thus
effects a restoration of the fusion sound of side 1 as well as a symbolic celebration
of being in the moment.
This song introduces several timbral motifs that are carried through in the
remainder of the album. The special use of the piano as opening a threshold
to dream states recurs in side 3, where the piano appears during the transition
between songs 5 and 6, interwoven with siren voices crooning “Dream on” (this is
the point Mitchell describes as “jumping off” from Miami into the Third World).
The special use of percussive piano, gong, and tympani (in the interlude) fore-
shadows the creation of an exotic sound world made up entirely of percussion
instruments in songs 6 and 7. Significant echoes of the intense timbral journey
undertaken during sides 2 and 3 appear on the album’s concluding side. For
instance, the use of ankle bells and shaker in “Don Juan” is a glance back at the
percussion soundscape of the previous songs. The addition of a bluesy string sec-
tion in “Off Night Backstreet” recalls the orchestral commentary in “Paprika
Plains.” Such retrospective instrumental touches contribute to the preparation
for large-scale formal closure found on side 4—the sense that these songs concern
the final stages of a journey. (Briefly: the homeward travel in “Don Juan” [“No
matter which route home we take”], the relationship postmortem of “Backstreet”
[“these sentimental journeys/Late at night”], and the metaphors of death and the
promised land in “Silky Veils.”)

A third structuring theme is the evocation of dream states. Again, Castaneda’s
vision of a spirit world hovering just beneath the surface of reality is pertinent
here. References to dreams do not appear until song 4, but from then on they are
ubiquitous. In general, Mitchell uses the dream experience to represent a kind of
integrated, deep knowledge: reconnection with childhood and “mother earth” in
“Paprika Plains,” restorative transoceanic encounters in “Dreamland,” clairvoy-
ant perception of the spirit world in “Don Juan.” Yet the moral implications
of that knowledge are often ambivalent, exposing uncomfortable truths about
personal hypocrisy and fallibility as well as more encompassing histories of racial
oppression. In “Otis and Marlena,” the symbolic structure is ironically inverted:
everyday reality in the upscale beachside hotel is surreal and grotesque (“It’s all a
dream/She has awake”) without leading to any authentic self-knowledge. Mitchell
chooses to close the album, in fact, on a precisely ambivalent note—joining two
statements of nearly identical wording but opposite moral intent. The first state-
ment is pessimistic and stoic (“It’s just in dreams we fly”), summing up a verse
about impotent yearning (“I have no wings”) and denying the power of dreams to
impinge on reality. But her immediate repetition of this line (“In my dreams we
fly!”) is sung so as to effect a strong reversal, infusing the words with aspiration,
a concentrated beauty of tone, and a sense of effortless release.
As mentioned earlier, Mitchell conceived the overall design of this album in
terms of a double journey, through real space and imaginative space. The latter is
manifest as a recurring gestural pattern of symbolic expansion and return linking
the various allusions to dreaming. “Paprika Plains” moves by stages deeper into
the imagination, first floating off into nostalgia (and the “wide eyed” openness of
childhood), then launching into a spectacular dream sequence. Printed in paren-
theses on the lyric sheet—but not sung—it reaches to seventy-two lines of poetry,
interpolated between the second and third verses and corresponding to the long
orchestral interlude.27 The poetic diction is extremely high flown, leaving real-
ism far behind in a tone of oracular pronouncement in which individual images
acquire an ominous weight. Spatial dimensions behave with extreme elasticity,
evoking “turquoise skies,” then a bomb-burst at the vanishing point of the hori-
zon, then zooming out to the dark vacuums of space. Though unspoken, such
images of imaginative exploration are adumbrated in the metaphorical expansion
of sonic resources as the solo piano (improvisatory throughout this passage) is
enveloped in an orchestral soundscape.28 Finally, as we have seen, the concluding
verse of the song shrinks back to the present moment and real space. Subsequent
iterations of this tidal pattern occur over the course of side 3 (jumping off from
southern Florida across sonic and linguistic borders, while abandoning realis-
tic description for rhapsodic musical utterance before returning to the familiar
north), and, on a smaller scale, within the song “Don Juan” itself, where the

prairie again evokes a visionary horizon (“the vast and subtle plains of mystery”).
This recurrent spatial pattern spanning the song cycle is shadowed by a second-
ary, circadian progression of night into day. Thus song 1 takes place at sunset in
anticipation of night; songs 2 and 4 are nocturnal; song 5 begins at dawn, moving
into full sun for the bulk of side 3; songs 8 and 9 are mainly nocturnal; and song
10 implies a new “daybreak.”
In sum, clues to overall formal patterning in Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter are
multifarious and frequently contradictory; it will be useful to attempt to syn-
thesize the foregoing information. Taking a synoptic view, one’s perception of
large-scale coherence shifts over the course of the album; each of its four sides
offers a unique balance of coherence and disparity. Side 1 is consistent in sound
but disparate in tone and musical material; it is tonally open-ended in relation
to the home key of C. Side 2 (a single song) is tonally and formally closed but
episodic and exploratory in its multisectional form. Side 3 has the tightest musi-
cal construction but is tonally open in relation to the home key. Side 4 is once
again disparate in tone and idiom yet tonally and motivically unified, and tonally
closed. In terms of placement within an overall progression (taking into account
previously discussed elements of narrative, instrumentation, symbolic patterning,
and tonality), side 1 is initiatory, establishing a sense of familiarity in music and
conversational tone; side 2 presents far-reaching, progressive modulations, then
achieves return and medial closure; side 3 ventures the greatest distance from
home; and side 4 returns to the familiar, with retrospective acknowledgment of
the journey. Song 4 represents a high point in formal experimentation, song 6 a
high point in genre/stylistic experimentation.
One final aspect to be mentioned of the exploratory arc at the heart of the
album is the general move from familiar or colloquial language to polished poetic
language and dense image construction (that is, deeper into the aesthetic mode).
The aesthetic mode is preeminent in songs 4, 5, 7, and 8, perhaps reaching its
peak in song 7, “Dreamland.” This poem arranges a parade of colorful, evoca-
tive images according to an interlocking scheme of polarities: between north-
ern and tropical Americas, First World and Third World culture, and black and
white (tires in snow, coconut flesh, flour on skin). Images follow one another with
few connectives of narrative or lyrical reflection. Observational detail and collec-
tive archetype surrealistically conflate (“Tar baby and the Great White Wonder/
Talking over a glass of rum”). The poem fuses a Dionysian celebration of island
night life with a historical awareness of colonialist intervention (in the references
to iconic European explorers, slavery, big game hunting, and Hollywood exoti-
cism). Yet even as Mitchell evokes this history in vivid, even tactile ways, she does
so with no moral gloss (“I wrapped that flag around me/Like a Dorothy Lamour
sarong/And I lay down thinking national/With dreamland coming on”). Thus

the listener is suspended in an unresolved double consciousness of holiday indo-
lence and cultural domination. In consequence, the “dream” acquires a double
edge: equally a fantasy of oblivion sought by the privileged (“As they push the
recline buttons down”) and a vision of alternative, unspoiled sources of creativity
(“Burning on the inside/With the knowledge of things to come”). In this densely
constructed poem, Mitchell uses the metaphor of place to explore the intersection
of individual and cultural perspectives while illuminating profound rifts within
each.29 The perspectival dialectic embodied in the song is mirrored by its broader
context of formal tension between coherence and disparity.
As for the role of visual design in the album’s cyclic identity, the three chief
themes threading through Don Juan—duality, place, and dream—are given visual
expression in the art on the cover and record sleeves, which places photographic
portraits against a bold two-color backdrop of terra-cotta plains and turquoise
skies. The figures juxtapose adults and children, in glamorous evening attire with
a glimpse of tennis shoes, bedecked with vaguely Mickey Mouse–shaped balloons
and doves in flight. The contemporary fashions on the front cover contrast with
the mock-Indian garb on the back as well as with the mythical, nearly featureless
abstract Southwestern horizon. All the figures save the young boy are portraits of
Joni herself: as a white woman in top hat and stiletto heels; as a dancing, dandi-
fied black man; and as an Indian girl, whose thought balloon (“How”) humorously
portrays her as a beginner on the path to spiritual knowledge.30 Thus Joni’s body
is split into multiple personas of different ages, races, and genders. The vision-
ary aura of the doves intersects with the frankly sexual symbolism of a female
nude, superimposed on the adult Joni’s dress at crotch level, from whose pubic
area the doves appear to emerge. All three figures on the front look down toward
this focal region, the region of the greatest visual density. The adult Joni spreads
her arms and mouth wide in a gesture of generosity, as if releasing her offspring
to the world in joyous, reckless profusion. On subsequent panels, space becomes
emptier, figures more randomly placed. In the image on the second record sleeve,
Joni swings away from the camera, gazing at one of her balloons that is getting
away. As her self-mocking thought balloon reveals (“In My Dweems We Fwy”),
the adult is not entirely free of the child.
But the cover design is not the only artwork connected with this album.
“During the period that Mitchell was writing and recording Don Juan’s Reckless
Daughter, she simultaneously worked on a large painting which depicts in pigment
some of the same themes, metaphors and imagery of that album.”31 The painting,
measuring five feet by six feet and entitled Axilar Moonrise, is reproduced in the
catalogue of artworks included on Mitchell’s official Web site.32 Its composition
features expressionistic nude human figures as well as a half-man/half-eagle figure
and a female spirit in war paint and Indian headdress. The background is made up

of tropical foliage, multicolored city lights, and a deep blue starscape.33 Mitchell
speaks of this painting as a sibling or outgrowth of the same creative impulse
behind the album. In its entirety, then, one might say the Don Juan project has
a public face (the album) as well as a private face (the appended painting). From
this point of view, the musicopoetic form of the cycle is not wholly sufficient unto
itself but complemented by (offstage, unseen) thoughts in a different medium—
just as the song “Paprika Plains” is complemented by (unspoken) thoughts in an
appended poem.
As for this last song, there is practically no model within pop song for such
an ungainly media hybrid: three verses of sung lyrics, plus 72 lines of paren-
thetical, unsung poetry, corresponding to a seven-and-a-half-minute wordless
orchestral interpolation. For most listeners, I imagine, it remains unclear how to
approach the appended dream sequence. Are we meant to switch at that moment
from simply listening to reading (with grandiose musical accompaniment)? And
what is the status of the printed passage: is it a part of the song cycle or not? Is
Mitchell sharing a glimpse of private thoughts and hinting that there is more
to be said—that the public form of the album is only partially adequate to the
themes she invokes? By leaving an evocative gap in the musical form, Mitchell
directs the listener to an awareness of something beyond the music, without spell-
ing out how to launch into that imagined space or comprehend the implications.
This strikes me as a perfect metaphor for the shamanistic education depicted by
Castaneda, where the path to knowledge is a leap into the unknown, discerned
only by irrational means and only made possible after being faced with one’s own
ignorance. Just as remarkable, though, is Mitchell’s intermingling of the formal
and stylistic experiments found on sides 2 and 3 with quite traditional formal
elements. One can still clearly recognize the strophic skeleton underlying the
extravagant expansions of “Paprika Plains,” while both “Otis and Marlena” and
“Dreamland” employ standard strophic forms with refrain, however bold their
placement within a larger plan. Again, this ambivalence dramatizes the central
dialectic between the familiar and the unknown at the level of formal technique.
Whereas in Hejira Mitchell presents her material in a well-defined, tightly
wrapped package, in Don Juan the goods spill out of the basket. In its own way,
Hejira is as confessional as Blue, but the cooler tone and consistently strong pat-
terning in Hejira offset the cycle’s difficult, subjective self-questioning. This clas-
sicizing, unifying impulse helps to create the impression of a greater expressive
poise and sophistication (compared to the rawness of Blue) and a higher degree
of conscious artistry. In Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, on the other hand, large-
scale formal planning is tangible but more precarious, in danger of being under-
mined by the cycle’s heterogeneous enthusiasm and otherworldly aspirations. In
her approach to this work, Mitchell leavens poise and sophistication (connoting

adulthood and artistic polish) with spontaneity and receptivity (as in childhood,
apprenticeship, improvisation, dream states). The authorial persona comes across
as instinctual, uninhibited, and porous (“open to it all”) rather than as an impos-
ing, masterful hand thoroughly shaping and arranging the material.34 Thus Don
Juan represents a different kind of concept album. Recklessness is key to the over-
all design. The album’s experimental ruptures and disjunctions call for a more
flexible, receptive attitude on the part of listeners, who must create their own
connections in making sense of the overall concept. Form is not wholly foretold
but the result of a process of intellectual and sensuous engagement in the act of
listening.35 In giving freer rein to disparity, while never abandoning an implied
coherence, Mitchell is exploiting an ambiguity at the heart of the song cycle
genre itself.

8
A T R IBUT E
In one of the few rave reviews of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, critic Blair Jackson
offers Joni Mitchell the following tribute:
The significance of this album is easily explained: it’s ambitious as hell; a

double-record set of staggering depth, complexity and musical scope from
one of the most talented artists working in pop music. It is also the album
which will reveal Joni Mitchell’s “singer/songwriter” tag to be shamefully
inadequate. . . . There is so much on this record it’s going to take months,
perhaps even years, to absorb it all.1
In praising and legitimizing Mitchell as an artist, Jackson appeals to the high-art

standards of value identified at the outset of this book: ambition, depth, complex-
ity, and durability. In particular, he affirms that a long-term relationship with the
music is the best way to comprehend its density and rise to its aesthetic challenge.
Tributes may take many different forms. For Mitchell’s songwriting peers and
followers, “absorbing” and recognizing her musical achievement means learn-
ing from her example as a writer—being inspired by her expressive nuance and
artistic vision while incorporating and adapting the tricks of her trade. It might
also involve covering or resetting gems from her collection. A noteworthy com-
pilation of covers by big-name artists was in the planning stages for many years.
Originally announced as A Case of Joni (on the Reprise label), the project came
to fruition as A Tribute to Joni Mitchell, released on the Nonesuch label in 2007.2
For my concluding thoughts, I would like to offer a few brief impressions about
this album.
A Tribute to Joni Mitchell does not denote the final word on the esteem Mitchell
enjoys among her peers—merely part of an ongoing conversation. Nevertheless,
one gets a sense of the extraordinary scope of her influence from the spectrum of
styles represented: jazz (Cassandra Wilson, Brad Mehldau), country (Emmylou
Harris), Brazilian Tropicalia (Caetano Veloso) as well as pop of many different
stripes (James Taylor, Annie Lennox, k. d. lang, Elvis Costello, Sufjan Stevens).
Prince has absorbed “A Case of You” into his own soulful gospel mother tongue.
Sarah McLachlan refashions “Blue” in haunting Celtic guise. Björk, true to her
image as avant-garde pop artiste, arranges “The Boho Dance” for crystalline celeste
with quirky electronic touches, draining it of a beat and using over-deliberate
enunciation, “making the song sound like a poem beamed from another planet.”3
Half of the songs chosen are popular favorites from Ladies of the Canyon, Blue,
and Court and Spark, but there are also three more esoteric choices from Hissing and
one song from the 1990s, representing the tastes of a connoisseur. In many ways,
big and small, the various performers disclose an intimate knowledge of Mitchell’s
musical style. Annie Lennox alters the refrain in “Ladies of the Canyon” (moving
with relish through the lowered seventh degree) in such a way as to heighten the
song’s Mixolydian flavor. James Taylor sets “River” to a guitar part that bris-
tles with modal clashes. A number of performers (Veloso, Prince, McLachlan,
Lennox, lang) create personal variations on Mitchell’s trademark multitrack close-
harmony backup vocals. Björk’s cosmic arrangement of “Boho Dance” calls to
mind Mitchell’s own experiments with stylized metaphysical pronouncement
(especially “Shadows and Light,” from the same source album). Brad Mehldau,
turning “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” into a piano solo, still faithfully mimics the
distinct verbal rhythms from each verse of Mitchell’s original performance.
One challenge of cover versions in general is how to negotiate between
strongly personal styles of expression—that is, how to respond to a vivid, idiosyn-
cratic original with an imaginative interpretation of one’s own. Success depends
on utterly intangible qualities; but one reviewer puts it well when he says, “the
key lies in making us believe that this song could be for you, or speak for you.”
In this light, I understand his enjoyment of “Help Me” as sung by k. d. lang
“because it feels close to her skin”; or his appreciation of Emmylou Harris, who
“inhabits the pain and the dignity [of ‘The Magdalene Laundries’] completely.”4
Such metaphors of bodily familiarity and fit recall Mitchell’s evocative image of
her music as “a fine cloth.”5
More specific challenges arise from the high-mindedness and unconvention-
ality of Mitchell’s work. Elvis Costello’s version of “Edith and the Kingpin” is
high-minded in its unusual wind ensemble orchestration, but he pursues taste
and decorum at the cost of vitality.6 Several arrangements polish out certain spiky
irregularities of the original numbers. (I think of the Japanese proverb: “The nail
that sticks out gets hammered down.”) For instance, Veloso removes all tonal
ambiguity from “Dreamland” by harmonizing it with sunny, shopworn tonic and
dominant chords. Harris, in “Magdalene Laundries,” regularizes the strangely

uprooted harmonies at the beginning and end of each verse. Lennox opts not
to preserve the sharp cross-relation at the melodic peak of “Ladies” (though in
exchange she introduces a dramatic phrase extension of her own). k. d. lang’s
“Help Me” smooths over some of the original metric disruptions. On the other
hand, Sufjan Stevens takes up the challenge with a radical, wacky remake of “Free
Man in Paris,” in which he makes major changes to the melody, harmonic pro-
gression, instrumental breaks, and sectional form. This cover treats the original
as a point of departure, preserving some aspects but not others, freely prolonging
and embellishing the tune with eccentric detail while inventing fresh descants.
The tone is manic-depressive, alternating between glitzy horn passages, melan-
choly vocals, and a campy section of “la la la”s over a suddenly lilting waltz.
The chorus is recast harmonically as an intriguing mixed-mode loop over a pedal
point, which repeats abundantly while Stevens dismantles and rebuilds his unex-
pected instrumental textures. “That’s the best thing a cover version can offer—a
way for longtime listeners to hear new things in songs they thought they knew
by heart.”7
All in all, the collective respect these musicians have to offer Joni Mitchell
comes in treating her music as a body of song that bears revisiting, sounding
out, and reinterpreting. Music analysis and criticism in their own special way can
also be seen as a kind of “covering” or reinterpretation, drawing on an absorbed,
long-term relationship with the music. As with A Tribute, my own work does not
present the final word on analytical insight into Joni Mitchell’s music, merely
part of an ongoing conversation. In this endeavor too, success depends on certain
intangible qualities, in which are mingled respect, intimate knowledge, vivid
perceptions, personal fit, and a readiness to take up the challenge.
A TRIBUTE | 229
APPENDIX
Reference Table of Chord Symbols

Chord Type Symbol Spelling (relative to
major scale)
Major 1, 3, 5
Minor m 1, 3, 5
Diminished ° 1, 3, 5
Open 5th 5 1, 5
Open 5th, Added 7th 5(7) 1, 5, 7
6th 6 1, 3, 5, 6
Minor 6th m6 1, 3, 5, 6
6/9 6/9 1, 3, 5, 6, 9
7th 7 1, 3, 5, 7
Major 7th maj7 1, 3, 5, 7
Minor 7th m7 1, 3, 5, 7
Minor 7th, Added 6th m7(6) 1, 3, 5, 6, 7
Minor/Major 7th m/maj7 1, 3, 5, 7
9th 9 1, 3, 5, 7, 9
Major 9th maj9 1, 3, 5, 7, 9
Minor 9th m9 1, 3, 5, 7, 9
Minor/Major 9th m/maj9 1, 3, 5, 7, 9
11th 11 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11
Major 11th maj11 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11
Minor 11th m11 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11
13th 13 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13
Major 13th maj13 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13
Minor 13th m13 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13
Added 9th (9) 1, 3, 5, 9
Added 4th (4) 1, 3, 4, 5
Suspended 4th sus 1, 4, 5
Suspended 2nd sus2 1, 2, 5
Chord Type Symbol Spelling (relative to
major scale)
Suspended 4th and 2nd sus(2) 1, 2, 4, 5

Suspended 2nd, Added 6th sus2(6) 1, 2, 5, 6
7th Suspended 7sus 1, 4, 5, 7 [or 1, 5, 7, 11]
9th Suspended 9sus 1, 5, 7, 9, 11
13th Suspended 13sus 1, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13
Inversion or “Slash” Chord X/Y X = chord; Y = bass note
The root of the chord is in the bass position, except in the case of inverted or “slash” chords. All
other chord pitches may be voiced (or doubled) in different octaves (thus 2 = 9, 4 = 11, etc.).
Some of the pitches in extended chords (such as 9th, 11th, and 13th chords) may be omitted.
APPENDIX | 231
NOT ES
1. Introduction
1. A sixteenth album, Shine, was released in 2007, too late to be included in this
book. See the discography for a complete list.
2. Notable tribute concerts include “Joni’s Jazz,” Central Park, New York, 1 July
1999; “An All-Star Tribute to Joni Mitchell,” Hammerstein Ballroom, New
York, 6 April 2000 (televised); and “The Music of Joni Mitchell,” Carnegie
Hall, New York, 1 February 2006. For information on achievement awards,
see Karen O’Brien, Shadows and Light: Joni Mitchell, The Definitive Biography
(London: Virgin Books, 2001), 12–13; and see chapter 2 of this book.
3. More extended assessments (of varying quality) have also appeared. Chapter-
length considerations of Mitchell’s work from the standpoint of female artistic
production appear in Wilfrid Mellers, Angels of the Night: Popular Female Singers
of Our Time (New York: Blackwell, 1986), and Sheila Whiteley, Women and
Popular Music: Sexuality, Identity and Subjectivity (New York: Routledge, 2000).
Treatments from within a Canadian context appear in Marco Adria, Music of Our
Times: Eight Canadian Singer-Songwriters (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1990), and
Douglas Fetherling, Some Day Soon: Essays on Canadian Songwriters (Kingston,
Ont.: Quarry Press, 1991). Larry David Smith focuses on poetic themes and
strategies in his disappointing book Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, and the Torch
Song Tradition (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004). Much more careful attention
to poetic detail can be found in the chapter on Mitchell in Charles O. Hartman,
Jazz Text: Voice and Improvisation in Poetry, Jazz, and Song (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1991).
4. Bernard Gendron, Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club: Popular Music and
the Avant-Garde (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 161. Gendron
emphasizes that the high/low distinction is still largely in place: “Rock has
gained only a marginal foothold in conservatories, music departments, concert
halls, and avant-garde spaces. It has not become part of high culture, nor is it
constitutive of any synthesis of ‘high’ and ‘low’ that has obliterated the differ-
ences. This has been resisted by the rock community as well as by the powers of
high culture” (2).
5. Dan Heckman, “Joni Mitchell at a Crossroads,” New York Times, 8 August
1971.
6. For important sources on the question of the particular challenges facing female
artists and critics in popular music, see Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers,
eds., Rock She Wrote (New York: Delta, 1995); Gillian G. Gaar, She’s a Rebel: The
History of Women in Rock and Roll, 2nd ed. (New York: Seal Press, 2002); and
Lucy O’Brien, She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop, and Soul
(London: Continuum, 2002). For considerations of this question as it relates to
Joni Mitchell’s career, see Alice Echols, “Thirty Years with a Portable Lover,” Los
Angeles Weekly, 25 November 1994 (reprinted in Echols, Shaky Ground: The ’60s
and Its Aftershocks [New York: Columbia University Press, 2002], 207–222);
and Stuart Henderson, “‘All Pink and Clean and Full of Wonder?’: Gendering
‘Joni Mitchell,’ 1966–74,” Left History 10 (Fall 2005): 83–109.
7. Stephen Holden, “Too Feminine for Rock? Or Is Rock Too Macho?” New York
Times, 14 January 1996.
8. Polar Music Prize press conference, Stockholm, 7 May 1996, transcribed at
http://jmdl.com. In an interview with Morrissey (“Melancholy Meets the
Infinite Sadness,” Rolling Stone, 6 March 1997), Mitchell confirms the idea that
separating out the female from the male implies a lower order of achievement:
Morrissey: Do they still refer to you as a female songwriter? it’s such
a ludicrous title.
JM: It implies limitations.
Morrissey: It implies that it’s not a real songwriter. To use the term
“female songwriter” implies that the word “songwriter”
belongs to men.
JM: They tend to lump me always with groups of women. I
always thought, “they don’t put Dylan with the Men of
Rock; why do they do that to me with women?”
9. Interview with Cameron Crowe (1979), in The Rolling Stone Interviews: Talking
with the Legends of Rock & Roll, 1967–1980, ed. Peter Herbst (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 381.
10. JM: “Folk music [was] where I appeared on the scene, but my roots are in classi-
cal music. As a child I lived in a small community in Canada and my playmates
were classical music prodigies, and our play involved me leaping around the
room while they played prodigious things on the piano. . . . At the age of eight
I dreamed that I could write music beautifully. . . . The first piece of music I fell
in love with was the most beautiful melody I’ve ever heard, [Rachmaninov’s]
‘Variations on a Theme by Paganini,’ [the theme song] in a movie called The
Story of Three Loves. . . . I think my early music has more of that classicism to it
than my later music, but I also loved jazz; I was also a rock and roll dancer, so
I had a lot of various musics to assimilate” (Polar Music Prize press conference).
11. JM: “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” (interview with Liane Hansen, “Weekend Edition,” National Public
Radio, 28 May 1995). For Debussy, see Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, “My Secret
Notes to Pages 4–6 | 233

Place: The Guitar Odyssey of Joni Mitchell,” Acoustic Guitar, August 1996,
40–55; see 42; in Stacey Luftig, ed., The Joni Mitchell Companion: Four Decades of
Commentary (New York: Schirmer, 2000), 221. For the “composer” remark, see
Echols, “Thirty Years with a Portable Lover.”
12. Anthony Fawcett, “Joni Mitchell—A Search for Clarity,” in California Rock,
California Sound (Los Angeles: Reed Books, 1978), 50–65; see 60.
13. Echols, “Thirty Years with a Portable Lover.”
14. “Her first album . . . showcased her fine songwriting, soaring soprano, and what
could be described as a remarkable lack of desire to court the pop charts—her
three most famous songs (‘Urge for Going,’ ‘Both Sides, Now,’ and ‘The Circle
Game,’ all made popular by other people) were conspicuously absent from the
record” (Henderson, “ ‘All Pink and Clean and Full of Wonder?’ ” 92).
15. “Mitchell was particularly fortunate to have been signed to Warner-Reprise, a
label that by 1968 had come to understand the necessity of allowing its artists
creative freedom, and providing a nurturing and patient environment for career
growth” (Daniel Sonenberg, “ ‘Who in the World She Might Be’: A Contextual
and Stylistic Approach to the Early Music of Joni Mitchell” [D.M.A. diss., City
University of New York, 2003], 7).
16. Review of Hejira by John Rockwell, “Joni Mitchell Recaptures Her Gift,” New
York Times, 12 December 1976.
17. Rockwell, “The New Artistry of Joni Mitchell,” New York Times, 19 August
1979.
18. Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1996), 16.
19. Of course in the real world distinctions are rarely as schematic as my two-level
grid implies. The broad category of popular music is far from monolithic in
attitude, housing internal struggles over which genres are to be accepted as
more serious, more authentic, and less commodified, among other things. In
North America, the standard of authenticity has been employed to create pres-
tige distinctions between the subcategories of “rock” and “pop.” For a discus-
sion of the latter debates, see Keir Keightley, “Reconsidering Rock,” in The
Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, ed. Simon Frith, Will Straw, and John
Street (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 109–42.
20. JM: “Leonard Cohen was another [influence]; his poetry seemed so much more
capable of deeper thought that it made my work seem merely descriptive”
(Angela LaGreca, “Joni Mitchell,” Rock Photo, June 1985).
21. Noel Coppage, “More than a Sprinking of Symbolism in Joni Mitchell’s The
Hissing of Summer Lawns,” Stereo Review, February 1976; in Luftig, 78–79.
22. Rockwell, “Joni Mitchell Recaptures Her Gift.”
23. To cite just one example, Neil Strauss prefaces an interview (from late in her
career) by placing Mitchell’s appeals to a fine art model in a highly unsympa-
thetic light: “When it comes to her music, Mitchell can be humorless. People
describe her as ‘bitter’ and a ‘loose cannon,’ and those are her friends. Over the
234 | Notes to Pages 6–9

course of three days of conversations, Mitchell will compare herself to Mozart,
Blake, and Picasso; she will say that the lyrics to one of her songs ‘have a lot of
symbolic depth, like the Bible’ and describe her music as so new it needs its
own genre name” (Strauss, “The Hissing of a Living Legend,” New York Times,
4 October 1998; in Luftig, 210–11).
24. David Brackett, “Music Theory,” in Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of
the World, ed. John Shepherd et al. (London: Continuum, 2003), 1:94–96; see
95.
25. David Brackett, “Music Analysis,” in Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of
the World, 1:86–90; see 88.
26. See Richard Middleton, Studying Popular Music (Milton Keynes: Open University
Press, 1990); Allan Moore, Rock: The Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of
Rock, 2nd ed. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001); Ken Stephenson, What to Listen for in
Rock: A Stylistic Analysis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
27. For a good overview of the controversy, see John Covach, “We Won’t Get
Fooled Again: Rock Music and Musical Analysis,” in Keeping Score: Music,
Disciplinarity, Culture, ed. David Schwartz, Anahid Kassabian, and Lawrence
Siegel (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 75–89. Richard
Middleton details specific criticisms (inappropriate terminology, skewed focus,
notational centricity, abstractionism, and monologic listening) in his introduc-
tion to Reading Pop: Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music, ed. Middleton
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 4.
28. “Between recent types of popular music and historical traditions of popular, so-
called folk, and even bourgeois music stretching back at least as far as the six-
teenth century, there are innumerable links and parallels” (Middleton, Studying
Popular Music, 117).
29. “The challenge then becomes the investigation of popular music along tra-
ditional musicological lines while maintaining a careful sensitivity to how
popular music may differ from art-music in its specifically musical dimen-
sions” (Covach, “Popular Music, Unpopular Musicology,” in Rethinking Music,
ed. Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999],
452–70; see 466). “In seeking to develop alternative approaches to traditional
analysis, music scholars have adapted concepts and techniques from music the-
ory for their correspondence to musical values that arise in different contexts of
production and reception” (Brackett, “Music Theory,” 95).
30. Especially faithful transcriptions in both keyboard and guitar can be found in
the songbooks for FR and M.
31. Moore, Rock: The Primary Text, 58.
2. Sound and Style

1. JM: “Separating their personalities from their art, Miles Davis and Picasso have
always been my major heroes because we have this one thing in common: They

were restless. I don’t know any women role models for that. But Picasso was
constantly searching and searching and changing and changing. Even I have
favorite periods of Miles, but I would always go to see him in any incarnation.
Because he’s managed to keep alive” (David Wild, “A Conversation with Joni
Mitchell,” Rolling Stone, 30 May 1991).
2. Barry Kernfeld, “Davis, Miles,” Grove Music Online, ed. Laura Macy (www.
grovemusic.com).
3. See Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, “My Secret Place: The Guitar Odyssey of Joni
Mitchell,” Acoustic Guitar, August 1996; in Luftig, 228–29.
4. Connor Freff Cochran, “Out of the Quicksand,” Roland Users Group, October
1996 (www.rolandus.com/rug/), archived at http://jmdl.com.
5. For a complete chronological list of Mitchell’s albums, including concert
albums and compilations, see the discography.
6. The best source for biographical details is Karen O’Brien, Shadows and Light:
Joni Mitchell, The Definitive Biography (London: Virgin Books, 2001).
7. A list of thirty-eight early songs never released on commercial recordings is
included in the complete listing of lyrics at http://jonimitchell.com/musician/
lyrics.cfm. Sheet music arrangements of eight of these songs (dating from 1966
and 1967) were included in the first published songbook, The Music of Joni
Mitchell (1969), as well as the anthology, Joni Mitchell Complete (1971).
8. Formal terms (such as strophic, verse, and chorus) are defined in chapter 6.
9. It is less common after 1970. Thus one of the stylistic aspects of the song
“Little Green” (from Blue, released in 1971) that cause it to stand out in its
context as an earlier song (written 1967) is its pattern of internal rhymes. For a
detailed analysis of the intricate network of rhyme and assonance in the second
song on the debut album, “Michael from Mountains,” see Charles O. Hartman,
“Joni Mitchell: To Whom It May Concern,” in his book Jazz Text: Voice and
Improvisation in Poetry, Jazz, and Song (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1991), 96–98.
10. Rodgers, “My Secret Place”; in Luftig, 224.
11. Leonore Fleischer, Joni Mitchell (New York: Flash Books, 1976), 23–26. On one
earlier song, “Night in the City” (SS), a piano part was added to embellish the
guitar accompaniment.
12. Malka, “Joni Mitchell: Self-Portrait of a Superstar,” Maclean’s, June 1974; in
Luftig, 67.
13. Such vocables appear elsewhere in this period, on occasion as rhapsodic melodic
discourse (as in the nonverbal coda to “Woodstock” [LC]), usually as a response
or comment, often in close harmony (as in “Ladies of the Canyon” [LC] or “You
Turn Me On, I’m a Radio” [FR]).
14. The new attention to beauty and consistency of vocal timbre is especially audi-
ble in “Trouble Child.”
15. Daniel Sonenberg traces such a melodic approach back to “The Last Time I Saw
Richard” (B); Sonenberg, “‘Who in the World She Might Be’: A Contextual

and Stylistic Approach to the Early Music of Joni Mitchell” (D.M.A. diss., City
University of New York, 2003), 83–104.
16. Metric disruptions are plentiful on C&S. Similar patterns of downbeat anticipa-
tions being “fixed” by a dropped beat can be found in the instrumental breaks
for “Free Man in Paris” and “Down to You.” (Mitchell already shows a strong
interest in metric disruption on FR as well.)
17. Heinrich Wölfflin, Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style
in Later Art, trans. M. D. Hottinger (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1932; rept.,
New York: Dover, 1950), 14. Thanks to Udayan Sen for this insight.
18. Timothy White, Rock Lives: Profiles and Interviews (New York: Henry Holt,
1990), 330 (speaking of C&S). Compare Wölfflin’s description of the paint-
erly as “a perception which is by way of surrendering itself to the mere visual
appearance and can abandon ‘tangible’ design” (Principles of Art History, 14).
19. For mixed reviews of DJRD, see Stephen Holden, “Madam Joni Almost Pulls
It Off,” Village Voice, 19 December 1977, and Don Heckman, “She Soars, She
Orbits, She Never Lands,” High Fidelity, March 1978; for harsh reviews, see
Michael Watts, “Joni: A Fallible Magician,” Melody Maker, 24 December 1977,
and Janet Maslin, “Joni Mitchell’s Reckless and Shapeless ‘Daughter,’” Rolling
Stone, 9 March 1978. Mingus received a glowing review in Down Beat (unsigned
review, Down Beat, 9 August 1979), a measured positive review in Village Voice
(Ed Ward, “Charles, Joni, and the Circle Game,” Village Voice, 30 July 1979; in
Luftig, 103–106), a mixed review in Rolling Stone (Ariel Swartley, “The Babe in
Bopperland and the Great Jazz Composer,” Rolling Stone, 6 September 1979),
and harsh reviews in Melody Maker and Sounds (Michael Watts, “Joni . . . er . . .
um,” Melody Maker, 16 June 1979; Sandy Robertson, “Scared to Dance,” Sounds,
30 June 1979).
20. Mitchell, “The Lost Years,” notes to The Complete Geffen Recordings (Geffen
B000081902), 2003.
21. White, Rock Lives, 338.
22. The title song also contains an implicit reference (especially noticeable in the
spoken passage at the end) to the 1966 hit “Wild Thing” by the Troggs.
23. Mitchell returns to this groove throughout periods 3 and 4. The basic pattern
is explained under “Triplet Grooves” in the guitar performance notes included
in the songbook for TT.
24. In classical tonal analysis, this would be considered a secondary dominant
(V/V), but that function does not apply here. The progression II-IV, unorth-
odox in classical music, is common in pop (Ken Stephenson, What to Listen
For in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002],
114).
25. Vic Garbarini, “Joni Mitchell Is a Nervy Broad,” Musician, January 1983; in
Luftig, 116–17.
26. Other examples include “Raised on Robbery” (C&S) and “Lead Balloon” (TT).
27. Notes for this song in The Complete Geffen Recordings.

28. Of the ten songs on the album, five are undeniably protest songs, while two
more (“Shiny Toys” and “Impossible Dreamer”) contain indirect criticism of
materialism and social wrongs.
29. See Psalm 115:4–8, decrying the worship of false idols (“Eyes have they, but
they see not. They have ears, but they hear not”). While allowances can be
made for the self-conscious, dramatic changes Mitchell is undertaking in poetic
style and tone, it must be said that beginning with this album one encounters
instances where her poetry falls short of its established high quality: patches of
knee-jerk alliteration, miscalculations of tone, and raw didactic messages with
no attempt at aesthetic modulation (e.g., from “Ethiopia”: “A TV star with a
P.R. smile/Calls your baby ‘It’ while strolling/Through your tragic trials”).
30. Stephen Holden, “Joni Mitchell Finds the Peace of Middle Age,” New York
Times, 17 March 1991; in Luftig, 152–56; Linda Sanders, “The Grown-Up
Game,” Entertainment Weekly, 1 March 1991.
31. Timothy White, “Billboard Honors Joni Mitchell with Its Highest Accolade,”
Billboard, 9 December 1995.
32. Strongly major-mode songs are already prominent on DED (“The Three Great
Stimulants,” “Shiny Toys” [some modal mixture], “Lucky Girl”) and CMRS
(“My Secret Place” [modal mixture in the bridge], “The Beat of Black Wings”
[including secondary dominants]), and become more frequent in the 1990s.
33. For a slightly earlier example of a song based on a scriptural text, see “Love”
(WTRF), based on I Corinthians 13.
34. It remains to be seen if Shine will initiate a new stylistic period.
35. The cover photographs for these collections (by Norman Seeff, responsible for
many glamorous portraits of Mitchell in the 1970s) lightheartedly express her
aggravation with the whole phenomenon of commercial success. Hits has Joni
laid out on the road as if the victim of a hit-and-run; on Misses she is busy draw-
ing chalk outlines, rear end toward the camera.
36. Mitchell, interview with Josh Simon, Life, August 1994.
37. The video of the concert omits “Woodstock”; instead the title song is placed as
closing number.
38. In general, the harmonies in the 1979 version are more clearly triadic; however,
the guitar breaks between verses strongly retain the suspended, quartal struc-
tures of the original.
39. In the 1974 version, the harmonic progression is more varied than in 1970.
Already in this version, the first section of the refrain is defused by phrase
extension to six bars, by resolving the subdominant suspension, and by har-
monic release through a half cadence on the minor dominant.
40. In an interview in 1991, Mitchell spoke of the tendency to romanticize the era
of Woodstock: “I met a kid the other day who was a self-admitted yuppie. He
was in some financial position, and inside this yuppie was this hippie dying to
get out. And he was very romantic about the Sixties. He and I had an argu-
ment kind of late at night, because he was really praising us. And I kept saying

to him, ‘Yeah but we failed.’ And he kept saying: ‘Yeah, but at least you did
something. Like, we did nothing.’ I said: ‘Look, the thing is, don’t just ape our
movement. Don’t do hippie poses. Look at us. Admit to yourself that we only
took it so far. Build from where we left off.’ I know my generation—a lot of
them, they’re getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to
kid themselves. A lot of them think, ‘Yeah, we were the best.’ That’s the kiss of
death. That’s nongrowth. And also that’s very bad for the world” (David Wild,
“A Conversation with Joni Mitchell”).
41. That is, the concert portion of the video ends with the song. Following the
concert, under the closing credits, Mitchell and the band perform “Dreamland”
as if in an impromptu jam session in the empty theater.
3. Voices and Personae

1. Larry LeBlanc, “Joni Takes a Break,” Rolling Stone, 4 March 1971. Her debut
album is dedicated “to Mr. Kratzman, who taught me to love words.” Mitchell
relates more detailed memories about Kratzman’s personality and teach-
ing method in an interview with Mary Black, “Both Sides Now,” BBC-2, 20
February 1999; quoted in Karen O’Brien, Shadows and Light: Joni Mitchell, The
Definitive Biography (London: Virgin Books, 2001), 27–28.
2. Marilyn Beker, “Gentle Joni of the Mythical Mood in Folk-Rock,” Toronto Globe
and Mail, 20 April 1968. She confirms this compositional method in an inter-
view from the 1990s. In response to a suggestion that her songs “could almost
stand alone as either poetry or prose,” she remarks that her songs generally “begin
with music” (interview with Merilee Kelly, KCSA-FM, 25 October 1994).
3. Similarly, by compiling her song lyrics under the title Complete Poems and Lyrics,
Mitchell invites the reader to appreciate them as literary artifacts.
4. Complete lyrics are reproduced on the official website at http://jonimitchell.
com/musician/lyrics.cfm. They are also collected in Joni Mitchell, The Complete
Poems and Lyrics (New York: Crown Publishers, 1997). Note that the latter
book perpetuates a number of textual errors due to faulty aural transcription.
For instance, the final verse of “Urge for Going” should begin as follows: “I’ll
ply the fire with kindling now/I’ll pull the blankets up to my chin/I’ll lock the
vagrant winter out and/I’ll bolt my wandering in.” The Complete Poems mis-
prints “I’ll ply” as “Apply” and “bolt” as “fold.” In the second verse, “Bully
winds” is misprinted as “Boy winds.”
5. For bibliographies and general surveys of this interdisciplinary field, see Fred
Everett Maus, “Narratology, narrativity,” Grove Music Online, ed. Laura Macy
(www.grovemusic.com); Maus, “Classical Instrumental Music and Narrative,”
in A Companion to Narrative Theory, ed. James Phelan and Peter J. Rabinowitz
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 466–83. For a well-argued synthesis of linguistic
and narrative theory as applied to music analysis, see Philip Rupprecht, Britten’s
Musical Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

6. Stephen Holden, “Joni Mitchell Finds the Peace of Middle Age,” New York
Times, 17 March 1991; in Luftig, 156.
7. Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, “Setting the Stage: The Vocal and Lyrical Craft of Joni
Mitchell,” Acoustic Guitar, February 1997; in Luftig, 259.
8. Jody Denberg, “Taming Joni Mitchell—Joni’s Jazz,” Austin Chronicle, 12
October 1998; in Luftig, 204.
9. The theatrical metaphor is implicit, however, in an interview from 1974: “I feel
miscast in some of the songs that I wrote as a younger woman” (Malka, “Joni
Mitchell: Self-Portrait of a Superstar,” Maclean’s, June 1974; in Luftig, 67).
10. Interview with Steve Warden, Q107-FM, Toronto, September 1994.
11. For the important formulation of “modes of enunciation,” I owe something to
Gérard Genette, The Architext: An Introduction, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Berkeley &
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 34, 76–77, though I do not
adhere to his distinction between modal and thematic categories.
12. By no means am I claiming that the following categories are the only musico-
literary modes available. In fact, one could point to another mode that makes
rare appearances in Mitchell’s work, where the poetic emphasis is almost solely
on rhythmic engagement with the audience in the context of dance grooves
(“Tenth World” [DJRD]) or more abstract vocal chants (“Smokin’ [Empty, Try
Another]” [DED]).
13. M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 8th ed.
(Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005), 153.
14. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1957), 249.
15. Abrams and Harpham, Glossary of Literary Terms, 154.
16. Abrams and Harpham, Glossary of Literary Terms, 70.
17. Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1983), 152.
18. Leonard Cohen, Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (Toronto: McClelland
& Stewart, 1993), 95. The song was first recorded by Judy Collins in 1966 on
her album In My Life. Mitchell’s earliest use of the device dates from that year.
On the influence of Cohen, Mitchell has stated, “My lyrics are influenced by
Leonard. . . . We never knew each other in Canada, but after we met at Newport
last year we saw a lot of each other. My song ‘Marcie’ has a lot of him in it,
and some of Leonard’s religious imagery, which comes from being a Jew in a
predominantly Catholic part of Canada, seems to have rubbed off on me, too”
(Karl Dallas, “Joni, the Seagull from Saskatoon,” Melody Maker, 28 September
1968; in Luftig, 7). The Beatles’ “For No One” (Revolver, 1966) also uses a sec-
ond-person subject. As for other precedents, I have discovered examples of the
device in certain soliloquy songs from the musical theater repertory, including
“Hey There” from The Pajama Game (1954), “The Party’s Over” from Bells Are
Ringing (1956), and “The Man That Got Away” from the film A Star is Born
(1954).

19. Note that this song, “Michael from Mountains,” uses the second-person subject
for the verses, switching to first person in the chorus.
20. Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane E. Lewin
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), 189.
21. There is a wealth of recent scholarship exploring the diverse uses of second-
person narration in postmodern fiction from the late 1950s to the present.
Narrative ambiguity is an important aspect of the aesthetic context for such
literature. “Second-person fiction (typically) plays with the multifunctional-
ity of the second-person pronoun (you as address, as generic “one,” or you as
self-address, etc.) and with the reader’s attempt at constructing a situation for
the discourse” (Monika Fludernik, “Second-Person Narrative as a Test Case for
Narratology: The Limits of Realism,” Style 28 [1994]: 445–79; see 455).
22. Susan S. Lanser has argued that readers routinely blur the distinction between
fictional and autobiographical personas, sometimes equating narrator and
historical author even if going against the logic of the text (“The ‘I’ of the
Beholder: Equivocal Attachments and the Limits of Structuralist Narratology,”
in Phelan and Rabinowitz, Companion to Narrative Theory, 206–19).
23. I am referring to analytic insights derived from “speech-act theory,” which
considers the performative aspect of language; for an extended treatment of
this theory as applied to music, see Rupprecht, Britten’s Musical Language. My
point here is to recognize a variety of utterances (or actions performed by poetic
speech) without attempting to classify them systematically.
24. Mitchell relates the anecdote in Timothy White, Rock Lives: Profiles and Interviews
(New York: Henry Holt, 1990), 338–39.
25. The Bible’s grand vision of a peaceful kingdom (“they shall beat their swords
into plowshares . . . neither shall they learn war any more”) has been personal-
ized in the spiritual text (“I’m going to lay down my sword and shield/Down
by the riverside/Ain’t going to study war no more”). Mitchell turns these lines
into a general exhortation.
26. David Wild, “A Conversation with Joni Mitchell,” Rolling Stone, 30 May
1991.
27. Rodgers, “Setting the Stage”; in Luftig, 256.
4. Thematic Threads
1. Thanks to Udayan Sen for this insight.
2. JM: “I never called myself a feminist. I could agree with a lot of the men’s point
of view. There was something very noble in a woman being willing to swallow
her own dreams and devote herself to caring for her husband. . . . Not that I
could ever have done it. I had this talent to feed! . . . A Gypsy told me that this
is my first life as a woman. In all my previous incarnations I was a man. I’m
still getting used to it!” (Bill Flanagan, “Lady of the Canyon,” Vanity Fair, June
1997).

3. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963), 44. Jennifer
Rycenga has studied the album Court and Spark from a similar perspective:
namely, as an articulation of woman’s experience in terms analogous to con-
current feminist concerns (Rycenga, “Not the Same Situation: Joni Mitchell’s
Work as a Sonic Document of Feminism,” Symposium on the Music and Art of
Joni Mitchell, McGill University, 27 October 2004).
4. Interview with Penny Valentine, Sounds, 3 June 1972; in Luftig, 46.
5. Barney Hoskyns, “Our Lady of Sorrows,” Mojo, December 1994; in Luftig,
174–75.
6. The name of her second publishing company, Siquomb, derives from a projected
original children’s story set in a (Tolkien-inspired) mythical kingdom (Karen
O’Brien, Shadows and Light: Joni Mitchell, The Definitive Biography [London:
Virgin Books, 2001], 52). The first paperback editions of Tolkien’s trilogy were
issued in 1965.
7. Another expression of such highly romantic, open-ended yearning for the
unknown is found in Bilbo’s traveling song, “The Road goes ever on and on,”
from the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings.
8. Crosby, Stills & Nash (Atlantic Records SD 8229), 1969.
9. Fleischer, Joni Mitchell, 58.
10. Edward D. Berkowitz, Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of
the Seventies (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 158.
11. Tom Wolfe, “The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening,” in Mauve Gloves
and Madmen, Clutter and Vine (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976),
126–67; Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of
Diminishing Expectations (New York: Norton, 1979). See also Edwin Schur, The
Awareness Trap: Self-Absorption Instead of Social Change (New York: Quadrangle,
1976).
12. Flanagan, “Lady of the Canyon,” 176. Mitchell described her stay on Crete in
more detail in Larry LeBlanc, “Joni Takes a Break,” Rolling Stone, 4 March 1971.
13. Compare the sentiment in “Night in the City” (SS): “we run on laughing with
no one to meet.” There are embryonic expressions of bohemia such as this (and
the alternative community of “Sisotowbell Lane”) in the first album, though
they have not yet coalesced into a full thematic representation.
14. Compare the same range of economic options in “Barangrill” (“the thumb and
the satchel/Or the rented Rolls-Royce”), where she presents it as a dilemma of
personal expression.
15. Hoskyns, Our Lady of Sorrows; in Luftig, 167.
16. Interview with Cameron Crowe, in The Rolling Stone Interviews: Talking with the
Legends of Rock and Roll, 1967–1980, ed. Peter Herbst (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1981), 381.
17. For a study that places hippie culture in the context of a long history of bohe-
mian countercultural expression, see Richard Miller, Bohemia: The Protoculture
Then and Now (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977).

18. Elizabeth Brake, “‘To Live Outside the Law, You Must Be Honest’: Freedom in
Dylan’s Lyrics,” in Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Thinking),
ed. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), 78–89; see
79.
19. Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975), 17,
21, 33.
20. Hoskyns, Our Lady of Sorrows; in Luftig, 167–68. For a glimpse of the glam-
orous social scene open to the newly minted musical celebrities, see Barney
Hoskyns, Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the L.A.
Canyons, 1967–1976 (London: Fourth Estate, 2005), 188–90.
21. In a live performance from 1983, Mitchell embellishes the refrain with four
extra lines, describing the player himself as a “fallen angel” and a “rising star,”
thus confirming him as one of her wild rebel characters. See Refuge of the Roads
(Shout Factory DVD 30352), 2004.
22. O’Brien, Shadows and Light, 133–34.
23. JM: “When I retired I felt I never really wanted to do it again—ever. . . . I
gained a strange perspective of performing. I had a bad attitude about it, you
know. I felt like what I was writing was too personal to be applauded for”
(interview with Penny Valentine, Sounds, 3 June 1972; in Luftig, 49).
24. Mitchell sounds this motif again in “Court and Spark”: “I couldn’t let go of
L.A./City of the fallen angels.”
25. The visual art associated with this album also projects intense ambivalence regard-
ing the rose imagery. On the inner gatefold of the album, Mitchell includes a
felt-tip pen drawing of a woman rapturously smelling flowers in what appears to
be a garden setting (though unofficially, the drawing has acquired the title Judy
Collins in the Green Room.) This suggests yet another interpretation of the song title
(shared by the album), namely, the desire to recover a sense of integration with
nature. (This is borne out by the cover photography of Joni set within the wild
Canadian landscape.) On the other hand, on the cover of the For the Roses songbook,
Mitchell’s drawing depicts a whinnying or smirking horse wreathed with roses, in
rear view, on which is superimposed the figures of three “fancy women in thirties
evening gowns,” so that the rose bouquets they hold aloft appear to emerge from
the horse’s ass. Inside the songbook, accompanying the printed lyrics to the title
song, is a drawing of a bedroom or hotel room interior. A male singer sits on the
bed in a despondent, drooping pose, guitar at his side; in the foreground a cut rose
in a whiskey bottle rests on the table near an abandoned game of solitaire.
26. Mitchell makes an explicit connection here to a statement by Mingus (“every-
thing I touched turned to gold”) included as a rap (“Coin in the Pocket”) lead-
ing into this song.
27. On Castaneda and the fad for borrowed Indian spirituality, see Philip Deloria,
“Counterculture Indians and the New Age,” in Imagine Nation: The American
Counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s, ed. Peter Braunstein and Michael William
Doyle (New York: Routledge, 2002), 159–88, esp. 174.

28. Mitchell uses these two sites to structure the entire album, prefacing its two
parts with lines from this song. Part 1 (“I came to the city”) has an urban set-
ting; part 2 (“Out of the city and down to the seaside”), various pastoral set-
tings. The urban, the pastoral, and the visionary horizon are all captured in
Mitchell’s elaborate cover art for the album; the visionary portion of the cover
is set off by its widened focus, lack of color, infinite fan of sunrays, and flight of
gulls (more on this album as a whole in chapter 7).
29. Organum is a type of medieval sacred music in which singers harmonize a chant
melody in open-sounding intervals (fourths or fifths).
5. Harmonic Palette
1. John Ephland, “Alternate Tunings,” Down Beat, December 1996.
2. She did devise her own shorthand system for identifying distinct tunings, spec-
ifying the number of half steps separating the pitches of adjacent strings. Thus
standard tuning, E A D G B E, would be written as E–5–5–5–4–5; the tuning
for “That Song about the Midway” (C), E E E F B E, as E–0–12–2–5–5. For
more about tunings, see Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, “My Secret Place: The Guitar
Odyssey of Joni Mitchell,” Acoustic Guitar, August 1996; reprinted in Luftig,
219–30, and in Rodgers, Rock Troubadours (San Anselmo, Calif.: String Letter
Publishing, 2000), 33–55.
3. At an early point in Mitchell’s career, Joel Bernstein took on the role of her
musical archivist, transcribing tunings and fingerings for each song (O’Brien,
Shadows and Light, 50, 92). He was involved in the production of sheet music
for a limited number of albums, namely FR, M, NRH, TI, TT, Hits, and
Misses, as well as the recent anthology Joni Mitchell Complete (Guitar Songbook
Edition).
4. John Rockwell, “The New Artistry of Joni Mitchell,” New York Times, 19
August 1979.
5. JM: “According to the guy who wrote a book on jazz, Victor Feldman, he
defined it and locked it into harmonic laws. Victor Feldman apparently wrote a
technical teaching book or some kind of book on jazz harmony [Musicians Guide
to Chord Progression]. We were playing on a date. What was it? ‘Moon at the
Window’ [WTRF]. Victor was playing vibes. Well, on this one, he got really
uptight. . . . I said, ‘Are the words bothering you?’ He said, ‘I hate the harmony
and the harmonic movement.’ I had to stop and send him home. I said, ‘You
can’t play on something that you hate!’ ” (Ephland, “Alternate Tunings”).
6. Joe Jackson, “The Second Coming of Joni Mitchell,” Hotpress, 26 April 2000.
7. Daniel Levitin, “A Conversation with Joni Mitchell,” Grammy Magazine, Spring
1996; in Luftig, 186–87.
8. Robin Eggar, “Both Sides Now,” The Word, April 2007 (referring to CMRS).
Luftig, 115.

10. Ethan Brown, “Influences: Joni Mitchell,” New York Magazine, 9 May 2005.
“Drawing from classical composers and the great pre-World War II pop
songwriters such as Gershwin, she came up with original and complex chord
structures” (interview with Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times, 20 September
2004).
11. The anecdote about Rachmaninov is ubiquitous; see, e.g., O’Brien, Shadows and
Light, 20; Stephen Holden, “Joni Mitchell Finds the Peace of Middle Age,” New
York Times, 17 March 1991; in Luftig, 155.
12. Interview with Chris Douridas, “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” KCRW-FM, 12
September 1994.
13. Interview with Tony Hale, “Rock Master Class,” Capitol 95.8FM, London, 29
December 1985.
14. Kristine McKenna, “Lady of the Canyon,” Spin, May 1988. The following quo-
tation (discussing tritone motion) also highlights the notion of a critical per-
spective through harmony: “The church forbade it. You know why? Because it
evokes doubt. Every chord must be designed to keep the eyes lifted up to the
cathedral ceiling, and somehow or other this . . . makes the heart tilt. . . . It takes
your eyes off the cathedral ceiling and makes them look at your toes” (interview
with Chris Douridas, “Morning Becomes Eclectic”).
15. She never uses minor mode as the basis for a song, preferring Aeolian or
Dorian.
16. On modal usage in pop/rock, with a focus on the lowered 7̂, see Allan Moore,
“The So-Called ‘Flattened Seventh’ in Rock,” Popular Music 14 (1995):
185–201.
17. The following modes are less common in popular music: Lydian (corresponding
to the scale from F to F on the white piano keys), Phrygian (E to E), and Locrian
(B to B).
18. Ken Stephenson, What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2002), especially chap. 5, “Harmonic Succession.” For
discussion of increased harmonic options, see 103; for relaxed goal orientation,
see 119; for deemphasis of tonic cadence, see 111–12. Stephenson goes so far as
to propose a new “rock standard” of harmonic movement (defined 103–104),
but this position is weakened by his acknowledgment of the persistence of the
older standard alongside the new one, as well as their hybridization (108)—not
to mention his failure to define the precise scope of the term “rock.”
19. On modal mixture in pop/rock generally, see Walter Everett, “Confessions
from Blueberry Hell, or, Pitch Can Be a Sticky Substance,” in Expression in
Pop-Rock Music: A Collection of Critical and Analytical Essays, ed. Everett (New
York: Garland, 2000), 269–345; specifically 326–30. Elsewhere, Everett pro-
poses a typology of tonal systems active in rock (“Making Sense of Rock’s Tonal
Systems,” Music Theory Online 10/4 [December 2004]). The five categories I
will be using in this chapter exhibit some apparent overlap with his types (thus
my modal category parallels his Type 2, my polymodal category his Type 3a,

my polytonal category his Type 3b), but the two methods of classification are
at odds in other ways. First, in contrast to Everett, whose aim is a systematic
theory of syntactic principles, I am describing collections of harmonic resources
without making categorical claims about syntax. (Thus my chromatic category
he would divide according to whether the syntax is tonal, pentatonic, or free.)
Second, whereas Everett posits “common-practice tonality” and its “ageless
principles” as his harmonic standard, I am positing modal usage as the standard
for Joni Mitchell, allowing for a less strict sense of syntactic “norms.” (Thus
for my purposes, the major mode is one mode among others, with no priority
as to functional behavior, while for Everett, major/minor tonality is a separate,
primary, normative category.)
20. The chord charts and harmonic reductions in this book are my own transcrip-
tions, with reference to the songbooks incorporating Joel Bernstein’s notations.
Most of the other published songbooks are unreliable.
21. In traditional tonal practice, this chord would suggest a secondary dominant of
Em (V/ii); but the chord does not resolve to Em. Stephenson offers numerous
examples of such chords appearing in popular music as coloristic alternatives
to an underlying mode, without functioning as secondary dominants (What to
Listen for in Rock, 114–17).
22. Walter Everett includes a discussion of songs with multiple tonal centers in
“Confessions from Blueberry Hell,” 311–12; he uses the term “progressive
tonality.” Elsewhere he states that the Beatles’ exploration of progressive tonal-
ity began with Revolver (1966), in the songs “Good Day Sunshine” (B-A) and
“Doctor Robert” (A-B). “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” from Sgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) is in A-B-G (Everett, The Beatles as Musicians:
Revolver through the Anthology [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999]).
23. Interview with Tony Hale, “Rock Master Class.” See the analysis of “Amelia” in
chapter 4 (Ex. 4.6).
24. In assigning dual keys to such songs, one should not disregard the modal char-
acter of each tonal pole. Thus the keys of “Let the Wind Carry Me” could be
more fully described as F Aeolian/A Aeolian. But since Mitchell’s modal usage
is so often ambiguous or mixed, I have resisted being too specific about naming
modes in the polytonal category.
25. This song shares a tuning, key, and similar chord progressions with “Cactus
Tree” (SS) and “Conversation” (LC), though the effects she aims for in the three
songs are quite different.
26. Judy Collins, Wildflowers (Elektra 74012-2, 1967); arrangement by Joshua
Rifkin.
27. Note that some songs from other categories also exploit a similar polarity, for
example, the polymodal “For Free” (LC) (CM/Mixolydian/Am).
28. JM: “The principle of the game was that . . . C was home and that then you
could venture out anywhere, and if you were meandering out there and you felt
like you were lost, you wandered home to C. And then you departed again. So

we sat down and we recorded three of these improvisational flights [on piano].
From that we edited together a piece of music which was to become the medal-
lion, the insert, in ‘Paprika Plains’” (interview with Tony Hale, “Rock Master
Class”).
29. In a few later songs, Mitchell experiments with pedals laid down on a separate
rhythm track, such as the cricket chirping on a tonic C in “Night Ride Home”
(NRH). “The Three Great Stimulants” (DED) is notable for using an E pedal in
the key of CM/Am.
30. Ephland, “Alternate Tunings.”
31. Interview with Chris Douridas, “Morning Becomes Eclectic.”
6. Melodic Turns
1. Richard Middleton points out the historical derivation of strophic (“stanzaic”)
form from folk traditions (Middleton, “Song Form,” in Continuum Encyclopedia
of Popular Music of the World, ed. John Shepherd et al. [London: Continuum,
2003], 2:513–19; see 515).
2. John Covach calls this ‘AABA form,’ relating it historically to one of the com-
mon forms in Tin Pan Alley songs. His example of AABA (verse-bridge) form
from Tin Pan Alley is “Over the Rainbow” (Arlen-Harburg); his examples
from the 1960s include Carole King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” and
the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (Covach, “Form in Rock Music: A
Primer,” in Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis, ed. Deborah Stein [Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005], 65–76). I will avoid the use of AABA in refer-
ring to song form, reserving such alphabetic shorthand for the analysis of phrase
structure.
3. The original sheet music prints a double bar line at this point to denote a chorus.
4. Some later songs contain sections whose function lies somewhere between
bridge (i.e., modulation/contrast) and chorus (i.e., return/culmination), for
example, “Good Friends” (DED), “Number One,” and “Snakes and Ladders”
(both CMRS). The formally ambiguous “Sweet Sucker Dance” (M) is a special
case, since Mitchell wrote the text to preexisting music by Charles Mingus. The
sixteen-bar section beginning and ending in A (first appearing at the words,
“We move in measures”) behaves musically like a chorus, though Mitchell
doesn’t consistently give it the same text; she does, however, always give it the
same end refrain (“. . . only a dance”). The unconventional order of sections can
be diagrammed as follows (choruses in bold have identical text): V1 Ch Ch B
Ch V2 Ch B Ch.
5. Middleton, “Song Form,” 516. He also identifies the Rolling Stones’
“Satisfaction” as strongly favoring continuity over sectionalism.
6. In these three songs, the instrumental refrain is not used for the introduction.
7. Given the threefold repetition within the verse, the IR is not used as punctua-
tion between every verse in this song, only after the bridge. The sequence of

sections is as follows: (IR) V1 V2 B1 (IR) V3 B2 (IR) V4. Mitchell also varies
the length (5mm.) of the IR pattern for flexibility: verse 1 repeats the pattern
in versions of 4mm. (phrase 1), 5mm. (phrase 2), and 7mm. (phrase 4).
8. This IR also parallels phrases 2 and 4 of the verse.
9. Walter Everett, “Confessions from Blueberry Hell, or, Pitch Can Be a Sticky
Substance,” in Expression in Pop-Rock Music: A Collection of Critical and Analytical
Essays, ed. Everett (New York: Garland, 2000), 269–345; see 293. “There is no
difficulty in finding phrases and subphrases of [irregular length] in the Beatles’
work after 1962, but very few appear before then” (Everett, The Beatles as
Musicians: The Quarry Men through Rubber Soul [New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001], 64).
10. Mitchell has written some completely foursquare songs, but they are in the
minority. For instance, SS contains none, C one (“I Don’t Know Where I Stand”),
LC five (“Morning Morgantown,” “Conversation,” “Ladies of the Canyon,” “Big
Yellow Taxi,” “The Circle Game”), and B two (“My Old Man,” “The Last Time I
Saw Richard”). Some songs, like “Both Sides, Now” (C) and “This Flight Tonight”
(B), are mostly foursquare but include a single carefully placed irregularity.
11. See Ken Stephenson’s discussion of phrase overlaps in What to Listen for in Rock:
A Stylistic Analysis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 9–14.
12. A well-known example from the Beatles is “Eleanor Rigby,” whose irregular
lines (in poetic meter: 2 beats/5 beats/2 beats) call for five-bar musical phrases.
When asked whether she composes melody or lyrics first, Mitchell has consis-
tently stated that the melody generally comes first, and she works the lyrics out
afterward, though I presume there is some musical adjustment as the lyrics take
shape. Nevertheless, in specific analyses I try to sidestep the question of which
element (melody or lyrics) is prior and which is a subsequent response, prefer-
ring to understand the two as mutually supportive and constitutive.
13. The measure numbers in this song are inexact due to frequent changes of meter
and irregular bar lengths.
14. Middleton traces such patterns to nineteenth-century commercial popular song
(“Song Form,” 514), and develops a class-based interpretation, according to
which the formal symmetries of so-called bourgeois song reflect deep-seated
ideological values (individualism, self-sufficiency) (Middleton, Studying Popular
Music [Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990], 10, 16–17). I will not be
subscribing to such an argument here, preferring to relate formal characteristics
to social function (leisure, aesthetic contemplation, etc.) rather than class ideol-
ogy, and seeking signs of individuation at a higher structural level.
15. Middleton, “Song Form,” 514; quoting János Maróthy, Music and the Bourgeois,
Music and the Proletarian (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiado, 1974).
16. In my phrase structure diagrams, sequential letters refer to distinct melodic
material. Open phrases are notated with a subscript o; other phrases are closed.
I have taken harmonic cadence as primary sign of closure; not all phrases marked
as closed have a linear arrival on 1̂.

17. Two well-known traditional songs with period structure are “Greensleeves” and
“Home Sweet Home.” In these cases the phrases fall into two successive periods,
each member comprising a single phrase (aoa'bob''). There is a great deal of dis-
agreement and confusion in the use of the term period in both classical and pop-
ular music studies. Allen Forte uses it merely to describe any grouping of two
four-bar phrases, with no specificity of function (Forte, The American Popular
Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924–1950 [Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1995], 36–37). Others use it to describe a complementary phrase pair with
or without parallel musical material (such usage occurs in Deborah Stein and
Robert Spillman, Poetry into Song: Performance and Analysis of Lieder [New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996], 175; and Ken Stephenson, What to Listen for in
Rock, 55). Allan Moore introduces a definition proposed by Arnold Schoenberg,
then seems to disregard Schoenberg’s precise criteria (Moore, Rock: The Primary
Text, 58). I will follow the narrow usage of the term (a complementary phrase
pair with parallel musical material) as defined by William E. Caplin, Classical
Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart,
and Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 12. According to my
usage, the period is a special kind of open/closed pair; songwriters can exploit
open/closed relationships without recourse to period structures.
18. Ken Stephenson points out how in rock music, tonal closure is often relocated
from the end of formal (phrase or hypermetric) units to the beginning of formal
units. “As a result, many rock songs proceed through a series of overlapping
propelling gestures”—for example, phrases that begin in the tonic and end
harmonically open (Stephenson, What to Listen for in Rock, 21). From this sound
observation, he proceeds to make the blanket claim that period structures never
apply in rock (60, 111). Unfortunately, he is indiscriminate in his use of the
term “rock,” including pop artists and singer-songwriters in that overarching
category without allowing for any distinctions in practice. Richard Crawford,
in his analysis of this song, is more precise in linking phrase structure to sub-
genre: “Too free in form, redundant in material, and scarce in vocal melody to
pass in 1965 as a standard pop, country, or folk song, Like a Rolling Stone is an
early example of a rock song” (Crawford, America’s Musical Life: A History [New
York: Norton, 2001], 792). Richard Middleton attributes the incorporation of
short open-ended musical loops (“musematic repetition”) in songs such as this
to African American influence (Middleton, Studying Popular Music, 269–84). It
should be mentioned that melodies consisting entirely of open phrases can also
be found in European folksong traditions.
19. As Stephenson explores in useful detail, harmonic practice in pop/rock differs
in significant ways from common tonal practice in classical music. One crucial
area of difference involves the treatment of dominant and subdominant chords
and their arrangement in a syntactic hierarchy. The difference in syntax means
that rules developed for cadential hierarchies in classical music (e.g., “half,”
“imperfect,” “authentic” cadences) are not generally applicable in pop. It also

means that the notion of “cadence” itself needs to be conceived differently. I
follow Stephenson’s pragmatic guidelines, identifying cadences primarily by
rhythmic and textual criteria: “A cadence occurs when the melody comes to
rest at the end of a textual line on [or near] the fourth downbeat of a four-bar
hypermeasure” (Stephenson, What to Listen for in Rock, 57). Thus cadence is
equivalent to phrase articulation; cadences have a wide spectrum of conclusive-
ness; and “open cadences can occur on almost any chord” (58).
20. Mitchell rarely uses period structure. One exception is the verse of “Big Yellow
Taxi” (LC). The first phrase, while it does end on a tonic chord, is melodically
open (ending on 3̂); the second phrase ends on 1̂ with stronger harmonic clo-
sure (aa'). The rudimentary period structure is appropriate to the song’s artless
character. Another example is found in the verse of “The Circle Game” (LC)
(aa'o + a''ob). Like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” this song is designed to be suitable
for communal singing.
21. “Continuation” is a neutral designation, encompassing a variety of more specific
medial functions (such as “contrast,” “development,” etc.). Richard Crawford
glosses the standard aaba phrase pattern of Tin Pan Alley in terms of the func-
tional sequence “statement, restatement, contrast, and return” (America’s Musical
Life, 657–58). Walter Everett describes the sequence in terms of statement,
restatement, departure, and conclusion (aaba or aabc), stating that the model
is “the basis of most of the Beatles’ verses throughout their career” (Everett,
The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology [New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999], 16). Steven Huebner identifies similar functional mod-
els at work in melodies from nineteenth-century Italian opera (“Lyric Form in
Ottocento Opera,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 117 (1992): 123–47), a
repertory that had a strong influence on American popular song of the time (see
Nicholas E. Tawa, Sweet Songs for Gentle Americans: The Parlor Song in America,
1790–1860 [Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press,
1980], 163–64). My terminology is indebted to William Caplin’s theory of for-
mal function in instrumental music, particularly his sentence model (Classical
Form, 9–12), though the correspondence between repertories is not exact.
22. This song has dual tonal centers; the b phrases close on G, the d phrase on A.
23. According to Ex. 5.13, the a phrases appear to be harmonically open, but in
fact, completion of these melodic phrases only occurs upon the following down-
beat, coinciding with tonic arrival.
24. A traditional song using this pattern is “Scarborough Fair”: abocod.
25. For a traditional example of this asymmetrical distribution of open/closed, see
the Stephen Foster song “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” (aoa'oboa''). For
examples from Tin Pan Alley, see George Gershwin, “A Foggy Day” (aoboaoc),
and Cole Porter, “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” (aoboaob').
26. While the first three c phrases are clearly two bars long with pickup, the wordy
fourth c phrase is tricky to measure, since its “pickup” constitutes virtually an
entire bar, sounding like an overlap with the previous phrase.

27. “Edith and the Kingpin” (HSL) also has an open second half; its first half is
periodic: aoboco + aoboc/doeo (see Ex. 6.6).
28. Models of open-ended phrase structure occur in the folksong repertory. Judy
Collins included her own adaptations of two examples on her first albums: “I
Know Where I’m Going” (aobo) on A Maid of Constant Sorrow (1961), and the
ravishing “Golden Apples of the Sun” (aoboaoco/doaoboco) on the album of that
title (1962).
29. Philip Tagg provides a useful survey of melodic typologies, based on various
factors such as scale, rhythm, motivic/phrase structure, and so on. He cites a
standard ethnomusicological method of melodic classification by pitch contour,
in which basic types are labeled according to rather impressionistic gestural
categories: rising, falling, arched, terraced, oscillatory, wavy, and so on (Tagg,
“Melody,” in Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, 2:567–84;
see 569). A similar typology of melodic contour is introduced in Middleton,
Studying Popular Music, 203–207.
30. The sense of formal extension, as described by terms like aabc or statement/restate-
ment/departure/conclusion, I have covered under the heading of phrase structure.
31. See the assorted definitions and extended discussion in Gary Burns, “A Typology
of ‘Hooks’ in Popular Records,” Popular Music 6 (1986): 1–20.
32. To be precise, the iii chord should be spelled as a Imaj7 with 3̂ in the bass
(Bmaj7/D). This progression allows Mitchell to exploit the 3̂–2̂–1̂ bass
motion while sustaining the tonic B as a pedal in the middle of the texture,
where it interacts poignantly with the A of the first chord. The progression
(Imaj7/3̂–ii7–I) also appears prominently in “Morning Morgantown” (LC)
(at the end of the b phrases) and “The Circle Game” (LC) (intro and end of
chorus).
Luftig, 116.
34. JM: “After Court and Spark I got fed up with four beats to the bar, and by the
time I hit the Mingus project I was having the rhythm section play totally up
in the air. . . . Then at a certain point I began to crave that order again. So doing
this album [WTRF] was a natural reentry into it” (Garbarini, “Joni Mitchell Is
a Nervy Broad”; in Luftig, 115).
35. Stephen Holden, review of HSL, Rolling Stone, 15 January 1976; Ariel Swartley,
“The Siren and the Symbolist,” Rolling Stone, 10 February 1977; Kristine
McKenna, “Bleak Visions of Life in the Fast Lane,” Los Angeles Times, 25
December 1977; Michael Watts, “Joni: A Fallible Magician,” Melody Maker,
24 December 1977; Janet Maslin, “Joni Mitchell’s Reckless and Shapeless
‘Daughter,’” Rolling Stone, 9 March 1978; Holden, “Madam Joni Almost Pulls
It Off,” Village Voice, 19 December 1977. Watts prefaces his review by pointing
out how “on her previous two albums she patently stopped building songs upon
attractive hooks and became more interested in textures and rhythms, to the
point where Hejira, her last record, was recitative in tone.”

36. An exception is the thoroughly mean-spirited review of Hejira by Perry Meisel:
“Usually, Mitchell’s melodies have been so compelling that her songs stand
up on purely musical grounds, at least until her last LP, The Hissing of Summer
Lawns, which sounded so aimless that it put off many of Joni’s oldest fans. . . .
The predominance of the verbal and vocal on Hejira is largely the result of its
simple dearth of melody” (“An End to Innocence: How Joni Mitchell Fails,”
Village Voice, 24 January 1977; in Luftig, 79).
37. Don Heckman pointed this out at the time in a review of DJRD: “Very few
other artists make such intense demands upon such a large audience: Dylan
does, of course, even though the rudimentary qualities of his composing skills
make his music both more obvious and more accessible. [He mentions a few
other artists.] As with Mitchell, their audiences usually gravitate toward the
more accessible, lightweight cuts than the acute, penetrating ones” (Heckman,
“She Soars, She Orbits, She Never Lands,” High Fidelity, March 1978).
38. See her comments on appropriate text declamation in Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers,
“Setting the Stage: The Vocal and Lyrical Craft of Joni Mitchell,” Acoustic
Guitar, February 1997; in Luftig, 257.
39. Joe Jackson, “The Second Coming of Joni Mitchell,” Hotpress, 26 April 2000.
40. Daniel Sonenberg, “‘Who in the World She Might Be’: A Contextual and
Stylistic Approach to the Early Music of Joni Mitchell” (D.M.A. diss., City
University of New York, 2003), 87.
41. Mitchell subjects the descending triad and subsequent rising two-note tag to
motivic development in the refrain phrases. Note that the IR features repeti-
tions of motive j high in the keyboards.
7. Collections and Cycles

Luftig, 128. Further details can be found in O’Brien, Shadows and Light, 124–26.
2. Ruth O. Bingham, “The Early Nineteenth-Century Song Cycle,” in The
Cambridge Companion to the Lied, ed. James Parsons (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 101–19; see 104.
3. Allan F. Moore, The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), 70–73.
4. For instance, see David Brackett, The Pop, Rock, and Soul Reader: Histories and
Debates (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 209. For a discussion of
concept albums in Zappa’s output, see James Borders, “Form and the Concept
Album: Aspects of Modernism in Frank Zappa’s Early Releases,” Perspectives of
New Music 39 (2001): 118–60.
5. A critic made this connection at the time: “The album [Song to a Seagull] is one
of the few I can think of—the others that spring to mind are Sgt. Pepper and the
Mothers of Invention LPs—which successfully hangs together as a complete

whole” (Karl Dallas, “Joni, the Seagull from Saskatoon,” Melody Maker, 28
September 1968; in Luftig, 7).
6. See Robert W. Butts, “More Than a Collection of Songs: The Concept Album
in Country Music,” Mid-America Folklore 16 (Fall 1988): 90–99.
7. Deena Weinstein identifies several Pink Floyd albums unified by central themes
(“Progressive Rock as Text: The Lyrics of Roger Waters,” in Progressive Rock
Reconsidered, ed. Kevin Holm-Hudson [New York: Routledge, 2002], 91–109;
see 100).
8. Systematic attention to the musical construction of coherence stems from Arthur
Komar’s analysis of Schumann song cycles (Komar, “The Music of Dichterliebe:
The Whole and Its Parts,” in Robert Schumann: Dichterliebe, ed. Komar [New
York: Norton, 1971], 63–94). His enumeration of analytical categories (see
63–66) has been influential; Komar’s influence is discussed in David Ferris,
Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis and the Genre of the Romantic Cycle (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000), 11–12. But note John Daverio’s comment:
“Even Arthur Komar’s criteria for establishing ‘song cyclehood’—unity of
poetic content, shared thematic, harmonic, and rhythmic figures, continuity
between adjacent songs, coherent tonal planning—represent less a set of pre-
scriptions than a series of possibilities” (Daverio, “The Song Cycle: Journeys
through a Romantic Landscape,” in German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century, ed.
Rufus Hallmark [New York: Schirmer, 1996], 279–312; see 281).
9. Robert Gauldin diagrams a tightly organized internal grouping of this kind
according to a “double-tonic” complex (A/C) on side 2 of the Beatles’ Abbey
Road (Gauldin, “Beethoven, Tristan, and the Beatles,” College Music Symposium
30 [1990]: 142–52; see 150).
10. Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (1816) is anomalous in its strongly coherent
tonal structure; the Romantic cycles that followed allowed for much more
ambiguity in their harmonic plan.
11. “The association of Part I of the narrative with the complex ballad and Part II
with the simpler genres [such as gospel and blues] helps convey the two sides
of the protagonist’s personality” (Peter Kaminsky, “The Popular Album as Song
Cycle: Paul Simon’s ‘Still Crazy after All These Years,’” College Music Symposium
32 [1992]: 38–54; see 44).
12. Borders, “Form and the Concept Album.” The Beatles’ Abbey Road features a par-
tial recapitulation of “You Never Give Me Your Money” (Gauldin, “Beethoven,
Tristan, and the Beatles,” 150–51).
13. “There has been a definite thread in the last few albums that Joni has cre-
ated—in The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira and especially in Don Juan’s
Reckless Daughter. Joni feels that in a sense she is trying to make movies within
the concept of an album, rather than it being a collection of individual songs.
‘The music is the score,’ she says, ‘the voice speaks as characters speak—but
also sets up the scene—it’s also the camera. And the music is background
music, also it is shading, framing it, it is also visual in a way. Sometimes it’s

merely accompaniment, but from time to time it paints too. The last three
albums—involuntarily I have seen the whole thing visually: cast, costumed,
moving. It’s like I’ve seen it with the clarity of a dream’” (Anthony Fawcett,
“Joni Mitchell—A Search for Clarity,” in California Rock, California Sound [Los
Angeles: Reed Books, 1978], 50–65; see 63).
14. Song to a Seagull was the originally intended title (spelled out in gull shapes on the
album cover), dropped through a misunderstanding during production. The album
was released under the title Joni Mitchell (see O’Brien, Shadows and Light, 81).
15. “Sisotowbell Lane” has a riverside setting, amid woodlands and grasslands,
although the reference to Noah in the rain calls up the subliminal image of an
ark surviving the flood.
16. “Mitchell says Hejira’s songs were written during or after three journeys she took
in late 1975 and the first half of 1976”: touring with Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder
Revue, a concert tour for Hissing, and a cross-country automobile trip to Maine, on
the return journey of which she was traveling alone (Doug Fischer, “The Trouble
She’s Seen,” Ottawa Citizen, 8 October 2006; see O’Brien, Shadows and Light, 158–68).
Since the album is so markedly autobiographical, I will not be making a strong
distinction in this section between the poetic speaker and Mitchell herself.
17. “The word is used in Islam to refer to Mohammed’s flight from persecution in
the seventh century, when he fled Mecca to reach safety in Medina, where he
founded the first Moslem community” (O’Brien, Shadows and Light, 167).
18. For another concentrated example of mercurial discourse, see the third verse of
“Furry Sings the Blues,” which begins with evocative description of the neigh-
borhood location, then plunges into fragmentary impressions in an unstable
mingling of past and present: “Diamond boys and satin dolls/Bourbon laugh-
ter—ghosts—history falls/To parking lots and shopping malls/As they tear
down old Beale Street/Old Furry sings the blues.”
19. For details about the production of the cover photography, see O’Brien, Shadows
and Light, 165–67. The published songbook contains additional photographic
collages from the same session. The recent compilation Songs of a Prairie Girl
also uses images from the earlier session for its cover.
20. The line in “Hejira” in fact refers to a “ballroom girl”; in the live performance
included in S&L, Mitchell changes the phrase to “bridal girl.”
21. Interview with Chip Stern, Musician, January/February 1995. In the same
interview, Mitchell claims that her desire to reproduce this sound in live per-
formance led to the invention of the Roland Jazz Chorus amp.
22. This interpretation depends on hearing song 7, “Dreamland,” as in C Aeolian,
which has always been my experience. I know of others, however, who hear its
melody as favoring a B center. I grant that Mitchell is using the tonal ambi-
guity of unaccompanied chant to full advantage in this song.
23. The role of the Split-Tongued Spirit was spoken by Boyd Elder (credited as “El
Bwyd”), artist and mystic from Texas, an associate of the Eagles in the early
1970s (Fawcett, California Rock, California Sound, 52, 64, 130).

24. Some versions of “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies” include the following
verse: “I wish I had known before I courted/That love had been so hard to gain/
I’d of locked my heart in a box of golden/And fastened it down with a silver
chain.” Many versions also include the following lines: “I wish I were some
little sparrow/And I had wings and I could fly/[. . .]But I am not some little
sparrow/I have no wings nor can I fly.”
25. Castaneda’s first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
(Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press), appeared in 1968. By
1977 (when DJRD was being written), five books in the series had been pub-
lished in trade editions.
26. JM interview in Fawcett, California Rock, California Sound, 61.
27. JM: “In the dream world on the album there’s a printed dream, which is a
dream I had on the Rolling Thunder Tour, about Paprika Plains—it’s not sung
but this is a real dream” (Fawcett, California Rock, California Sound, 61).
28. JM: “The piano—all of a sudden I went through a breakthrough period last year
where I sat down and off the top of my head, I couldn’t play anything wrong. What
I mean by that is that if I hit what would be called a wrong note, a dissonance, I
would repeat it and it would sound fantastic—like where a dissonance was simply
another statement and was not a wrong note. You know, lay on it; you hit a dis-
sonance—well lay on it! . . . The instrumental passage in the middle [of “Paprika
Plains”] just poured out” (Fawcett, California Rock, California Sound, 60). “What
I’d done was give myself a freeing lesson and said to myself, ‘Everything resolves
to C; no matter where you go you can’t hit a wrong note, just go home to C.’ We
went in the studio and cut this thing four times. . . . From those four [improvisa-
tions] I edited together a piece that was to become the bridge for ‘Paprika Plains’”
(Garbarini, “Joni Mitchell Is a Nervy Broad”; in Luftig, 121–22).
29. Compare Michael Watts on “Don Juan”: “The title song is a dazzling, meta-
phorical piece which uses images of snakes/trains and eagles/planes to express
not just personal inner conflict but the sense of a riven America” (Watts, “Joni:
A Fallible Magician”).
30. Karen O’Brien explains the genesis of Mitchell’s black drag character, Art
Nouveau (Shadows and Light, 174–75).
31. Fawcett, California Rock, California Sound, 52.
32. It is also reproduced on the back cover of Gilles Hébert, ed., Voices: The Work of
Joni Mitchell (Saskatoon, Sask.: Mendel Art Gallery, 2000).
33. For detailed discussion of the painting’s genesis, symbolism, and relation to the
album, see Mitchell’s remarks in Fawcett, California Rock, California Sound, 64
(archived at http://jmdl.com).
34. JM: “I remember they wrote, ‘What is she trying to say [by donning black
drag]—that blacks have more fun?’ Regardless of what I was trying to say—
because a lot of it is instinct—the important point is the chain of events. I was
just going on the hottest impulses I had, the creative ideas” (Angela Greca,
“Joni Mitchell,” Rock Photo, June 1985).

35. Compare Jennifer Rycenga’s remarks on experimental large-scale form in
albums by Yes and PJ Harvey: “These fragmentary narratives hint at—even
beg for—interconnection; . . . tendrils of relational possibility hover around the
whole album, creating a prismatic, morphing sense of form. Obvious as it is
that the songs belong together, the questions of how and why grow and shift
rather than resolve, driving repeated listenings. . . . It was exactly this kind of
compositional construction—in which formal markers are everywhere, but the
form as an abstract external entity remains inscrutable—that annoyed rock
critics” (“Endless Caresses: Queer Exuberance in Large-Scale Form in Rock,”
in Queering the Popular Pitch, ed. Sheila Whiteley and Jennifer Rycenga [New
York: Routledge, 2006], 235–47; see 238, 240). Such deliberate exploitation
of formal ambiguity is a hallmark of the Romantic cycles of Robert Schumann,
as theorized by David Ferris: “The context that the cycle sets up is provocative;
it implies structural connections and hints at larger meanings, but it never
makes them explicit or definitive. . . . Schumann flirts with incoherence as he
experiments with fragmentary and discontinuous musical structures” (Ferris,
Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis, 6, 17).
8. A Tribute
1. Review of DJRD by Blair Jackson, BAM, January 1978; in Luftig, 85–86.
2. A Tribute to Joni Mitchell (Nonesuch 2 122620), 2007. Karen O’Brien includes
a preliminary playlist for A Case of Joni in her 2001 biography (Shadows and
Light, 334). Five of the originally announced covers made it onto the eventual
album. Dropped from the slate were P. M. Dawn, Stevie Wonder, Janet Jackson,
Duncan Sheik, Chaka Khan, Etta James, Elton John, Lindsey Buckingham, and
Mick Fleetwood.
3. Bradley Bambarger, “Both Sides Again,” New Jersey Star-Ledger, 22 April
2007.
4. Review of A Tribute, Bernard Zuel, The Guardian, 20 April 2007.
5. For another reviewer, lang’s cover song “fits her like a tailored suit” (Ray Mark
Rinaldi, “A Tough Act to Follow,” Denver Post, 23 April 2007).
6. Much more successful and vibrant, to my ears, is the cover of “Edith and the
Kingpin” on the recent album by Herbie Hancock, River: The Joni Letters (2007),
with Tina Turner as vocalist.
7. Jim Farber, “Echoing the Lady of the Canyon,” New York Daily News, 23 April
2007.

BIBLIOGR APH Y
Works by Joni Mitchell

Discography
Song to a Seagull. Reprise RS 6293. 1968.
Clouds. Reprise RS 6341. 1969.
Ladies of the Canyon. Reprise RS 6376. 1970.
Blue. Reprise MS 2038. 1971.
For the Roses. Asylum SD 5057. 1972.
Court and Spark. Asylum 7E 1001. 1974.
Miles of Aisles. (Live.) Asylum AB 202. 1974.
The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Asylum 7E 1051. 1975.
Hejira. Asylum 7E 1087. 1976.
Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. Asylum BB 701. 1977.
Mingus. Asylum 5E 505. 1979.
Shadows and Light. (Live.) Asylum BB 704. 1980.
Wild Things Run Fast. Geffen GHS 2019. 1982.
Dog Eat Dog. Geffen GHS 24074. 1985.
Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm. Geffen GHS 24172. 1988.
Night Ride Home. Geffen GEFD 24302. 1991.
Turbulent Indigo. Reprise 9 45786-2. 1994.
Hits. (Compilation.) Reprise 9 46326-2. 1996.
Misses. (Compilation.) Reprise 9 46358-2. 1996.
Taming the Tiger. Reprise 9 46451-2. 1998.
Both Sides Now. (Standards.) Reprise 9 47620-2. 2000.
Travelogue. (Compilation in orchestral arrangements.) Nonesuch 79817-2.
2002.
Complete Geffen Recordings. (Reissue.) Geffen B000081902. 2003.
The Beginning of Survival. (Compilation.) Geffen B000283602. 2004.
Dreamland. (Compilation.) Asylum/Reprise/Nonesuch/Rhino WTVD
76520. 2004.
Songs of a Prairie Girl. (Compilation.) Asylum/Reprise/Nonesuch/Rhino R2
74634. 2005.
Shine. Hear Music HMCD-30457. 2007.
Instrumental/Vocal Scores
The Music of Joni Mitchell. New York: Charles Hansen, 1969.
Ladies of the Canyon. New York: Charles Hansen, 1970.
Blue. New York: Charles Hansen, 1971.
Joni Mitchell Complete. New York: Charles Hansen, 1972.
For the Roses. New York: Warner Bros. Publications, 1973.
Court and Spark. New York: Warner Bros. Publications, 1974.
Joni Mitchell Songbook: Complete Volume Number 1 (1966–1970). New York:
Warner Bros. Publications, 1974.
Joni Mitchell Songbook: Complete Volume Number 2. New York: Warner Bros.
Publications, 1975.
The Hissing of Summer Lawns. New York: Warner Bros. Publications, 1976.
Hejira. New York: Warner Bros. Publications, 1977.
Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. New York: Warner Bros. Publications, 1978.
Mingus. New York: Warner Bros. Publications, 1979.
Wild Things Run Fast. New York: Warner Bros. Publications, 1983.
Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm. Secaucus, N.J.: Warner Bros. Publications, 1988.
Night Ride Home. Transcribed and arranged for piano by John Curtin; special
guitar transcriptions by Joel Bernstein. Secaucus, N.J.: Warner Bros.
Publications, 1991.
Turbulent Indigo. Transcribed and arranged by John Curtin; special guitar
transcriptions by Joel Bernstein. Miami: Warner Bros. Publications,
1995.
Hits. Arrangements by Hemme Luttjeboer and Dylan Schorer based on
transcriptions by Joel Bernstein. Miami: Warner Bros. Publications,
1997.
Misses. Arrangements by Hemme Luttjeboer based on transcriptions by Joel
Bernstein. Miami: Warner Bros. Publications, 1997.
Taming the Tiger. Arranged and edited by Ethan Neuburg, John Curtin, and
Joel Bernstein; guitar notes by Howard Wright. Miami: Warner Bros.
Publications, 1999.
Joni Mitchell Complete (Guitar Songbook Edition). Transcriptions by Joel
Bernstein and Daniel Libertino. Van Nuys, Calif.: Alfred Publishing,
2006. [Released and quickly withdrawn by the publisher in anticipation
of a corrected edition.]
Video Recordings
Shadows and Light. (Live.) Shout Factory DVD 30161. (1980) 2003.
Refuge of the Roads. (Live.) Shout Factory DVD 30352. (1984) 2004.
Come In from the Cold. (Video collection.) Geffen GEFV-39512. 1991.
Painting with Words and Music. (Live.) Eagle Rock EE39035-9. (1998)
2004.
258 | BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
The Complete Poems and Lyrics. New York: Crown Publishers, 1997.
Voices: The Work of Joni Mitchell. [Voices: Joni Mitchell.] Ed. Gilles Hébert.
Saskatoon, Sask.: Mendel Art Gallery, 2000.
Web sites devoted to Joni Mitchell

The Joni Mitchell Discussion List. http://jmdl.com. Fan-oriented site
includes guitar tunings and tablature transcriptions, and a vast searchable
archive (Library) of journalistic sources (as of fall 2007).
The Joni Mitchell Home Page. http://jonimitchell.com. Official web site
includes a biographic essay, a comprehensive chronology of appearances,
discographic information, a searchable database of the complete lyrics, a
compiled list of Mitchell songs covered by other artists, and selections of
Mitchell’s visual art. The JMDL Library is also duplicated here (as of fall
2007).
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INDEX
aesthetic representation. See under representation Bowie, David, 157; “Jean Genie,” 49
Alias, Don, 34 Brackett, David, 10, 11
“All My Trials,” 119 Brake, Elizabeth, 92–93
analysis, music, 9–11, 229, 235n27, 235n29 Brecker, Michael, 34
art. See under themes, musico-poetic bridge. See under song forms
art song, 4, 5–7, 9, 11, 39–40, 153, 233n11. Browning, Robert, 47
See also classical music; high/low art
distinction; song cycles Canada, 3, 32, 42, 65, 84, 89, 91, 99, 204,
autobiographical voice. See under voice 208, 220, 233n10, 240n18, 243n25
awards, 3, 30. See also Polar Music Prize; Rock Castaneda, Carlos, 103, 218–19, 222, 225
and Roll Hall of Fame “Centerpiece” (Mandel-Hendricks), 23, 157,
162–63, 184
“Baby I Don’t Care” (Leiber-Stoller), 26 Chopin, Frédéric, 118
Badrena, Manolo, 217 chromaticism. See harmonic categories
Beatles, 4, 248n9, 250n21; Abbey Road, 253n9, classical music, 4, 6, 7–11, 40, 118, 233n10,
253n12; “And I Love Her,” 149; “Doctor 233n11, 245n10, 249n19. See also art
Robert,” 246n22; “Eleanor Rigby,” 127, song; high/low art distinction; song cycles
248n12; “For No One,” 240n18; “Good Cohen, Leonard, 9, 234n20, 240n18;
Day Sunshine,” 246n22; “I Want To “Suzanne,” 52
Hold Your Hand,” 149, 247n2; “Lucy coherence, cyclic, 194–226, 253n8, 256n35;
in the Sky with Diamonds,” 246n22; accidental, 196, 199, 201, 213;
“Norwegian Wood,” 119; Sgt. Pepper’s continuity between adjacent songs,
Lonely Hearts Club Band, 195–96, 198, 22, 195, 196, 197–98, 213; motivic
252n5; “She Said She Said,” 152; “Yellow connections, 196–97, 202–3, 212–17;
Submarine,” 50; “Yesterday,” 149 overarching musical plans, 196, 198,
Beats, 42, 92, 94. See also Kerouac, Jack 212–13, 223; overarching poetic plans,
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 21, 39, 54; An die ferne 196, 199, 201–2, 203, 204, 220–24; and
Geliebte, 253n10 psychic coherence, 194–95, 203; recurrent
Berkowitz, Edward D., 89 imagery, 196, 199–201, 204–10; role of
Bernstein, Joel, 244n3, 246n20 listener, 195, 199, 226, 256n35; stylistic
Bible, 29, 31, 45, 50, 64, 95, 100, 159, 220, consistency, 204, 210–11, 217; thematic
235n23, 238n29, 238n33, 241n25, connections, 196, 199–201, 204–10,
254n15 218–225, 253n7; tonal planning, 198,
Bingham, Ruth, 195–96, 199 199, 212–13, 253n9, 253n10; unifying
Björk, 228 expressive tones, 196, 217. See also
Blake, William, 31, 69, 235n23 concept albums; song cycles
bohemia. See under themes, musico-poetic Collins, Judy, 143, 146, 240n18, 243n25,
“Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen), 45 251n28
Booth, Wayne, 52 “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies,” 218,
Boulez, Pierre, 4, 7–8 255n24
communal voice. See under voice fan behavior, 15–16, 194
compositional method, 41, 160, 239n2, “Father and Son” (Cat Stevens), 45
246n28, 248n12, 255n28 Feldman, Victor, 244n5
concept albums, 13, 195–226, 252n5, 253n13; female authorship, undervaluing of, 4–5,
and cover art, 195, 199, 200–201, 206, 14, 233n8. See also feminism; woman’s
209–210, 224. See also coherence, cyclic; perspective
song cycles feminism, 82, 241n2, 242n3. See also female
confinement. See under themes, musico-poetic authorship, undervaluing of; gender roles;
Coppage, Noel, 9 woman’s perspective
Costello, Elvis, 228 focalization. See person, grammatical;
counterculture. See youth movement/ perspective, poetic
counterculture form. See coherence, cyclic; phrase structure;
Covach, John, 11 poetic structure; song forms
critic persona. See personae, poetic fortune. See under themes, musico-poetic
critical reception, 25, 30. See also popular Franklin, Aretha, 26, 39
reception free spirit. See personae, poetic
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, 33–34 freedom. See under themes, musico-poetic
“Cruel Mother, The,” 119 Friedan, Betty, 82
Frith, Simon, 8
dance, 5, 26, 40, 92, 164, 233n10, 240n12. See Frye, Northrop, 46
also under imagery, poetic
Davis, Miles, 15, 210, 235n1; Nefertiti, 210 Galatea, 53, 81
Debussy, Claude, 6, 118 gender roles, 58, 64, 80–84, 89. See also female
diction, poetic: ordinary, 23, 29, 41, 56–57, 59, authorship, undervaluing of; feminism;
99, 112, 217, 223; heightened, 23, 29, woman’s perspective
41–42, 56, 57–59, 106, 142, 222, 223 Gendron, Bernard, 4
disillusionment. See under themes, musico-poetic Genette, Gérard, 53
dramatic mode. See under mode, poetic genre. See song genres
Drifters, 157 Gershwin, George, 118, 245n10; “A Foggy
“Drunken Sailor,” 119 Day,” 250n25
dulcimer, 91, 142–43 “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen,” 119
Dunaway, Faye, 43 “Golden Apples of the Sun,” 251n28
Dylan, Bob, 4, 77, 92–93, 185, 252n37, “Greensleeves,” 126, 249n17
254n16; “Blowin’ in the Wind,” 47, 164, Guerin, John, 82
250n20; “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream,” “Guinnevere” (David Crosby), 49, 85
92; “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” 149; “It’s All guitar performance, characteristics, 15, 17–18,
Over Now, Baby Blue,” 149; “Like A 36, 134, 218
Rolling Stone,” 74, 151, 165, 249n18; guitar tunings, 6, 11, 15, 107, 117, 118, 197,
“Mr. Tambourine Man,” 93, 151; “North 244n2
Country Blues,” 45; “Positively 4th Guy, Buddy, 30
Street,” 74, 77, 153; “Subterranean
Homesick Blues,” 49, 149; “Visions of harmonic categories: chromatic, 13, 138,
Johanna,” 92 146–47; modal, 13, 127–130, 146;
pedal point, 13, 79, 86, 91, 104, 142–47,
Earhart, Amelia, 46, 109–111 202–3, 229, 247n29; polymodal,
Everett, Walter, 157, 245n19 13, 18, 19, 131–38, 143, 146, 246n27;
explicit poetic speakers, 50–53; dramatized, polytonal, 13, 22, 81, 110–111, 139–42,
52; undramatized, 52, 56. See also implicit 146, 246n22, 250n22
poetic speakers; person, grammatical; harmony: cadence, 250n19; pivot chords, 22,
personae, poetic 131, 133, 136; quartal, 18, 34, 104, 133,
268 | INDEX
202–3; quintal, 131, 202; “slash” chords, Joel, Billy, 30
19, 107–108, 136; suspended chords, 18, “Johnny Angel” (Shelley Fabares), 115
19, 36, 130, 133, 134, 136, 202. See also
coherence, cyclic: tonal planning; modes, Kaminsky, Peter, 198
musical Kerouac, Jack, 94
Harris, Emmylou, 228 Khan, Chaka, 119
Harrison, George, 30 Klein, Larry, 25, 29
Heckman, Dan, 4, 252n37
hemiola, 26, 28 L. A. Express, 21, 34
Hendrix, Jimi, 15, 39 Landau, Mike, 28
high/low art distinction, 4, 5–10, 11, 39–40, lang, k. d., 228–29
232n4. See also art song; classical music; Lasch, Christopher, 90
song cycles; value systems “Leader of the Pack” (Shangri-Las), 45
hippies. See themes, musico-poetic: bohemia; Lennox, Annie, 228–29
youth movement/counterculture Lewis, C. S., 84–85
Holden, Stephen, 4, 30, 184, 185 Lieder. See art song
“Home Sweet Home” (Bishop), 249n17 Los Angeles, 3, 19, 54, 94, 127, 204
hooks, 9, 23, 27–28, 40, 179, 182, 185, 186, lyric mode. See under mode, poetic
187, 188, 192, 211, 217, 251n35
hypermeter, 176, 249n18, 250n19 McKenna, Kristine, 184
McLachlan, Sarah, 228
“I Know Where I’m Going,” 251n28 Maslin, Janet, 184
“If You Could Read My Mind” (Gordon Mays, Lyle, 34
Lightfoot), 127 Mehldau, Brad, 228
imagery, poetic, 24, 49–50, 58, 60, 69, 70, melodic contour, 13, 19, 34, 86, 91, 97, 105,
71, 73, 98, 103, 135–36, 223–24; 107, 137, 145, 165, 171, 175, 178–93,
animals, 58, 88, 90, 100, 103–9, 112, 251n29; nodal pitches, 182, 186
157, 206, 207, 219; clothing, 80, 81, 95, melodic style: first period, 25, 181, 185–86,
200; color, 129, 196; dance, 48, 72, 78, 188; second period, 23, 25, 94, 97,
115, 220–21; flying, 103–15, 143, 201; 182–87, 211; third period, 183–84,
matriarchal figures, 83–84; seafaring, 187–89; fourth period, 31, 189–92. See
49, 85–86, 103, 131, 135, 200; stone, also style periods
81, 83–84, 105, 115; treasure, 87–90, Mendoza, Vince, 39
131, 200, 208; vanishing, 104–14, 210; metaphorical language, to describe music,
vehicles, 58, 86, 88, 109, 204, 219; 117–118
weaving, 96–97, 98, 115, 204. See also Metheny, Pat, 34
coherence, cyclic: recurrent imagery; metric disruption, 13, 23, 108, 130, 154, 157,
themes, musico-poetic 161–63, 173, 229, 237n16, 248n13
“Imagine” (John Lennon), 47 Middleton, Richard, 11, 152, 164
implicit poetic speakers, 50, 53–56, 57, 203. Mingus, Charles, 3, 21, 46, 51, 59, 101–2,
See also explicit poetic speakers; person, 103, 196, 243n26, 247n4
grammatical; personae, poetic Mitchell, Chuck, 16
ingenue. See personae, poetic Mitchell, Joni (works)
instrumentation, 21–22, 25, 26, 31–32, 34, Albums:
39, 95, 107, 112, 154, 155, 177, 187, Beginning of Survival, The, 33, 199
210–11, 213, 218, 220–21, 222, 228–29 Blue, 13, 19, 62, 99, 142, 146, 148, 185,
186, 194, 196, 199, 204, 209, 225, 228;
Jackson, Blair, 227 review, 4
“Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” (Stephen Both Sides Now, 33, 196, 199
Foster), 250n25 Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, 31, 42
INDEX | 269
Mitchell, Joni (works) (continued) “Arrangement, The” (LC), 19–21, 62, 81,
Clouds, 13, 148, 197, 209 154, 182, 198
Complete Geffen Recordings, The, 25, 33 “Banquet” (FR), 47, 162, 196–97
Court and Spark, 12, 16, 21–23, 151, 155, “Barangrill” (FR), 21, 41, 48, 53, 72,
162, 183, 184, 187, 197, 198, 228, 86–87, 90, 162, 196, 242n14
237n16, 242n3, 251n34 “Be Cool” (WTRF), 26, 57, 69, 166–67
Dog Eat Dog, 25, 29, 196, 238n28; cover “Beat of Black Wings, The” (CMRS), 45,
art, 29 47, 62, 111–115, 154, 238n32
Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, 13, 22, 25, “Big Yellow Taxi” (LC), 19, 47, 56, 154,
199, 204, 213–26, 253n13; and Axilar 156, 164, 167, 209, 248n10, 250n20
Moonrise (painting), 224–25; cover art, “Black Crow” (H), 149, 156, 206–13
224; reviews, 25, 184–85, 227, 237n19, “Blonde in the Bleachers” (FR), 21, 55, 153
252n37, 255n29 “Blue” (B), 46, 49, 135–38, 147, 154, 162;
Dreamland, 33 Sarah McLachlan cover version, 228
For the Roses, 21, 139, 140, 146, 162, “Blue Boy” (LC), 53, 54, 61, 80–81, 82, 84,
196–97, 237n16; cover/songbook art, 156, 166, 182, 198
243n25 “Blue Motel Room” (H), 23, 59, 71,
Hejira, 13, 51, 88, 89, 97, 148, 153, 185, 204–13
186, 196, 199, 204–13, 217, 218, 220, “Boho Dance, The” (HSL), 57, 93–96, 98,
225, 251n35, 253n13, 254n16; cover art, 197; Björk cover version, 228
206, 209–10; reviews, 9, 184, 252n36 “Borderline” (TI), 167
Hissing of Summer Lawns, The, 21, 94, 187, “Both Sides, Now” (C), 62, 69, 75, 143–46,
196, 197, 199, 203–4, 228, 252n36, 147, 149, 167, 181, 234n14, 248n10;
253n13, 254n16; reviews, 9, 184 Judy Collins cover version, 143, 146
Hits, 32, 238n35 “Cactus Tree” (SS), 54, 72–73, 78, 82,
Ladies of the Canyon, 13, 19, 62, 146, 148, 85–86, 143, 148, 149, 151, 162,
194, 197, 198, 228 172–73, 199–203, 209, 246n25
Miles of Aisles, 6, 21, 34 “California” (B), 73, 90, 148, 149, 150,
Mingus, 12, 23, 25, 62, 196, 199, 203, 186–87
251n34; reviews, 25, 237n19 “Car on a Hill” (C&S), 22, 151, 154,
Misses, 33, 238n35 167–69
Night Ride Home, 16, 30; review, 30 “Carey” (B), 47, 72, 90–91, 93, 148, 182
Shadows and Light, 34 “Case of You, A” (B), 70–71, 143, 148, 162,
Shine, 30, 232n1 186, 196; Prince cover version, 228
Song to a Seagull, 13, 78, 148, 150, 162, “Chair in the Sky, A” (M), 46, 51, 59,
196, 198, 199–203, 234n14, 248n10, 101, 103
254n14; cover art, 85–86, 200–201, “Chelsea Morning” (C), 62, 149–50, 151,
244n28; review, 252n5 166, 181, 197
Songs of a Prairie Girl, 33, 199, 254n19 “Cherokee Louise” (NRH), 31, 46, 62, 167
Taming the Tiger, 25, 30, 32, 63 “Chinese Café” (WTRF), 26, 46, 51,
Travelogue, 25, 33, 39, 199 146, 156
Turbulent Indigo, 63 “Circle Game, The” (LC), 16, 39, 42, 50,
Wild Things Run Fast, 16, 25–26, 183, 196, 62, 67, 148–49, 154, 166, 167, 181,
251n34; cover art, 29 234n14, 248n10, 250n20, 251n32
Songs: “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire” (FR), 21,
“All I Want” (B), 41, 51, 66–67, 88, 133, 42, 43, 49, 61, 141–42, 156
143, 148, 162, 171–72 “Come In from the Cold” (NRH),
“Amelia” (H), 14, 23–25, 40, 46, 77, 31, 158
109–11, 139, 158, 167, 185, 204, “Conversation” (LC), 19, 45–46, 51–52, 69,
207–13 81, 178, 182, 218, 246n25, 248n10
270 | INDEX
“Cotton Avenue” (DJRD), 72, 156, 185, “Harlem in Havana” (TT), 32, 151, 177–78
213, 218–20, 223 “Harry’s House” (HSL), 81, 157, 162–63, 197
“Court and Spark” (C&S), 90, 133, 148, “Hejira” (H), 57, 73, 88, 153, 164, 204–12,
151, 155, 162, 167, 243n24 254n20; S&L version, 254n20
“Coyote” (H), 153, 175–77, 183, 185–86, “Help Me” (C&S), 21, 22–23, 40, 48, 69,
204–13 148, 151, 155, 187, 218; k. d. lang cover
“Crazy Cries of Love, The” (TT), 62 version, 228–29
“Dancin’ Clown” (CMRS), 90 “Hissing of Summer Lawns, The” (HSL),
“Dawntreader, The” (SS), 14, 48–49, 61, 82–83
68–69, 85, 88, 103–4, 131–33, 148, “I Don’t Know Where I Stand” (C),
151, 156, 170–71, 199–203 139–40, 166, 248n10
“Day After Day,” 16 “I Had a King” (SS), 14, 16–19, 24, 40,
“Dog Eat Dog” (DED), 29–30, 46, 59, 62 78, 79–80, 97, 133, 143, 148, 151, 159,
“Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” (DJRD), 181, 199–203
58, 69, 103, 217–19, 221–23, 255n29 “I Think I Understand” (C), 16, 158, 167
“Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” (HSL), 24, “Impossible Dreamer” (DED), 29, 188–89,
58, 69, 83–84, 218; Brad Mehldau cover 238n28
version, 228 “In France They Kiss on Main Street”
“Down to You” (C&S), 22, 50, 53, 55, 151, (HSL), 72, 90
154, 162, 237n16 “Jericho” (DJRD), 46, 163, 217–20; MA
“Dreamland” (DJRD), 213–18, 220–25, version, 34
239n41, 254n22; Caetano Veloso cover “Judgement of the Moon and Stars
version, 228 (Ludwig’s Tune)” (FR), 21, 54, 196–97
“Dry Cleaner from Des Moines, The” (M), “Jungle Line, The” (HSL), 42, 50, 146–47
41, 46, 101–3 “Just Like This Train” (C&S), 86, 87, 149,
“Edith and the Kingpin” (HSL), 62, 151, 155, 173
74–75, 159, 187, 251n27; Elvis Costello “Ladies’ Man” (WTRF), 26, 166, 167,
cover version, 228; Tina Turner/Herbie 187–88
Hancock cover version, 256n6 “Ladies of the Canyon” (LC), 54, 81,
“Electricity” (FR), 49, 153, 158, 178 97–98, 127–29, 154, 166, 181, 236n13,
“Ethiopia” (DED), 63, 238n29 248n10; Annie Lennox cover version,
“Fiction” (DED), 29, 47, 63 228–29
“Fiddle and the Drum, The” (C), 42, “Lakota” (CMRS), 47, 153
47, 166 “Last Chance Lost” (TI), 61, 63, 166, 192
“For Free” (LC), 98, 101–2, 156, 158, 166, “Last Time I Saw Richard, The” (B), 42,
198, 246n27; Refuge of the Roads (video) 62, 81–82, 148, 166, 181, 186, 236n15,
version, 243n21 248n10, 250n22; MA version, 34
“For the Roses” (FR), 24, 51, 98–101, 143, “Lead Balloon” (TT), 237n26
153, 196 “Lesson in Survival” (FR), 41, 72, 159, 163,
“Free Man in Paris” (C&S), 41, 45, 149, 196, 248n13
151, 154, 155, 237n16; Sufjan Stevens “Let the Wind Carry Me” (FR), 21, 72,
cover version, 229 140–41, 154, 167
“Furry Sings the Blues” (H), 41, 52, 149, “Little Green” (B), 52, 57–58, 60–61, 148,
208–9, 212, 254n18 167, 179–81, 185, 236n9
“Gallery, The” (C), 67–68, 69, 80, 85, 97, “Love” (WTRF), 26, 50, 159, 238n33
154, 158, 166, 181–82 “Love or Money” (MA), 58
“God Must Be a Boogie Man” (M), 101, “Lucky Girl” (DED), 238n32
103, 154 “Magdalene Laundries, The” (TI), 31,
“Good Friends” (DED), 247n4 47–48, 51, 84; Emmylou Harris cover
“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” (M), 101 version, 228–29
INDEX | 271
Mitchell, Joni (works) (continued) “Sex Kills” (TI), 15, 31, 39
“Man to Man” (WTRF), 26, 149, 167 “Shades of Scarlett Conquering” (HSL), 42,
“Marcie” (SS), 52, 61, 138, 148, 155–56, 53–54, 187
157, 166, 199–202, 240n18, 247n7 “Shadows and Light” (HSL), 50, 69, 103,
“Michael from Mountains” (SS), 52, 79, 97, 228, 238n37
138, 148, 179, 181, 199–202, 236n9, “Shiny Toys” (DED), 238n28, 238n32
241n19 “Silky Veils of Ardor, The” (DJRD), 42,
“Moon at the Window” (WTRF), 26, 147, 166, 213–18, 221–23
244n5 “Sire of Sorrow, The” (TI), 31, 45
“Morning Morgantown” (LC), 56, 61, 66, “Sisotowbell Lane” (SS), 50, 81, 104,
69, 138, 150, 167, 248n10, 251n32 129–30, 148, 150, 151, 156, 162, 173,
“My Old Man” (B), 19, 69, 133, 137, 148, 199–202, 242n13, 254n15
149, 156, 166, 248n10 “Slouching towards Bethlehem” (NRH),
“My Secret Place” (CMRS), 238n32 31, 32, 69
“Nathan La Franeer” (SS), 57, 67, 133, 148, “Smokin’” (DED), 240n12
151, 159, 199–202 “Snakes and Ladders” (CMRS), 247n4
“Night in the City” (SS), 16, 148, 158, “Solid Love” (WTRF), 26, 29
200–202, 236n11, 242n13 “Song for Sharon” (H), 46, 51, 75–76,
“Night Ride Home” (NRH), 31, 90, 88–89, 166, 206–213
189–91, 192, 247n29 “Song to a Seagull” (SS), 14, 16, 46, 104–5,
“Not to Blame” (TI), 31, 47 111, 143, 148, 151, 167, 200–203
“Number One” (CMRS), 247n4 “Songs to Aging Children Come” (C), 58,
“Off Night Backstreet” (DJRD), 47, 69, 62, 138, 151, 164
213, 218, 221, 223 “Strange Boy, A” (H), 74, 96–97, 98, 101,
“Only Joy in Town, The” (NRH), 31, 51, 149, 207–12
149, 166 “Sunny Sunday” (TI), 54, 84, 154,
“Otis and Marlena” (DJRD), 42, 62, 74, 191–92
187, 213–18, 220–25 “Sweet Bird” (HSL), 46, 61, 105–9, 111,
“Paprika Plains” (DJRD), 6, 147, 154, 154, 163
155, 159, 213–25, 247n28, 255n27, “Sweet Sucker Dance” (M), 69, 247n4
255n28 “Talk to Me” (DJRD), 61, 217–18, 223
“Passion Play” (NRH), 31 “Taming the Tiger” (TT), 31, 69
“People’s Parties” (C&S), 22, 75, 94, 151, “Tax Free” (DED), 29
153, 167, 178, 197 “Tea Leaf Prophecy, The” (CMRS), 63–65,
“Pirate of Penance, The” (SS), 44–45, 62, 84, 153
85, 148, 199–201 “Tenth World, The” (DJRD), 213–18,
“Priest, The” (LC), 19, 51, 69, 155, 220–21, 240n12
158, 166 “That Song about the Midway” (C), 90,
“Rainy Night House” (LC), 19, 57, 134–35, 164, 244n2
139, 166, 198 “This Flight Tonight” (B), 148, 248n10
“Raised on Robbery” (C&S), 45, 56, 61, “Three Great Stimulants, The” (DED),
149, 151, 155, 237n26 238n32, 247n29
“Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac” (NRH), 31, 156 “Tin Angel” (C), 69, 151, 167, 182, 197
“Refuge of the Roads” (H), 154, 206–13 “Trouble Child” (C&S), 22, 53, 55–56, 62,
“River” (B), 41, 51, 70, 75, 148, 150; James 151, 156, 162, 173, 197, 236n14
Taylor cover version, 228 “Turbulent Indigo” (TI), 146, 167
“Roses Blue” (C), 41, 52, 178 “Two Grey Rooms” (NRH), 47, 84, 159–61;
“Same Situation, The” (C&S), 22, 57, 94, demo version, 160
151, 158, 197 “Underneath the Streetlight” (WTRF), 26,
“See You Sometime” (FR), 59–60, 149, 159 28, 29
272 | INDEX
“Urge for Going” (Hits), 85, 159, 234n14 3, 4, 5, 12, 15, 16, 19, 42, 45, 85, 86,
“Wild Things Run Fast” (WTRF), 26, 29, 118, 119, 142, 218, 233n10, 233n11,
149 247n1, 249n18, 251n28; folk rock, 7, 9,
“Willy” (LC), 17, 19, 61, 70, 155, 158–59, 85; funk, 34; fusion (jazz-rock), 15, 21,
164, 175, 197–98 218, 220–21; gospel, 228, 253n11; jazz,
“Windfall, The” (NRH), 156 12, 15, 21–23, 26, 32, 36, 38, 50, 62, 94,
“Wizard of Is, The,” 52 101, 118, 147, 184, 185, 186, 213, 228,
“Wolf That Lives in Lindsey, The” (M), 59, 233n10, 244n5; new wave, 25–26; pop
149, 153, 155, 162 ballad, 26; reggae, 26; rhythm and blues,
“Woman of Heart and Mind” (FR), 46, 56, 26, 218; rock, 4, 28, 34, 38, 72, 95, 153,
69, 74, 133, 153, 178, 196 234n19, 249n18; rock ’n’ roll, 26, 27, 77,
“Woodstock” (LC), 12, 14, 19, 33–38, 46, 90, 233n10; spiritual, 64, 241n25; Tin
68, 103, 154, 158, 165–66, 236n13; Pan Alley, 26, 118, 166, 247n2, 250n21,
CSN&Y cover version, 34, 38; MA 250n25; Tropicalia, 228; world music,
version, 34; Painting with Words and 15, 146. See also classical music; singer-
Music (video) version, 38–39; Refuge of songwriter
the Roads (video) version, 38–39; S&L mystic persona. See personae, poetic
version, 34–39, 61, 238n37; Travelogue mythic representation. See under representation
version, 39
“You Dream Flat Tires” (WTRF), 26, narrative mode. See under mode, poetic
27–29, 40, 167 Nash, Graham, 19
“You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio” (FR), 153, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival,
167, 236n13 15–16
“Yvette in English” (TI), 166 New York City, 3, 50, 59, 89, 200–201, 204,
mixing. See studio production and mixing 208, 220
modality. See harmonic categories; modes, nonconformity. See themes, musico-poetic:
musical bohemia
mode, poetic: dramatic, 43, 44–45, 46, 51, 62, notation, music, 117. See also transcription,
64, 111; dramatic lyric, 47–48; hybrid, musical
45, 47–48, 52; incantatory, 240n12;
lyric, 43, 46, 47, 50, 52, 59–60, 68, 73, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” 119
75, 80, 81, 98, 101, 134, 154, 203, 204; “Operator” (Jim Croce), 48
narrative, 43, 45–46, 50, 52, 54, 59–60, “Over the Rainbow” (Arlen-Harburg), 247n2
63–65, 99, 154, 185; political, 47–48,
63, 64 “P. S. I Love You” (Jenkins-Mercer), 48
modes, musical, 118, 119, 126–27; mixed, Pastorius, Jaco, 34, 103, 117, 186, 211,
126–29, 131–33, 142, 143, 146, 175, 213, 217
179, 202–3, 228, 229; pure, 31, 127. See pedal points. See harmonic categories
also harmonic categories; harmony person, grammatical: first-person subject,
Moore, Allan, 10 50–52, 55, 73, 204; first-person reflexive
mortality. See under themes, musico-poetic address, 51; second-person address, 50, 51,
motives, 179–81, 182, 187, 196–97, 202–3, 55, 65, 74, 94, 153, 179; second-person
212–17, 252n41. See also under coherence, focal character, 54–56; second-person
cyclic subject, 52–53, 55, 86–87, 240n18,
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 235n23 241n19; third-person focal character, 50,
music industry, 4, 6–7, 42, 92, 98–101 53–54, 61, 63, 74, 81, 203; third-person
musical styles: Afro-Caribbean, 32, 184, 214; object, 51–52. See also explicit poetic
blues, 26, 34, 97, 102–3, 138, 142, speakers; implicit poetic speakers
145, 208, 253n11; blues rock, 218, 221; personae, poetic, 12, 15, 41–77, 202, 217,
Celtic, 228; country, 228, 249n18; folk, 226; critic, 64, 73–77, 157, 217; free
INDEX | 273
spirit, 54, 71–73; ingenue, 19, 56, 62, Porter, Cole, 118; “Ev’ry Time We Say
66–68, 85–86, 89, 98, 99, 181; (male) Goodbye,” 250n25
rebels, 90–97, 243n21; mystic, 33–34, Presley, Elvis, 26
68–69, 77, 103; torch, 69–71, 75, 77; Prince, 48, 228
and vocal performance, 60–63, 69,
112, 187 quartal harmony. See under harmony
perspective, poetic, 48, 50, 53–56, 64–65, quintal harmony. See under harmony
102, 104–115, 142, 203, 210, 217 quests. See themes, musico-poetic: travel/quests
Persuasions, 34 quotation, musical, 26, 137, 146, 156–57,
Pet Sounds (Beach Boys), 196 213, 217–18
philosophical representation. See under
representation
phrase structure, 13, 137, 153, 155, 157–78, race, 5, 32, 50, 69, 78, 92, 101, 103, 147, 218,
192; accelerated phrase rhythm, 168–73, 219, 220, 222, 223–24, 255n30, 255n34
177; complementarity, 5, 13, 164–73, Rachmaninov, Sergei, 118, 233n10
249n17; irregular lengths, 13, 17, 87, realistic representation. See under representation
112, 137, 152, 157–63, 165, 167, 173, refrains. See under song forms
248n9, 248n12; irregular lengths, due representation: aesthetic, 49–50, 223–24;
to harmonic extension, 13, 108, 130, mythic, 48–49, 64, 79, 86–87, 103, 201,
157–58, 163, 168, 171, 173; non- 217, 220; philosophical, 50, 59, 154;
complementarity, 165, 167, 175, 177–78, realistic, 48, 64–65, 79, 86–87, 217
251n28; open/closed principle, 13, 151, rhyme schemes, 17, 20–21, 24, 70, 79,
153, 164–78, 248n14, 249n17, 250n25; 102–103, 158, 159, 175–76, 236n9. See
overlap, 158, 171; parallelism, 13, 159, also poetic structure
162, 164–78, 249n17; periodicity, 164, rhythm. See hemiola; hypermeter; metric
166, 178, 249n17, 249n18, 250n20, disruption
251n27; statement/restatement/ Richie, Lionel, 28
continuation/closure model, 165–173, Ride This Train (Johnny Cash), 196
250n21, 251n30 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 4, 30
piano performance, characteristics, Rockwell, John, 7, 9
19, 134, 136 Roland VG-8, 15, 32
Picasso, Pablo, 6, 15, 39, 235n23, 235n1 Rousseau, Henri, 50
pivot chords. See under harmony Rycenga, Jennifer, 242n3, 256n35
poetic structure, 41–42, 129, 150; irregular,
17, 157–61, 162, 163, 175, 184–86, 204, Sanders, Lisa, 30
248n12. See also rhyme schemes “Satisfaction” (Rolling Stones), 247n5
poetic style: first period, 24; second period, 24, “Scarborough Fair,” 119, 250n24
183–86; third period, 29, 238n29; fourth Schumann, Robert, 134, 253n8, 256n35
period, 31. See also style periods Scott, Tom, 21
Polar Music Prize, 4, 5, 7, 30 self-help movements, 89–90
Police, 26, 30, 39 Shakespeare, William, 217
political mode. See under mode, poetic Shorter, Wayne, 117, 210
Pollock, Jackson, 118 Simon, Paul: “Bridge over Troubled Water,”
polymodality. See harmonic categories 149; “Homeward Bound,” 48;
polytonality. See harmonic categories “Mrs. Robinson,” 49; “Old Friends,”
popular reception, 21, 25, 38. See also critical 149; “Scarborough Fair,” 149; “The Sound
reception of Silence,” 46, 119, 149; Still Crazy after
prestige, cultural. See female authorship, All These Years, 198, 253n11
undervaluing of; high/low art distinction; singer-songwriter, 5, 7, 9, 11, 50, 77, 85, 164,
value systems 185, 207, 227, 249n18
274 | INDEX
“slash” chords. See under harmony style periods: first, 12, 16–21; second, 12, 16,
“Somebody to Love” (Jefferson Airplane), 119 21–25, 94–95, 118; third, 12, 16, 25–30,
Sonenberg, Daniel, 6, 186 62–63, 118, 146; fourth, 12, 16, 30–32,
songbooks. See transcription, musical 146. See also under melodic style; poetic
song collections, 13, 195, 253n13 style
song cycles, 13, 194–96, 198, 226, 253n8, stylistic dynamism, 5, 12, 15–16, 185, 236n1
256n35. See also art song; classical music; suspended chords. See under harmony
coherence, cyclic; concept albums; Swartley, Ariel, 184
high/low art distinction “Sympathy for the Devil” (Rolling Stones), 45
song forms: ambiguous, 21, 151–52, 154, 192, syntax. See person, grammatical
247n4; blues form, 26, 102–103; bridge, synthesizers, 12, 15, 26, 29, 146
21, 148, 154, 184, 247n4; continuity
within, 151–56, 167, 247n5; defined, talent. See themes, musico-poetic: art/talent
148, 151, 153; interludes, extended, 21, Talking Heads, 26
22, 108, 141, 147, 148, 154–55, 167, Taylor, James, 228
213, 221, 222, 225, 247n28, 255n28; Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, 118
postludes, 137, 147, 148; preludes, themes, musico-poetic: art/talent, 12, 24, 54,
extended, 134–35, 167, 213; refrains, 27, 71, 77, 78, 79–81, 89, 93–95, 97–103,
148–51, 154, 204; refrains, initial, 109–110, 207–9; bohemia, 3, 12,
149–50, 151; refrains, instrumental, 54, 57, 79, 90–97, 98, 127, 242n13;
155–56, 171; refrains, internal, 149; confinement, 12, 17, 71, 79–84, 95, 99,
refrains, split, 23, 149–51, 167; 115, 143–46, 182, 203; disillusionment,
sectionalism, 151–56; strophic, 16, 23, 17, 24, 67, 75, 79, 99–101, 110, 145,
148, 149, 151, 153, 154, 164, 179, 192, 196, 201; fortune, 91, 93–96, 97–102,
204, 225, 247n1; through-composed, 204, 208–9; freedom, 12, 54, 71–73,
21, 40, 137, 153–54, 192; verse-bridge, 78–115, 143, 147, 199–201; mortality,
23, 148, 149, 151, 152–53, 154, 247n2; 105, 111, 204, 209, 221; spirituality, 12,
verse-chorus, 63, 148, 149, 151 31, 38, 39, 67–68, 78, 79, 87, 103–15,
song genres: carousal, 72–73; character 218–19, 222, 224, 225; travel/quests, 12,
portrait, 19, 31, 42; confessional, 51, 55, 24, 69, 77, 78, 79, 81, 84–90, 109, 141,
66, 71, 75, 225; cutting lover down, 69; 143, 153, 196, 200–201, 204–8, 209–10,
furtive love, 69; idyll, 69; lovers’ quarrel, 218, 220–24. See also imagery, poetic;
69; metaphysical, 31, 50, 69, 106, 228; coherence, cyclic: thematic connections
new love, 69; nostalgia, 31, 32, 63, 65; through-composed. See under song forms
philosophical meditation on love, 69; Tolkien, J. R. R., 84–85, 242n6, 242n7
protest, 29, 31, 47; rambler, 72–73, 109; Tommy (Who), 45
social critique, 15, 19, 29, 65, 72, 115, tone, expressive, 12, 13, 16, 28, 29, 65, 68, 76,
157, 187, 217, 238n28; torch, 69–71 83, 86, 87, 100, 134–35, 142, 154, 162,
speech acts. See utterance types 183, 196, 217. See also under coherence,
spirituality. See under themes, musico-poetic cyclic
Stephenson, Ken, 10, 126, 245n18, 249n18, torch persona. See personae, poetic; song
249n19 genres
Stevens, Sufjan, 228–29 transcription, musical, 10, 11, 117, 235n30,
Stravinsky, Igor, 118; Rite of Spring, 217 244n3, 246n20. See also notation, music
strophic. See under song forms traps. See themes, musico-poetic: confinement
studio production and mixing, 12,14, 22, 25, travel. See under themes, musico-poetic
29, 31, 45, 95, 187, 210, 247n29 tribute concerts, 3, 232n2
style. See guitar performance; melodic style; Tribute to Joni Mitchell, A, 13, 227–229
musical styles; piano performance; poetic “Tutti Frutti” (Little Richard), 77
style; vocal performance “Twisted” (Ross-Grey), 22, 23, 56, 197
INDEX | 275
U2, 30 “Wedding Bell Blues” (Laura Nyro), 149
“Unchained Melody” (North-Zaret), 26, 146, 156 “What Wondrous Love,” 119
utterance types, 59–60, 65, 204, 241n23, “Wild Thing” (Troggs), 237n22
254n18 “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” (Goffin-King),
26, 149, 247n2
value systems, 5–10, 185; fine art, 5–10, 40, Williams, Tennessee, 105
194, 227, 234n23; popular art, 6–9, 40. Wilson, Cassandra, 228
See also high/low art distinction Wolf, Hugo, 9
Van Gogh, Vincent, 6 Wolfe, Tom, 90, 93–94
Veloso, Caetano, 228 Wölfflin, Heinrich, 24, 237n18
vocal performance: characteristics, 16, 19, woman’s perspective, 3, 42, 65, 72, 82–84,
21–22, 26, 28, 29–30, 34–36, 60–63, 94, 85–86, 91–92, 242n3. See also female
187, 188–89; conceived as dramatic roles, authorship, undervaluing of; feminism;
42–43, 240n9. See also under personae, gender roles
poetic Woodstock festival, 33, 38, 89
voice: autobiographical, 46, 51, 54, 55, 63, Wordsworth, William, 24, 46–47
75, 89, 109, 140, 204, 241n22, 254n16; “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, The”
communal, 47, 50; various meanings (Gordon Lightfoot), 119
distinguished, 42
Yeats, W. B., 31, 39, 69, 147
“Water Is Wide, The,” 218 youth movement/counterculture, 3, 38, 39, 89,
Watts, Michael, 184 103, 238n40
“Wayfaring Stranger,” 218
“We Shall Overcome,” 47 Zappa, Frank, 7, 198; Freak out! 196, 252n5
276 | INDEX

Lloyd Whitesell - The Music of Joni Mitchell (2008)

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What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What themes are explored in the book?

What themes are explored in the book?

THE M USIC OF JONI MI T C H E L L

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Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Publication of this book was supported by the Lloyd Hibberd Publication

1 Introduction: Pop Song and Art Song 3

2 Sound and Style 15

3 Voices and Personae 41

5 Harmonic Palette 117

6 Melodic Turns 148

7 Collections and Cycles 194

The following excerpted lyrics by Joni Mitchell reproduced by permission. All

ALBUMS BY JONI MITCHELL

Joni Mitchell is now widely recognized as one of the foremost singer-songwriters

I suspect this will be the most disliked of Miss Mitchell’s recordings,

4 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

INTRODUCTION: POP SONG AND ART SONG | 5

6 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

INTRODUCTION: POP SONG AND ART SONG | 7

The stereotypical connotations of low or popular art would call up a contrasting

8 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

For a long time, representatives of high musical culture have looked on

INTRODUCTION: POP SONG AND ART SONG | 9

Analytical work . . . that uncritically accepts the basic tenets of Western

10 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

INTRODUCTION: POP SONG AND ART SONG | 11

12 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

INTRODUCTION: POP SONG AND ART SONG | 13

14 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

FIRST PERIOD (1966–1972)

16 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

I had a king in a tenement castle a

SOUND AND STYLE | 17

example 2.1. “i had a king,” guitar accompaniment, second half of

All examples are notated as heard (i.e., no octave transposition in guitar).

18 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

SOUND AND STYLE | 19

poem, while maintaining a scheme of interlocking rhymes, no longer projects an

You could have been more a

While you still have the time c

You’re the keeper of the cards b

20 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

SECOND PERIOD (1973–1980)

SOUND AND STYLE | 21

(G is a pivot chord because it belongs to several of the keys involved [A Mixolydian,

22 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

Over a harmonic progression which is rhythmically deliberate and unvarying

SOUND AND STYLE | 23

I was driving across the burning desert

24 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

THIRD PERIOD (1981–1988)

SOUND AND STYLE | 25

26 | THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

SOUND AND STYLE | 27

example 2.6. “you dream ﬂat tires,” refrain

Why do you dream flat tires when you dream