Joni: The Creative Odyssey of Joni Mitchell (31 page)

If you can force your heart
And nerve and sinew
To serve you
After all of them are gone
And so hold on
When there is nothing in you
Nothing but the will
That's telling you to hold on!
Hold on!

If you can bear to hear
The truth you've spoken
Twisted and misconstrued
By some smug fool
Or watch your life's work
Torn apart and broken down
And still stoop to build again
With worn out tools...

If you can fill the journey
Of a minute
With sixty seconds worth of wonder and delight
Then
The Earth is yours
And Everything that's in it
But more than that
I know
You'll be alright
You'll be alright...

Thus sang Joni Mitchell.

“In France They Kiss on Main Street”

“This Place”

“Shine”

“If”

The Joni journey ends here. But I hope if you came this far, your journey has just begun. This book taught me that the creative drive exists within us all. We're all here to make something, whether it's a family, a great casserole, or a portfolio of masterpieces. Creating is our human purpose, and the more we do it, the more meaningful our lives become. There is no right or wrong way to approach creation; one simply has to move forward with courage and inner strength. The rest, it seems, falls into place—because once we have the vision, we can see the bigger picture. Nietzsche likens the creative endeavour to assembling a puzzle or solving a riddle: “And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also a poet and a reader of riddles and the redeemer of chance!”
1
The bits and pieces surround us like so many clues and mosaic tiles, and the creative act gives them beauty and order, redeeming the chaos of the human condition.

Many times over the course of piecing this book together, I felt the thrill of creation pulsing within, and it was truly liberating because it opened me to life's mystery. There was no pressure, just a wide-eyed sense of awe at how much beauty surrounds us every second. I think these are innate abilities, and although they've been squelched by our current techno-drone, they are not gone. Great creators live among us at all times—but seldom are they recognized for the gifts they offer. I thank the universe for handing me a book about one of the greatest, because it put me in touch with my own creative will.

The world could use more Joni Mitchells, but we all know she's a one-off. What we can do is follow her lead, the one charted by Nietzsche's
Zarathustra
as a way of overcoming the self. He says, “Man needs to be overcome,” and I got a giggle while writing this book when I realized Mitchell was in every way a perfect example of the “Overman” or “Superman”: not only is she a true creator, but she is a woman—and, therefore, not man. She is, literally and figuratively, man overcome.

But those were private puzzle games. Everyone will pull what they want from the pieces and arrive at their own private mosaic of meaning. The most important thing is honouring the creative spirit and our potential to make the world a better, more beautiful place through the artistic endeavour—no matter what form it takes.

My dad went to his fiftieth college reunion at Columbia University while I was researching this book, and he said ninety-seven per cent of the graduates in his 1961 MBA class wanted to start their own business. In 2011, it was the opposite: ninety-seven per cent want to be CEOs in someone else's company. No one wants to take entrepreneurial risk anymore: they want the cushy chair and the corner office without creating.

But hope springs eternal: my mother recently rediscovered her passion for music. She bought herself
The Beatles: Remastered
. She cranked it loud one Christmas. We all sang along. And we danced.

I want to thank every writer who's ever written anything about Joni Mitchell. Without you, this book would not have been possible. In the same breath, I would also like to note the invaluable contributions of Les Irvin, the jonimitchell.com webmaster, who made sure this book was as accurate as possible and generously offered kind words of support.

Michelle Benjamin, who for some mysterious reason thought I'd be a good candidate to write a Joni book. Thank you for the opportunity.

Rob Sanders at Greystone, for believing in the underlying idea when it was still a muddle. Thank you for your faith, and the incredible journey.

Marsha Lederman and Melora Koepke, two brilliant writers and true friends who encouraged me every step of the way. Without you, I would have buckled.

Peter Norman, for all the great edits and, mostly, for understanding.

Shirarose Wilensky, for making it tight as a drum.

Lee Crawford, my personal therapist, for listening to me whine about my own creative hurdles and celebrating my strange revelations over the past two years. Lee, who also happens to be an art therapist, was a support emotionally, mentally, and most of all creatively during a rather draining period in my personal life over the course of which this book was created. She also loaned me some great books and let me become acquainted with the theories of Ellen Levine, Melanie Klein, and D.W. Winnicott.

Wally Breese, for originating the jonimitchell.com website, easily the most comprehensive fan site ever created. Your spirit lives on through Les.

Bob Lesperance, my lawyer, for guiding me through the wilds of intellectual property.

Margaret Atwood, because I spoke with you twice over the course of the book, and each time, you gave me a little piece of the larger creative puzzle.

Susan Joy Carroll, because you asked me to thank you... and because you are a great friend and a fantastic reader.

Dave Chesney, who understands the eagle.

Rick Bedell, who understands the snake.

Cynthia Fish, for being the skipper and letting me crew. You changed my life.

My mother and my father, for supporting me without question when I asked you to, and letting me have the captain's room to create in.

My sister, Tracy, for sharing her record player.

Allie and Sam, Pat Leidl, Janet Forsyth, Paul Dodsworth, Joe and Shannon Rotundo, and Lee Majors, for various brands of support that made this book easier (and furrier) to write.

The universe, for arranging all the bizarre synchronicities that made this book what it is. There are too many to mention, but it seems when you write about Joni Mitchell, the spheres cooperate in the most unexpected ways.

The spirit of Joan (all of them), whom I sensed next to me on every leg of the odyssey. Thank you for the inspiration and the magic.

And Stephanie Innes, who has only two rules: “Pull your own weight, and have joy.” You make my little light shine brighter than it's ever shone before.

1. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Prologue,”
   Thus Spoke Zarathustra
   (Middlesex: Penguin, 1961), 49.
   
2. Martin Heidegger, “What Are Poets For?”
   Poetry, Language, Thought
   (New York: Perennial Classics, HarperCollins, 1971), 92.
   

1. Neil Strauss, “The Hissing of a Living Legend,”
   New York Times
   , October 4, 1998.
   
2. Alice Echols, “Thirty Years with a Portable Lover,”
   L.A. Weekly
   , November 25, 1994.
   
3. Angela LaGreca, “Joni Mitchell,”
   Rock Photo
   (June 1985).
   
4. Patrick Nagle, “... Ssshhhhhh... Listen, Listen to Joni,”
   Weekend Magazine
   , January 11, 1969.
   
5. Neil Strauss, “Joni with an ‘I,'”
   New York Times
   , October 18, 1998.
   
6. Barney Hoskyns, “Our Lady of the Sorrows,”
   Mojo
   (December 1994).
   
7. LaGreca, “Joni Mitchell.”
   
8. Hoskyns, “Our Lady of the Sorrows.”
   
9. Marci McDonald, “Joni Mitchell Emerges from her Retreat,”
   Toronto Star
   , February 9, 1974.
   
10. Melanie Klein,
    The Psycho-Analysis of Children
    (London: Hogarth Press, 1932).
    
11. Carl Jung, “Instinct and the Unconscious,”
    British Journal of Psychology
    10 (November 1919).
    
12. Nietzsche, “Of the Despisers of the Body,”
    Thus Spoke Zarathustra
    , 63.
    
13. Jacques Lacan,
    The Mirror-Stage as Formative of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience,
    translated by Alan Sheridan,
    Ecrits: A selection
    (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1977).
    
14. Ellen Levine,
    Tending the Fire: Studies in Art, Therapy & Creativity
    (Toronto: Palmerston Press, 1995), 72–74.
    
15. Cameron Crowe, “The Rolling Stone Interview,”
    Rolling Stone
    (July 26, 1979).
    
16. Joni Mitchell's description of her piece is contained in the coffee table book
    StarArt
    , edited by Deborah Chesher (Alberta: StarArt Productions Limited, 1979.)
    
17. Quoted in Karen O'Brien,
    Joni Mitchell: Shadows and Light
    (London: Virgin, 2001), 292.
    
18. Jenny Boyd,
    Musicians in Tune: Seventy-Five Contemporary Musicians Discuss the Creative Process
    (New York: Fireside, 1992), 82.
    
19. Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind,
    PBS American Masters documentary, 2003.
    
20. Timothy White, “Joni Mitchell—A Portrait of an Artist,”
    Billboard
    , December 9, 1995.
    
21. McDonald, “Joni Mitchell Emerges from her Retreat.”
    
22. Alan Jackson, “Joni Mitchell,”
    New Musical Express
    (November 30, 1985).
    
23. Crowe, “The Rolling Stone Interview.”
    
24. Sheila Weller,
    Girls Like Us
    (New York: Washington Square Press, 2008), 430.
    
25. Kurt Loder,
    Rolling Stone
    interview transcript, November–December 1987
    http://expectingrain.com/dok/int/rs1987.html
    .
    
26. Stuart Henderson, “‘All Pink and Clean and Full of Wonder?' Gendering ‘Joni Mitchell,' 1966–74,”
    Left History
    (Fall 2005). https://
    pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/lh/article/viewFile/5682/4875
    .
    
27. Brian Jewell, “John Kelly Brings Joni Mitchell to ‘Out on the Edge,'”
    Bay Windows
    (November 1, 2007).
    
28. Matt Diehl, “It's a Joni Mitchell Concert, Sans Joni,”
    Los Angeles Times
    , April 22, 2010.
    
29. Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, “The Imposter Phenomenon in High-Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention,”
    Psychotherapy Theory, Research and Practice
    15, no. 3 (Fall 1978): 1. http://
    www.paulineroseclance.com/pdf/ip_high_achieving_women.pdf
    .
    
30. Ibid, 3.
    
31. Ibid.
    
32. Ibid, 4.
    
33. Ibid, 5.
    

1. Charles Mingus, spoken remarks contained in the TV documentary
   Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog,
   directed by Don McGlynn, 1998. Text version can be found here: learn.bcbe.org/.../jazz%20unit%204%20part%202%20text.pdf?.
   
2. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe,
   The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
   , translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders, VII, 336 http://
   www.rodneyohebsion.com/goethe.htm
   .
   
3. Charles Mingus to Nat Henthoff, as quoted in
   The Nat Henthoff Reader,
   “Part 2: The Passion of Creation” (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2001), 99.
   
4. Mary Dickie, “No Borders Here,”
   Impact
   (December 1994).
   
5. Vic Garbarini, “Joni Mitchell is a Nervy Broad,”
   Musician
   (January 1983).
   
6. Echols, “Thirty Years with a Portable Lover.”
   
7. Leonard Feather, “Joni Mitchell Has Her Mojo Working,”
   Los Angeles Times
   , June 10, 1979.
   
8. John Rockwell, “The New Artistry of Joni Mitchell,”
   New York Times
   , August 19, 1979.
   
9. Dickie, “No Borders Here.”
   
10. Boyd,
    Musicians in Tune
    , 82.
    
11. Ibid, 86.
    
12. Garbarini, “Joni Mitchell is a Nervy Broad.”
    
13. Feather, “Joni Mitchell Has Her Mojo Working.”
    
14. Nietzsche, “Introduction,”
    Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
    18.
    
15. Feather, “Joni Mitchell Has Her Mojo Working.”
    
16. Details
    , “Interview” (July 1996). As cited on jonimitchell.com.
    
17. Feather, “Joni Mitchell Has Her Mojo Working.”
    
18. Nietzsche, “The Intoxicated Song,”
    Thus Spoke Zarathustra
    , 331.
    
19. Levine,
    Tending the Fire
    , 53.
    
20. Woman of Heart and Mind
    outtakes.
    
21. Giles Smith, “Joni Mitchell,”
    Independent
    , October 29, 1994.
    
22. Jim Irvin, “Joni Mitchell,”
    Word
    (March 2005).
    
23. Jimmy McDonough,
    Shakey: Neil Young's Biography
    (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2002), 45.
    
24. Ibid, 188.
    
25. Ibid, 47.
    
26. Ibid, 46.
    
27. Ibid, 96.
    
28. Ibid, 254.
    
29. Boyd,
    Musicians in Tune,
    87.
    
30. Carl G. Jung,
    Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky
    , translated by R.F.C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979).
    
31. McDonough,
    Shakey
    , 339.
    
32. Ibid, 96.
    
33. Echols, “Thirty Years with a Portable Lover.”
    
34. Joni Mitchell speaking on MuchMusic's
    Intimate and Interactive,
    “The SpeakEasy Interview,”
    with
    Jana Lynne White, March 22, 2000, transcript at http://
    jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=1388
    .
    
35. Diehl, “It's a Joni Mitchell Concert, Sans Joni.”
    
36. Iain Blair, “Poetry and Paintbrushes,”
    Rock Express
    (May 1988).
    
37. Garbarini, “Joni Mitchell is a Nervy Broad.”
    

1. Levine,
   Tending the Fire
   , 61.
   
2. D.W. Winnicott, “Transitional Objects,” (1951), quoted in Jan Abram,
   The Language of Winnicott
   (London: Karnac, 1996), 116.
   
3. Oscar Brand's introduction to Mitchell's first performance on CBC's
   Let's Sing Out,
   October 1966.
   
4. Weller,
   Girls Like Us
   , 243.
   
5. William Rice, “Joni Mitchell Casts a Spell at Cellar Door,”
   Washington Post
   , November 27, 1968.
   
6. Larry LeBlanc, “Joni Takes a Break,”
   Rolling Stone
   (March 4, 1971).
   
7. Nagle, “... Ssshhhhhh... Listen, Listen to Joni.”
   
8. Weller,
   Girls Like Us
   , 274.
   
9. Michelle Mercer,
   Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period
   (New York: Free Press, 2009), 72.
   
10. Crowe, “The Rolling Stone Interview.”
    
11. Echols, “Thirty Years with a Portable Lover.”
    
12. Carla Hill, “The New Joni Mitchell,”
    Washington Post
    , August 25, 1979.
    
13. Morrissey, “Melancholy Meets the Infinite Sadness,”
    Rolling Stone
    (March 6, 1997).
    
14. Dickie, “No Borders Here.”
    
15. Bill Higgins, “Both Sides at Last,”
    Los Angeles Times
    , April 8, 1997.
    
16. Ibid.
    
17. Ibid.
    
18. Joni Mitchell to Mary Black,
    Both Sides Now,
    BBC2, February 20, 1999, transcribed by Lindsay Moon, produced and written by Roland Jaquarello for BBC2.
    
19. Higgins, “Both Sides at Last.”
    
20. Black,
    Both Sides Now.
    
21. David Gardner, “Why Joni Mitchell Has to Find the Little She Gave Away,”
    Daily Mail
    , December 8, 1996.
    
22. William Ruhlmann, “From Blue to Indigo,”
    Goldmine
    (February 17, 1995).
    
23. John J. Miller, “The Superstar Mamas of Pop—Why They're Singing the Blues,”
    Motion Picture
    (December 1975).
    
24. Crowe, “The Rolling Stone Interview.”
    
25. Higgins, “Both Sides at Last.”
    
26. Alexandra Gill, “Joni Mitchell in Person,”
    Globe and Mail
    , February 17, 2007.
    
27. Higgins, “Both Sides at Last.”
    
28. Reola Daniel, “Adoption—Both Sides Now,”
    Western Report
    (April 21, 1997).
    
29. Laila Fulton, “Alberta Native Gave Up Daughter,”
    Calgary Sun,
    December
    1996.
    
30. Crowe, “The Rolling Stone Interview.”
    
31. David Wild, “Joni Mitchell,”
    Rolling Stone
    (October 31, 2002).
    
32. Steve Matteo, “Woman of Heart and Mind,”
    Inside Connection
    (October 2000).
    
33. Boyd,
    Musicians in Tune
    , 59.
    
34. Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, “The Guitar Odyssey of Joni Mitchell: My Secret Place,”
    Acoustic Guitar
    (August 1996).
    
35. O'Brien,
    Joni Mitchell,
    44.
    
36. Ruhlmann, “From Blue to Indigo.”
    
37. Phil Sutcliffe, “Joni Mitchell,”
    Q
    (May 1988).
    
38. Divina Infusino, “A Chalk Talk with Joni Mitchell,”
    San Diego Union-Tribune
    , April 3, 1988.
    
39. James Bennighof,
    The Words and Music of Joni Mitchell
    (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010), 10.
    
40. Before the western scales were “tempered” during the Renaissance, musicians relied on Pythagorean tuning—which tuned in progressions of perfect fifths. The fifths worked fine, but there was always a snag around the major third. It didn't sound right because it wasn't “just” (the term used for pure intonation—in just intonation, the interval between two pitches corresponds to a whole-number ratio between frequencies). The solution was to change the fifth ever so slightly to bring the rest of the notes into tempered harmony. This altered fifth is called a diminished fifth, an augmented fourth, or a tritone—and the resulting diminished triad chord includes a minor third and a diminished fifth above the root. This was called “the devil's interval,” because in the Middle Ages that's what tritones were considered: too dissonant to be pure or good, they were labelled
    “diabolus in musica,”
    or what Georg Philipp Telemann called in 1733 “Satan in music.” The devil's interval was stigmatized in Western culture until the Romantic movement, but it re-entered the musical vocabulary of the masses through jazz, which makes ample use of tertian harmonies—and was, as a result, branded the “devil's music” by Southern holy rollers looking to stigmatize black music as evil and impure.
    
41. Jim Bessman, “Mitchell Does Rare Live Show at New York Club,”
    Billboard
    (November 18, 1995).
    
42. Joni Mitchell to Chris Douridas, “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” KCRW-FM broadcast transcribed by Lindsay Moon, March 27, 1998.
    
43. Bennighof,
    The Words and Music of Joni Mitchell,
    27.
    
44. David Crosby interviewed by Wally Breese for jonimitchell.com, March 15, 1997.
    
45. Sylvie Simmons, “A Long Strange Trip,”
    Mojo
    (November 2003).
    
46. McDonough,
    Shakey
    , 245.
    
47. In 1934, Crosby the elder had been invited to document the strange odyssey called the Bedaux Expedition. Financed by French millionaire Charles Bedaux, the odyssey had two ambitions: to make a feature film and to test the off-road capabilities of the specially designed Citroën half-track truck. The journey was supposed to go from Edmonton, Alberta, to Telegraph Creek, B.C., but the crew and the entourage of more than one hundred people turned back at Hudson's Hope at the urging of the Canadian guide. Crosby's footage was considered lost until it was found in a Paris basement more than seven decades later and became the basis for the 1995 documentary by George Ungar.
    
48. Crosby to Breese, March 15, 1997.
    
49. Quoted in O'Brien,
    Joni Mitchell
    , 73.
    
50. Crosby to Breese, March 15, 1997.
    
51. David Crosby and Carl Gottlieb,
    Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby
    (New York: Dell, 1988), 130.
    
52. Quoted in O'Brien,
    Joni Mitchell
    , 75.
    
53. Les Brown, “Joni Mitchell,”
    Rolling Stone
    (July 6, 1968).
    
54. Robert Hilburn, “Both Sides Later,”
    Los Angeles Times
    , December 8, 1996.
    
55. Timothy White, “Joni Mitchell Interview,” March 17, 1988. (For
    Rock Lives: Profiles and Interviews
    , New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1991.)
    
56. Carla Hill, “The New Joni Mitchell,”
    Washington Post
    , August 25, 1979.
    
57. Laura Campbell, “Joni Chic,”
    Sunday
    Telegraph
    , February 8, 1998.
    
58. Edie Falco to the author at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in an interview about the film
    3 Backyards
    . Unpublished material.
    
59. Weller,
    Girls Like Us
    , 226.
    
60. Dickie, “No Borders Here.”
    
61. Ani DiFranco, “Ani DiFranco Chats with the Iconic Joni Mitchell,”
    Los Angeles Times
    , September 20, 1998.
    
62. Steven Daly, “Rock and Roll,”
    Rolling Stone
    (October 29, 1998).