All language subtitles for Joni.Mitchell.A.Woman.of.Heart.and.Mind.720p.WEB.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

MUSIC: All I Want
by Joni Mitchell

# I am on a lonely road and

# I am travelling, travelling,
travelling, travelling

# 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

# I wanna be strong,
I wanna laugh along

# I wanna belong to the living

# Alive, alive,
I want to get up and jive

# I want to wreck my stockings
in some jukebox dive... #

Joni Mitchell is a true poet.

She can just steel an experience
or a feeling into song

better than anyone.

She is one of those ones
where the sparks all connect.

You know, there's some magic
that took place there.

# I am on a lonely road
and I am travelling

# Looking for the key to set me free

# Oh, the jealousy... #

The journey she's gone on in her
music has been really valuable

and really unique

because of the fact that she's
not going to put lipstick

and make-up on the truth.

"Here it is, here's what I've found.

"Here's my letter home."

# Wanna be the one
that you want to see

# I wanna knit you a sweater

# I wanna write you a love letter

# I wanna make you feel better

# I wanna make you feel free

# Mm hm, hm hm

# Wanna make you feel free

# I wanna make you feel free. #

She creates a musical world that
you can feel but you can't explain.

And, ultimately, you're changed
by the experience.

MUSIC: Urge For Going
by Joni Mitchell

Joni grew up in a small town
on the Canadian prairie.

She was an only child and when she
was nine years old she got polio.

I think she spent
a lot of time alone.

# I awoke today and found
the frost perched on the town

# It hovered in a frozen sky,
then it gobbled summer down... #

I always had star eyes, I think.

I mean, I always was
interested in glamour.

But my childhood longing mostly
was to be a painter.

You know, that was always
my ambition.

I was always the artist
in the classroom.

# I get the urge for going
but I never seem to go... #

You know, Joni was always a rebel.

She told me she used to sneak out
to the wrong side of town for

rock and roll dance contests.

She really lived to dance.

It's almost as if she was making up
for lost time.

# And winter's closing in

# Now the warriors of winter,
they gave a cold, triumphant shout

# And all that stays is dying
All that lives is getting out... #

When the war ended, my father
found us a little house

by the highway with a picture
window, and I think

that set up a permanent longing to
take off and go somewhere in me.

Things coming and going past that
window left an impression upon me.

"Here they come.
Where are they going?"

# They get the urge for going

# When the meadow grass
is turning brown

# And summertime is
falling down... #

Joni had this otherworldly view
of what was possible in her life

and that she was definitely going
to go out there and find it.

I'm not sure that there was
a master plan.

I think she may have been a young
woman with enormous talent,

anxious to see what was
over the next hill,

and the guitar just kind of
afforded her a ticket.

It was, in a way, an accident
because I went to art college

and began to sing in this little
coffee house called

The Depression in Calgary.

# An old man came courting me,
courting me, courting me

# An old man came courting me
Faldaro dee... #

You know, in the beginning I
mimicked Joan Baez and Judy Collins,

and I thought of myself
merely as a competent mimic.

But the idea of being a recording
artist was not anywhere in my mind.

It was just a hobby.

So I didn't think I had the gift to
take it any further than that.

What happened to me then
in art school,

I lost my virginity and became
pregnant at the same time.

The main thing was to protect
my parents from the scandal.

You had to... What girls did, either
you got married to cover it up,

or you went into a home.

Abortion was unheard of.

MUSIC: Little Green
by Joni Mitchell

So I entered onto the bad girl's
trail, you know,

which was a trail of
shame and scandal.

And I had to kind of
hide myself away.

# 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've made her

# Little Green... #

Two weeks after I gave birth
to my daughter,

I again went looking for work
because I had to put her

into a foster home, and I was
penniless at the time.

# Child with a child pretending

# Weary of lies you are sending home

# So you sign all the papers
in the family name

# You're sad and you're sorry,
but you're not ashamed

# Little Green, have a happy ending

# Just a little green... #

One night, while I was playing
in the Penny Farthing,

I met Chuck Mitchell.

We quickly became friends
and he said that he could get me

work in the States.

So with that optimism I went
and took a few gigs down there.

Eventually I had to tell him that
my child was in the foster home,

and he said he would marry me.

I was emotionally weak,
with a lot of things pulling me

in all sorts of unattractive
directions.

And this was a strong
pull in a certain direction,

and somewhat of a solution.

So we married each other, for all
the wrong reasons.

We had no money.

I made my wedding dress and I made
my bridesmaids' dresses.

One of my bridesmaids was his sister
Celia, who I barely knew.

I barely knew any of these people.

And I walked down the aisle
brandishing my daisies,

thinking, "I can get out of this."

But the moment we were married
he intimated strongly that

he had no interest in raising
another man's child.

So I was trapped.

Chuck insisted that we be a duo,

but we were totally
unsuited to be a duo.

# Blues in the bottle,
blues in the bottle... #

He made more money with me
than he did without me.

And he held the purse strings,
completely.

# Where do you think you're at? #

Because we were young
and attractive we were being

made into kind of
Detroit's golden couple.

So we were living a lie.

And I don't like to live a lie.

You try to make the best of moments,
and I looked relatively happy.

But I felt like I'd been betrayed.

It was...

..very difficult for me.

So I began to write.

I think I started writing just to
develop my own private world,

and also because I was disturbed.

# Rows and flows of angel hair

# And ice-cream castles
in the air... #

Both Sides Now was
one of the first songs.

I was meditating on fantasy
and reality,

childlike optimism and
adult reality.

This was the work
of my childhood's end.

# They rain and snow on everyone

# So many things I would've done

# But clouds got in my way

# I've looked at clouds
from both sides now

# From up and down
and still somehow... #

And as my work began to mature
I began to long for my own growth.

I felt that I couldn't grow
with Chuck,

that we would never grow together,

that I had to separate myself
from the duo,

that I had to become
an individual in order to grow.

And as soon as the duo dissolved,
the marriage dissolved.

# Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels

# The dizzy dancing way you feel

# As every fairy tale
comes real... #

I think she had more understanding
than most people do of human beings.

She had already been through
some hard things.

And what makes human beings get
wisdom is paying dues.

It's sort of like you arrive here
as a boulder and you knock

corners off yourself until you get
smooth like a river stone.

And she was already
starting to get smooth.

# I've looked at love
from both sides now

# From give and take
and still somehow

# It's love's illusions I recall

# I really don't know love

# At all. #

I feel every bit of trouble I went
through I'm grateful for, you know?

JONI LAUGHS

Bad fortune changed the course
of my destiny.

I became a musician.

APPLAUSE

You... You're just starting out,
sort of, aren't you?

Um...

Actually, I've been singing
professionally now for two years.

But I consider that I've only
started within the last year,

because I've only felt that I've
begun to have my own way to go,

my own songs and my own guitar style

and I'm starting to get
my own vocal styling now.

How do you determine
when you've sort of arrived

and are what you want to be
in this...?

It's sort of a law of averages.

It depends on...

You don't bomb any more.

That's what it is!

MUSIC: Night In The City
by Joni Mitchell

# Light up, light up

# Light up your lazy blue eyes... #

And Manhattan's Greenwich Village,
it was a very gritty scene,

you know, in terms of the outlook,
the streets, the whole vibe.

There was, like, Bob Dylan
and Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs.

And Joni, Leonard Cohen
and Townes Van Zandt,

they kind of came next.

So I went to New York, and I played
a lot of coffee houses.

I booked myself - I had no manager.

I worked the bulk of the year,
you know, in club dates.

# There are places to come from

# And places to go

# Night in the city looks
pretty to me

# Night in the city looks fine... #

I walked into a coffee house,

and she was singing.

And she just floored me.

She rocked me back up against
the back wall of that place

and I stood there just transfixed.

I couldn't believe that there
was anybody that good.

When I first saw her,
hardly anybody was there.

I mean, the coffee house was empty.

She was standing
almost a little pigeon-toed.

She was all involved in tuning
her guitar,

and she covered her face
with her hair.

It's almost like she wanted to
erase who she is...

..and just let the voice be...

..let the songs be who she is.

# I had a king in
a salt-rusted carriage

# Who carried me off to his country
for marriage too soon... #

And then she started to sing
I Had A King.

I was going through a divorce then.

And I just felt... I don't know
what it was about that song.

Talk about a new way of conveying -
through music, through words

- a new way of conveying
an existential reality,

a thing, you know, like...

Oh, I just started to sob.

# I can't go back there any more

# You know my keys won't
fit the door

# You know my thoughts
don't fit the man

# They never can... #

She sang it so real, so true,
as if she was singing for me.

She was my voice, you know?

She was everybody's voice -
she was like a universal voice.

# They never can. #

I was amazed that she was so young.

You know? There was so much
wisdom in her work.

# Moonlight becomes you

# I'm thrilled at the sight... #

I loved the beautiful melodies which
belonged to the crooner era.

But those melodies had
very simple text.

There wasn't room for much
poetic description.

# You're all dressed up
to go dreaming... #

They're beautiful but they're
very direct English,

and that's what suits
that kind of melody.

But I like the more storytelling
quality of Dylan's work.

# You've got a lot of nerve

# To say you are my friend... #

Bob Dylan had inspired me and it was
the idea of the personal narrative.

He would speak as if to
one person in a song.

You know, like, "You've got a lot
of nerve to say you are my friend,"

you know? I mean, nobody had ever
written anything like that

in song form, you know?

Such a personal, strong statement.

And his influence was to
personalise my work.

"I feel this for you,"

or "from you," or "because of you."

That was the key.

"OK, this opens all the doors.

"Now we can write about anything."

# There's a man who's been
out sailing

# In a decade full of dreams

# And he takes her to his schooner

# And he treats her like a queen

# Bearing beads from California

# With their amber stones
and green... #

The thing that I was reluctant
to let go of was

the melodic, harmonic sense.

Whereas Dylan, you could speak
in paragraphs,

but it was for the sacrifice
of music.

You get the plateaus upon
which to speak.

# In the breaking and the breathing

# Of the water weeds

# And she's so busy being free... #

So it was my job to distil a hybrid
that allowed for a certain

amount of melodic movement
and harmonic movement,

but with a certain amount of
plateaus in order to make

the longer statement,
to be able to say more.

# And he hopes her heart can hear
three thousand miles

# He calls again

# He can think her there beside him

# He can miss her just the same... #

She was always more poetic
than most of her peers.

Even in the early songs like
The Circle Game and Both Sides Now,

there was a construction of images
and structure to her work

and ingenuity of imagery that
nobody else had.

# Yesterday a child came out
to wander

# Caught a dragonfly inside a jar

# Fearful when the sky was
full of thunder... #

Joni sent me a tape of six songs.

The last song, I remember
she says into the tape recorder,

"This song isn't done yet,
and it really sucks

"and I don't even know why I'm
sending it to you, but here it is."

And it was The Circle Game.

# And the painted ponies go
up and down... #

It was one of the best songs
I'd ever heard.

# We're captive on
the carousel of time... #

I was Buffy Sainte-Marie's agent.

And she'd recorded a new album,
and I had listened to the album

and I called her up and I said,

"I really loved that
song about the circle game."

And she said, "That song was
written by Joni Mitchell."

That was the first time
I heard Joni Mitchell's name.

The myth was starting about
her material,

and people wanted
Joni Mitchell songs.

I told her I was a personal manager
and I'd kill to work with her.

And she said, "I'm leaving tomorrow
and I'm going on the road

"for about three weeks."

And in those days
she booked herself,

she travelled with her guitar,
she went alone on the road.

And I said, "Can I go with you?"

And she said, "Well, if you meet me
at the airport tomorrow,

"I'm flying to Ann Arbor, Michigan.

"If you meet me at the airport and
you're there...", and she gave me

the flight number, "..and you pay
your own expenses,

"you can come with me."

And we did. I went on the road
with her the next day.

Elliot became wildly
excited about Joni,

and he introduced me to her,
and I became her agent.

And, you know, it was the beginning
of her career,

it was the beginning of our careers.

You know, everything was
very small-time.

When she first came out,
she had a backlog of 20, 25 songs

that were what most people would
dream that they would do

in their entire career.

She had already done it before
she had recorded.

It was stunning.

APPLAUSE

# Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning

# And the first thing that I heard

# Was a song outside my window

# And the traffic wrote the words

# It came a-ringing up like
Christmas bells

# And rapping up like
pipes and drums

# Oh, won't you stay?
We'll put on the day

# And we'll wear it till
the night comes... #

Joni invented everything
about her music,

including how to tune the guitar.

From the beginning
of the process of writing it,

she's building the canvas, as well
as she is putting the paint on it.

# The red, green and gold... #

No-one's trained her.
She's trained herself.

And even in these early
compositions,

she finds a harmony,
or a group of chords,

and, invariably, it's never
straight on.

# There's a sun show
every second... #

For years, everybody said, "Joni's
weird chords, Joni's weird chords,"

and I thought, "How can
there be weird chords?"

Chords are depictions of emotions.

These chords that I was getting
by twisting the knobs on the guitar

until I could get these chords that
I heard inside that suited me,

they feel like my feelings.

You know, I call them,
not knowing, chords of inquiry.

They have a question mark in them.

There were so many unresolved things
in me that those chords

suited me and I'd stay in unresolved
emotionality for days and days.

# The rainbow runs away

# I will bring you incense owls
by night

# By candlelight, by jewel-light
If only you will stay

# Pretty baby, won't you?

# Wake up,
it's a Chelsea morning... #

It was a little daunting to be
a singer-songwriter in her presence

because she was so good. She does it
in a way that nobody else can do it.

She doesn't sound like anybody.

You hear her play and you say,
"Oh, that's Joni."

# De de-de de-de... #

JONI REACHES HIGH NOTE

APPLAUSE

# Trinna wears her wampum beads

# She fills her drawing book
with lines

# Sewing lace on widows' weeds

# And filigree on leaf and vine... #

Laurel Canyon in the late '60s
was an incredible place to be.

It was the time everyone was
coming out to California.

There was a camaraderie
among all the artists.

There was always people coming
over, up and down the canyon,

going from one house to another,
playing new songs for each other.

There was so much happening.

Electric music was starting to
happen. The acid rock was happening.

You know, the Byrds and the Airplane
and the Grateful Dead,

all of those groups were playing
all the small clubs.

# Annie sits you down to eat

# She always makes you... #

I can only liken it to Vienna
in the turn of the century

or Paris in the '30s.

Laurel Canyon was very similar in
that there was a freedom in the air.

There was a sense
that we could do anything.

We were scruffy kids that were,
in some small way,

changing the world, changing the way
people think about things,

and there was a sharing of ideas

and a true love for being

in the right place
at the right time.

# La la-la la-la la-la... #

There really was an ethic of peace
and love and art

and poetry amongst that crowd.

Poetry, even more than
musicality, was revered

and Joan was the best poet
at the time,

so it was the kind of period where
she had a lot to say

and everyone wanted to hear it.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# He'll drop his defences

# You'll see through the stone
to the heart of the man... #

I took her around to people that
I knew already loved music,

loved singer-songwriters,
and I said, "Listen to this,"

and I'd roll them a joint,
get them high and sit down

and ask Joni to play, and the word
spread pretty much like wildfire.

I'm finally going to make
a record. I...

APPLAUSE

I did produce her first record,
but I didn't do that great a job.

The only thing I did right was keep
almost everything off of it,

keep it to just Joni and the songs.

Creatively, she knew
where she wanted it to go

and what she wanted it to be.

She had a vision.
She wasn't looking for input.

# Marcie in a coat of flowers

# Stops inside a candy store

# Reds are sweet and greens are sour

# Still no letter at her door... #

There's an innocence about this
first album.

Song To A Seagull is a very
rarefied, very pure,

very innocent musical experience.

It's a poetic experience.

# Wave another day goodbye

# Marcie's faucet needs a plumber

# Marcie's sorrow needs a man... #

David Crosby once told me that

if I ever ran across Joni Mitchell
in my travels to introduce myself

because he thought that we would
get on...

..and get on we did.

INTRO TO CONVERSATION

# He comes for conversation... #

She later took me back to her hotel,
where she proceeded to play me

music that was...from
another planet.

# Comfort and consultation... #

I was looking at this woman who was
so beautiful,

surrounded by wonderful warm
objects, candles and pieces of silk

and tapestry, gargoyles outside
the window.

We were on the top floor.

Quite frankly, I'll never,
ever forget that night. Ever.

# He sees me when he pleases

# I see him in cafes... #

I fell completely in love with Joni
right then.

I had never heard, seen or met
a creature like this in my life.

It was something else.

APPLAUSE

It's a long way from Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, to Carnegie Hall.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

MAN SHOUTS: I love you!

The audience at Carnegie Hall were
ecstatic that Joni was there.

I think it was jammed
to the rafters.

# When morning comes to Morgantown

# The merchants roll
their awnings down... #

It was Joan's coming out
in a really big way.

She brought her parents from Canada.
This was a big deal.

# Morning, Morgantown

# Buy your dreams a dollar down... #

Well, Carnegie Hall the first time
around was quite an event

on so many levels.

"New York loves you, Joni."
It was wonderful.

She was magnificent that night.

She had reached a place in
her career that was indisputable.

APPLAUSE

A lot of the people
in my audience are very tired

because they came here,
I understand, from Woodstock

right here...

APPLAUSE

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young had
been asked to play Woodstock,

as had Joni.

We had arrived at
La Guardia Airport

and I picked up the New York Times.

It said, "400,000 people sitting
in mud," and I said to Joni,

"Let's not go."

It was decided at the airport that
I couldn't go

because it would be difficult to
get me in and get me out

and I had to do a television show,
The Dick Cavett Show,

the following day.

It was her first national TV
and it was a big break.

The boys weren't going to miss out
on it. They rented a helicopter

and they got in, and not only did
they get in, but they got out

because they crashed the TV show
the next day.

Can I describe to you what it looked
like flying in on a helicopter, man?

Yes. It looked like an encampment
of the Macedonian army.

You know, when I look at that film,
my heart was just breaking.

This was like...

..the biggest event of my generation
and I got THAT close to going

and being a part of it.

So, I stayed home in New York and
I watched it on television all day

and saw everybody there
playing and singing.

It was really a nice festival, I
guess, from the looks of everything.

Well, I wrote a little song
for my friends to sing,

and for myself to sing as well,
and it's called Woodstock.

It goes like this.

By the time we got back
to the hotel,

having gone through that tremendous
experience, the song Woodstock

had already been basically written.

# I came upon a child of God

# He was walking along the road

# And I asked him
I said, "Where are you going?"

# And this he told me

# I'm going on down to
Yasgur's farm

# Gonna join in
a rock and roll band

# I'm gonna camp out on the land

# Lord, I'm gonna try
and get my soul free

# We are stardust

# We are golden

# And we've got to get ourselves

# Back to the garden... #

She contributed more towards
people's understanding of that

event than anybody that was there.

I think, throughout her work, there
is an effort to make the music

be sky-bound, to relieve the body of
temporality

and, when she gets there, oof!

It's almost a chant - this need
for release and transcendence.

To ride above the culture,
to be in the sky, to reflect,

to not be in it,
but to look down upon it.

# I'll light the fire

# You place the flowers in the vase

# That you bought today

# Staring at the fire

# For hours and hours
while I listen to you

# Play your love songs

# All night long for me

# Only for... #

It was an intense time.

It was an intense time of, "Who's
going to get to the piano first?

"Who's going to fill up the space
with their music first?"

I mean, we had two very creative
writers living in the same space

and it was an interesting clash of,

"I want to get as close to you as
possible, leave me alone to create."

# My old man

# He's a singer in the park

# He's a walker in the rain

# He's a dancer in... #

Graham and I have been the source
of many songs for one another.

# We don't need no piece
of paper from the city hall... #

A lot of beautiful music
came from it

and a lot of beautiful times
came from it.

# My old man, keeping away
my blues... #

How does a person write a song?

A lot of it is being open, I think,
to encounter and, in a way,

in touch with the miraculous.

It has to do with the Irish blood,
I think, and luck,

you know, whether the blarney is
flowing.

Some nights, if you listen to
the rattles of your own head,

it's more linguistically colourful
or eccentric than other nights.

Is the blarney running or is it not?

You know, like, at any given time,
it's not like, one night,

you'll trip over your tongue,
you know, the words won't

come with the same facility, and,
another night, it's just with you.

Why? Is it your biorhythms?
Is it divine intervention,

you know, saying,
"You can't have it tonight"?

Watching her write was
the most interesting process.

It's almost like she channels.

She was gone for hours.

I mean, she was physically right
there, but she wasn't there.

She was gone. I'd say things to her
and she wasn't even listening.

She was gone.
And it was a great thing to see.

Great thing to see somebody
taken away by vision.

# You could have been more than
a name on the door

# On the 33rd floor in the air

# More than a credit card

# Swimming pool in the back yard

# While you still have the time

# You could get away and find
a better life

# You know the grind is
so ungrateful

# Racing cars, whisky bars

# No-one cares who you really are

# You're the keeper of the cards

# Yes, I know it gets hard

# Keeping the wheels turning

# And the wife, she keeps
the keys... #

Joni looks for this magical riff,
this little piece of

rhythm and harmony and melody
that's going to set up

an extraordinary mood.

And when she finds it, you can
almost see her and feel her,

and you hear that from the opening
of these tunes.

It envelops the listener,

but think how it envelops her
when she finds it.

# More than a consumer
Lying in some room... #

She lives with a great respect
for this mystery

and with an openness,
inviting this mystery.

This is her great strength

because I think it requires
tremendous strength to really

believe in something that
you cannot put your finger on.

# Love is but a song we sing

# Fear's the way we die... #

I had sworn my heart to Graham
in a way that

I didn't think was possible
for myself.

And he wanted me to marry him.

I'd agreed to it.

# Though the bird is
on the wing... #

And then I just started thinking.

My grandmother was a frustrated
poet and musician.

She kicked the kitchen door
off of the hinges,

you know, on the farm. And I thought
about my paternal grandmother,

who wept for the last time in her
life at 14 behind some barn

because she wanted a piano

and said, "Dry your eyes, you silly
girl, you'll never have a piano,"

and I thought...

..maybe I'm the one that got
the gene that has to make it

happen for these two women.

As much as I loved
and cared for Graham...

..I just thought, "I'm going
to end up like my grandmother,

"kicking the door off the hinges."
You know what I mean? It's like...

..I'd better not.
And it broke my heart.

This year, I took some time off
from touring and went off

on some adventures of my own, and
this is kind of a letter back home.

# Sitting in a park in Paris, France

# Reading the news and it's all bad

# They won't give peace a chance

# That was just a dream
some of us had... #

I remember getting a telegram
from Greece from Joan

the last line of which was,

"If you hold sand too
tightly in your hand,

"it will run through your fingers."

It was Joan's way of saying
goodbye to me.

PIANO INTRO TO BLUE

# Blue-ooh

# Songs are like tattoos

# You know I've been to sea before

# Crown and anchor me

# Or let me sail away

# Hey, Blue

# There is a song for you, too

# Ink on a pin

# Underneath the skin

# An empty space to fill in

# Well, there're so many sinking

# Now you've got to keep thinking

# You can make it through
these waves... #

Yeah, during the making of Blue
I was just so thin-skinned

and delicate that if anybody
looked at me,

I'd burst into tears.

I was so vulnerable and I felt
so naked in my work.

# Everybody's saying that hell's
the hippest way to go

# Well, I don't think so

# But I'm gonna take
a look around it, though, Blue

# I love you

# I love you... #

My individual psychological descent
coincided, ironically,

with my ascent into the public eye.

They were putting me on a pedestal
and I was wobbling.

# Blue

# Here is a shell for you... #

So, you know,
I took it upon myself that

since I was a public voice and was
subject to this kind of weird

worship, that they should know who
they were worshipping.

# There is your song from me. #

I was demanding of myself a deeper
and greater honesty,

more and more revelation in my work,

in order to give it
back to the people

where it goes into their lives and
nourishes them

and changes their direction
and, you know,

makes light bulbs
go off in their head,

and makes them feel,
and, you know... And it isn't vague,

it strikes against the very
nerves of their life, and in order

to do that, you've to strike
against the very nerves of your own.

# Just before our love got lost you
said

# "I am as constant
as a northern star"

# And I said,
"Constantly in the darkness

# "Where's that at?

# "If you want me
I'll be in the bar..." #

I remember playing it
for Kris Kristofferson and he was

kind of shocked by it, said, "Oh,
Joni," you know,

"save something of yourself."

I think he'd felt that
I had gone too...

Revealed too much or something,

I'd leave myself too vulnerable.

I think she was very insecure
whether it was good, you know?

Whether she'd...

I think she felt basically she had
taken her skin and turned it inside
out.

# Oh, you're 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

# I would still be on my feet... #

It was naked, pulsating,
great poetry.

Blue just went to a level of psychic
pain and honesty

that no-one else had ever
written before

and no-one else has written since.

# Oh, I am a lonely painter

# I live in a box of paints

# I'm frightened by the devil

# And I'm drawn to those ones
that ain't afraid

# I remember that time
that you told me

# You said, "Love is touching souls"

# Surely you touched mine

# Cos part of you pours out of me

# In these lines from time to time

# Oh... #

Blue turned forever on its head
the notion of what a songwriter

was expected to be.

Joni became enormously popular
through that,

and people didn't just love her
the way that people love

the Rolling Stones and Motown,

they really felt this woman,
by the light of this record player,

is looking into my soul.

You know, a very confusing place for
the artist to find herself, too.

APPLAUSE

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The club thing was very informal
and kind of fun,

whereas the big stage I hated from
the moment that I went up there.

I didn't like that lofty adoration.

It seemed deluded.

The idea of people at my knees was
just horrifying to me.

# Now me, I play for fortunes

# And those velvet curtain calls

# I've got a black limousine

# And two gentlemen

# Escorting me to the halls

# Now, I play if you have the money

# Or if you're a friend to me

# But the one-man band

# By the quick lunch stand

# He was playing real good

# For free... #

VOICEOVER: Fame made me really
nervous and uncomfortable.

You know, maybe I'm kind of weird
but, you know,

when I'm sitting up here and playing

and I hear all those people growling
out there and people saying,

"Joni, smile for Amsterdam," and
stuff, it really puts me uptight

and I forget the words, and then I
get nervous and it's really a drag.

VOICEOVER: I began to dislike, more
and more, being a public person.

Give me a little help, will you,
so that I can...

VOICEOVER: So I isolated myself

and I made my attempt to get back to
the garden.

# It's coming on Christmas

# They're cutting down trees

# They're putting up reindeer

# And singing songs of joy and peace

# Oh, I wish I had a river

# I could skate away on

# But it don't snow here

# It stays pretty green

# I'm going to make a lot of money

# Then I'm going to quit
this crazy scene

# I wish I had a river

# I could skate away on... #

I moved up into the Canadian back
bush to a small sanctuary

where I could be alone.

Lived with kerosene, stayed away
from electricity for about a year.

I turned to nature.

I was going down,

and with that came a tremendous
sense of knowing nothing.

Western psychology might call it
a nervous breakdown,

but in certain cultures they call it
a shamanic conversion.

I read nearly every psychological
book that I could lay my hands on

and threw them all
against the wall, basically.

But depression can be the sand
that makes the pearl.

Most of my best work came out of it.

# It's coming on Christmas... #

If you get rid of the demons,
or the disturbing things,

if you get rid of them
then the angels fly off, too.

So there is a possibility, in that
mire, of an epiphany.

# I could skate away on. #

# I heard it in the wind last night

# It sounded like applause

# Did you get a round
resounding for you way up here?

# 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... #

I took my own advice
and I got myself back to the garden.

Well, I am too urban,
as it turns out,

and in a year or so
I was back in the cities again.

# I guess I seem ungrateful

# With my teeth sunk in the hand

# That brings me things

# I really can't
give up just yet... #

When I came back, I came to stay
with David Geffen as a guest,

and was kind of the woman who
came to dinner.

I ended up staying on for a while.

We were roommates.

It was a very heady time, you know?

It was very tumultuous
and a lot of fun, and '70s.

I kept on telling Joni I wanted
her to write a hit,

and she was always kind of making
fun of me, you know, about the idea

that she should have a hit, but I
wanted her to sell a lot of records.

# If you're driving into town with
a dark cloud above you

# Dial in the number who's
bound to love you

# Oh, honey, you turn me on

# I'm a radio

# I'm a country station

# I'm a little bit corny... #

I remember when she sang it to me,
you know?

I mean, it was almost with a kind
of, like,

making fun of my attempt for her to
write a hit record.

# I'm a country station,
I'm a little bit corny... #

# If your head says forget it

# But your heart's still
smoking... #

I wrote a song called
You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio,

out of blatant commercial...

SHE GIGGLES

I just thought...

I thought it would have a certain
amount of disc jockey appeal

since it was full of things like the
recording tower and, you know,

"call me at the station"
and everything, and it was just,

like, sort of my own peculiar
warped sense of humour.

# Feeling all right

# Oh

# I'm not feeling too good myself

# Oh

# Feeling all right

# All right

# All right

# All right... #

Joni has always wanted to be
part of the gang.

As feminine as she is, she's always
wanted to be one of the boys.

And when she played with the
L.A. Express,

she probably just created her
own little gang.

# He was sitting in the lounge... #

She loved the camaraderie of all
these guys who were great,

great players and who recognised
what a great guitar player she was,

and the joy of just having
a killer rhythm section.

It was so much more fun.

# Let me sit down

# You know, drinkin' alone's a
shame... #

Now being on a stage with a group of
people, I can go back and I can say,

"Weren't we great?" if we were,

or, "Ooh, weren't we awful?"
if we weren't.

So it's not such a lonely thing.

Her image was the vulnerable blonde.

And when she went with a band, there
was something masculine about it.

There was a certain power

and confidence that was conveyed

through the bass and the drums,

and nobody ever heard her
sing like this before.

# Come up to my kitchen,
I'll show you my best recipe... #

REPORTER: Do you think that the fact
that you're singing with a band now,

you might lose something by
losing that vulnerable image?

Well, I don't want to be
vulnerable any more.

THEY LAUGH

I think people have this image and
idea of this fragile Nordic goddess

who's descending from the mountains,
like...

..wisps of Wagner and...

..Tiffany wind chimes behind her.

But later on, you know, I think
when she got infected

with rock and roll, she turned into,
like,

a red-hot mama, flesh and blood.

# Come home with me, honey, I ain't
asking for no full-length mink coat

# Hey, where you going?

# Don't go yet

# Your glass ain't empty
and we just met

# You're mean when you're loaded

# I was raised on robbery... #

I shouldn't be stereotyped
as a magic princess,

as I got earlier in my career,
you know?

The sort of Twinkle Twinkle Little
Star kind of attitude, you know?

I didn't like that feeling.

And I think that the band will only
show that there is another

side to the music.

I think it's a good expansion.

Court And Spark was a great
achievement for Joni.

It catapulted her into the forefront
of recording stars.

It was a triumph.

Court And Spark was
a discourse on romantic love

against the backdrops
of its time.

# Again and again the same situation

# For so many years

# Tethered to a ringing telephone

# In a room full of mirrors... #

John Guerin and I fell in love

during the making of
Court And Spark.

He was a drummer,
and we courted and sparked.

# I asked myself when you said
that you loved me

# "Do you think this can be real?"

# You've had lots of lovely women

# Now you turn your gaze to me... #

In order to get the right
spirit into the music,

there's got to be more than
a working relationship.

There has to be a sense of passion,

there has to be something
there for the heart,

there has to be something
there for the intellect,

there has to be something there
for the sensuality and sensation.

# Sometimes you turn it on me
like a weapon, though

# And I need your approval... #

A major theme in her work, the
struggle between wanting to settle

down with a man, longing for love
and this desire for independence.

# I said, "Send me somebody

# "Who's strong and somewhat
sincere"

# With the millions of the lost
and lonely ones

# I called out to be released

# Caught in my struggle for higher
achievement

# And my search for a love that
don't seem to cease... #

It defines her life all the way
through,

this need for love and this sense of
obligation to her art,

to follow her muse.

It's an ongoing conflict in her life
and, of course, it fuels the art.

Anything which moves me,
influences me.

Now, at this time in my life,
I'm going

through a strong musical change
from playing with this band

whose chordal sense comes
predominantly from jazz.

# I'm travelling in some vehicle

# I'm sitting in some cafe

# A defector from the petty wars

# That shellshocked love away... #

The need to innovate or to be fresh
or to be original

is very strong in me.

# There's comfort in melancholy... #

She has this great need for this new
language.

When she finishes through
a set of feelings,

she has to invent yet another
language to keep going.

She understood that she was going
to need the sounds

and talents of these other
artists to keep the language going.

# So much could not
be expressed... #

And so she surrounded herself with
people like her engineer,

her musicians, who allowed her to
change, to be original,

and Henry was one of those.

Henry Lewy was Joni's engineer for
many years,

and was a big influence.

Henry and I had a dialogue that
I guess had gotten fairly cryptic.

I never learned the proper
names for things

and gave everything nicknames.

"Put a little more Elvis on it,"
for instance, a little more echo.

And somebody turned to
Henry, I forget who it was,

and said, "Do you understand what
she's saying?"

And he smiled,
and he said, "Every word."

The lovely thing is to watch her
grow, year after year,

as a human being,
as a musician, as a poet.

She started out being a poetess
and a painter,

so now it's gotten to the
stage where she's,

like, painting with a large
palette of oil colours,

instead of just a very small
palette of watercolours.

# You know it never has been easy

# Whether you do or
you do not resign

# Whether you travel
the breadth of extremities

# Or stick to some straighter
line... #

I had tried all along to add other
musicians to my music.

Nearly every bass player that
I tried did the same thing.

They would put up a dark picket
fence through my music

and I thought, "Why does it have to
go ploddy, ploddy, ploddy?"

Finally, one guy said to me,

"Joni, you'd better play with jazz
musicians."

With Hejira there was a real
collaboration with

Jaco Pastorius, the jazz bass
player, in which his bass

and her voice became a man-woman
duet, an extremely intimate,

deep dialogue between two musicians.

# Coyote's in the coffee shop

# He's staring a hole in his
scrambled eggs

# He picks up my scent
on his fingers

# While he's watching the
waitresses' legs... #

Joni always looked way beyond
whatever genre she seemed to be in.

She just kept exploring new
boundaries, new frontiers.

She was really one of the first, if
not the first mainstream musician

to plunge into what hadn't even
been called world music yet,

but really was world music,

and really explore it,
bring it into her vocabulary.

BASS SOLO

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

MUSIC: Cotton Avenue
by Joni Mitchell

# A red sun came
rolling down a grey sky... #

One of my favourite compliments that
I ever received was from

a black blind piano player, and he
said to me,

"Joni, you make genderless, raceless
music,"

and I thought, well, I hadn't set
out, you know, saying,

"I'm going to make genderless,
raceless music,"

but I did want to make music that
crossed...

I never really liked lines,
class lines,

social structure lines,
and I ignored them always.

Mingus called me from his deathbed
to do his last project with him.

He'd heard
Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

and was intrigued by it.

And I think because I was dressed
like a black man on it,

he was totally intrigued with, you
know, the audacity of that act.

Joan was flattered that, "My God,
this man who I so admire

"and has been such a
ground-setter and trend-setter,

"and has been such an important
influence in his genre for so long,

"picked me to do his
last project."

Management begged me,

"Don't do this, you're just going to
plummet into obscurity."

We talked about it at that time,
"It's going to offend some people,

"and it's not going to get radio
play,"

but there was no thinking about it
for Joan.

She would not be marketed

and she would not let the marketing
affect what she was going to do.

That was a great opportunity to
study with a great teacher.

I felt that it was meant to be,

in that I've been sticking my big
toe into the lake of jazz,

metaphorically, and Charles
pushed me right in.

JAZZ KEYBOARD PLAYS

I went to see him

and I came through the door of his
apartment

and all I saw was this hulking
figure,

from behind in this wheelchair.

When I came around in front of him,
whoa, man, this face was, like,

glowing full of the devil
and beautiful light

and, you know,
just this beautiful open face.

He gave me a tape with six
melodies

which he called Joni one, two,
three, four, five, six,

and the first song was a bit of a
Rumpelstiltskin puzzle.

I said to Charles, "What do you feel
this piece of music is about?"

He said, "Well, this is about the
things I'm going to miss

"and the things I wish I'd done,"

and I looked at him
and he looked at me

and I thought, "He must have a
million pieces of music left

"in his head unfulfilled, plus
the adventure is slipping away."

# Debating this sentence,
biding my time

# In memories

# Of old friends of mine... #

When I finished it, I think he was
very surprised that I would

have that insight into him, and yet,
at the same time, intuitively,

he knew I would. He must have,
otherwise he wouldn't have called.

# Burning up the bandstand... #

I went and cut it with the band of
my dreams,

and with the concept that we would
all be so braided together

that you couldn't take it apart,
it would be a sheet of sound.

That was the concept.

# 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 tantalised

# They keep you reaching for your
wallet

# Here in fool's paradise... #

I had no idea she had that much
of a kind of freedom

in her approach to the music that
was so compatible with jazz.

# I dropped a dime, I blew it

# He kept ringing bells... #

She could see putting another kind
of dressing around the music,

another way to kind of weave a
different kind of tapestry,

and still capture the essence of
Charlie Mingus, but her way.

# It's all luck, it's just luck

# You get a little lucky
and you make a little money... #

She wanted to realise the freedom of
creation, and when we recorded,

we tried to make the music, like,
deliver that feeling of adventure.

# We came up from the subway

# On the music midnight makes... #

The press just thought I'd lost my
marbles, I think.

You know, "What is she doing now?"
You know.

She was very disappointed when
people did not understand

her change of musical direction,

and I think it brought Joan a lot
of pain that she wasn't

seen as the creative free-form
artist that she really is,

that she was pigeonholed into being
this blonde folk singer image

that she has been trying to escape
for years

and years and years and years.

# Music, do-do... #

Joni was exercising
something called freedom.

And inclusion instead of exclusion.

# Dancing outside this
crowded black bar... #

It's not about style,
it's about her artistic commitment,

it's about her musical
exploration.

It doesn't matter what you
draw from, who cares?

A bit from jazz, a bit from...
What's the difference?

It's hers.

# And there were two brand-new
little musicians dancing there

# Tonight. #

MUSIC: A Chair In The Sky
by Joni Mitchell

Any time I make a record,
it's followed by a painting period.

It's good crop rotation.

I keep the creative juices going
by switching from one to the other,

so that when the music or
the writing dries up, I paint.

You rest the ear a while
and you rest the inner mind,

because poetry takes
a lot of plumbing the depths.

I mean, the way I write, anyway,
it takes a lot of meditation.

Without the painting to clear the
head, I don't think I could do it.

It's almost as if painting
completely takes her out of being

who she is, even though her
paintings are also

a great part of who she is.

SHE SCATS

There were three things Picasso did
in order to create a new period.

One, he would return home to Spain -
that always did it.

Two, he would get a new house.

Three, he would get a new woman.

LAUGHS

UPBEAT '80S ROCK MUSIC

# He came, she smiled

# She thought she had... #

When I began working with her, the
songs that she was writing

were born out of a desire to adopt

a more direct method of
communicating what she was thinking.

# In the dark, he could see... #

The response to Mingus was very
negative,

and I think that she felt that she
needed to go back a little bit

more towards the traditional song.

# Wild things run fast... #

With Wild Things,

we had put together a rock band with
tremendous virtuosity

in that band, and a lot of the music
written about that

was the celebration of this
friendship between Klein and I,

which had turned into love.

MUSIC: Underneath The Streetlight
by Joni Mitchell

Being in love is extremely
important to her muse.

A lot of her creative impulses come
from whatever that phenomenon is

that happens to us when we fall in
love.

# Yes, I do, I love ya!

# I swear on the blinkin' planes
above, I do

# I swear on the truck
at the stoplight... #

I was writing about romantic love,

but the '80s were not romantic
times.

The press said, "She used the L-word
44 times on this record."

Nobody could handle the fact that
there was a celebration of love

going on, and they were in this
deadly cold-hearted period.

ACOUSTIC GUITAR AND SYNTH PLAY

# Back in 1957,
we had to dance a foot apart

# And they hawk-eyed
us from the sidelines

# Holding their rulers
without a heart... #

The writing has been an exercise,

trying to work my way
towards clarity.

Get out the pen and face the beast
yourself,

and what's bothering you, and...

"Right, well, that's not exactly
it." You know?

"OK, let's go a little deeper.
Well, that's not exactly it..."

Very hard peeling
the layers off your own onion.

# Was just to come
in from the cold... #

When you get to the truth, you know,
do I want to say that in public?

# I am not some stone commission

# Like a statue in a park

# I am flesh and blood and vision

# I am howling in the dark... #

So you're really doing a tightrope
walk to keep your heart alive,

to keep your art alive, to keep
it vital and useful to others.

This is now useful because we've
hit upon a human truth.

# But all I ever wanted

# Was just to come in
from the cold... #

She tells the truth about herself,

she tells the truth about what
she observes in the world.

It's almost like a welder,

when you see them when they put
those visors down

and you see that welding torch and
that heat and that point of contact

between the flame and the object...

I think that's where Joni likes to
live,

right, right in that essence.

CROWD APPLAUD
BAND BEGINS TO PLAY

# I pulled up behind a Cadillac

# I was waiting for the light

# I took a look at his licence plate

# And it said "Just Ice"

# Is justice just ice?

# Governed by greed and lust?

# Just the strong doing what they
can

# And the weak suffering what
they must?

# And the gas leaks

# And the oil spills

# And sex sells everything

# And sex kills

# Oh, sex kills

# Doctor's pills give you
brand-new ills and...

# The bills bury you like an
avalanche

# And lawyers haven't been
this popular

# Since Robespierre
slaughtered half of France... #

The artist is the canary in the
coalmine.

I mean, we're supposed to be
out there on the fringes

with an overview.

If we are doing our work, we should
be a little ahead of the stripe,

but people kept saying things
like,

"Aren't you being very negative?"

I'd said, "No, I'm just being
realistic.

"Aren't you being a bit of an
ostrich, you know?"

# And the gas leaks

# And the oil spills

# And sex sells everything

# And sex kills... #

After we started making
Turbulent Indigo,

we just reached a point where we
were just not good for each other

as husband and wife.

You know, the thing that carries you
through in a relationship

is not romantic love. We started
out as friends,

and that's what ended up carrying us
through ten years,

which is not a bad run.

When we split up,
we got back to being friends,

and now I would say
she's my best friend.

MUSIC: Tiger Bones
by Joni Mitchell

Well, in the '90s,
they really started giving Joni

every kind of honour and award,

they really rolled out the red
carpet.

But I think she probably figured
they were honouring her

for the wrong things.

Once one was given to me, the others
felt the necessity to do it,

but they didn't really know why.

The day after I won the Grammy
for Turbulent Indigo,

there was an article that came out
in a newspaper that said,

"Singer-Songwriters: Then and Now."

This was a day after I won a
Grammy,

and I was in the "then" column.

I do some interviews and they go,

"You, you know, you're that folk
singer from the '60s."

I said, "Look, I just won three...

"We are in the '90s now,
I've won Grammys like all...

"Doesn't that
make me an artist of the '90s?"

# Accolades and honours

# One false move
and you're a goner... #

There's been a tremendous
amount of growth.

An actress is not expected to
continue to play her ingenue roles.

You know, I've written roles
for myself to grow into gracefully,

but there is no growing
into gracefully in the pop world.

Basically, the reason I'm
so unruly in this business

is because I never wanted to be
a human jukebox.

She never set out to be
a popular artist.

This is the real key to
understanding her.

# The moon shed light
on my hopeless plight

# As the radio blared so bland

# Every disc a poker chip

# Every song just a one-night stand

# Formula music, girlie guile

# Genuine junk food for juveniles

# Up and down the dial

# Mercenary style... #

She never sold out.

She had the courage to really
follow her muse,

to follow what came out of her,

no matter what the
marketplace demanded.

I tried to train myself to be a
realist.

I'm not cynical.
To me, it's like,

"Can you get through this life
with a good heart?"

And that's been my struggle.

You know, with all the injustice
and everything

and the things that piss you off,
you know,

is to try and get the heart to
rebound

and come back and bloom again, you
know?

Joan has always had a lot of guilt

surrounding the whole
situation with her child

and this incredibly strong drive to
find her.

I had the great fortune to see
her in Vancouver, Canada,

when she was with her
daughter for the first time.

She was so overjoyed,
she was like a little kid.

Joni's face had changed.

# This is really something

# People will be envious

# But our roles aren't clear
So we mustn't rush

# Still, we're burning brightly

# Clinging like fire to fuel

# I'm burning like a fool

# Stay in touch... #

We both were very excited about
meeting.

I'm thinking, you know,
"What if she doesn't like me?

"Probably she won't like me."

You know,
"There's going to be issues here."

# Stay in touch... #

She arrived and I was upstairs
and I was painting.

So I walked out on the balcony of
the house

and I saw her kind of in the dark.

It was like Romeo and Juliet.

She had some paintbrushes in
her hand,

and when we met at the front door
in the kitchen with hugs,

it felt like I had gone away on a
trip for a couple months

and I was coming home.

# During times like these,
the wise or influential

# They can bear
the imperfections... #

Joni doesn't look
like a grandmother,

or act like a grandmother,

she's like a mother of the three of
us.

# No doubt that's always been
a tricky one for me

# So we should just surrender

# Let fate and duty shape us... #

It's like the master's class in
love,

true altruistic love.

She is going through that now.

She's really exploring and finding
her way through

a process of discovery that you can
only experience

through your relationship with a
child.

It was a healing thing.
Yes, it was very cathartic.

It was coming full circle.

She was always truthful in her work,

and maybe the fact that she had not
wanted to acknowledge

that she had a child publicly was
the missing piece,

and with this piece complete,

not only was her family complete,

but in a weird way,
her work was complete.

STRINGS PLAY

# Rows and flows of angel hair

# And ice-cream castles in the air

# And feather canyons everywhere

# Looked at clouds that way

# But now they only block the sun

# They rain and they snow on
everyone

# So many things I would have done

# But clouds got in my way

# I've looked at clouds
from both sides now

# From up and down

# And still somehow

# It's cloud illusions I recall

# I really don't know clouds

# At all... #

On her first album,
there is the song Cactus Tree,

about choosing to leave the roads
that were possible,

you know, college, marriage,
motherhood, everything,

and go off on her own journey.

Years later, in Hejira, an album
about leaving behind entanglements

and following the next horizon,

she at the end pulls into
the Cactus Tree Motel

to wash off the dust of the
road,

and you're very aware that for all
of the changes,

superficial and real,

that she's gone through
and her music has gone through

and her audience has gone
through in that time,

this is still a continuation of that
journey she started,

she is still writing her map as she
drives.

# But something's gained

# In living every day

# I have looked at life from both
sides now

# From win and lose
and still somehow

# It's life's illusions I recall

# I really don't know life

# At all

# It's life's illusions
that I recall

# I really don't know life

# I really don't know life at all. #

For me, it's been a very kind of
subjective,

I guess you'd say, journey.

Subjective but hopefully universal.

That was always my optimism,
that if I described my own changes

through whatever the decade was
throwing at us,

that there were others like me,

and it turns out that there were.

BIRDSONG

ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYS

# They paved paradise,
put up a parking lot

# With a pink hotel, a boutique
and a swingin' hot spot

# Don't it always seem to go

# You don't know what you've
got till it's gone?

# They paved paradise,
put up a parking lot

# They paved paradise,
put up a parking lot

HIGH VOICE:
# They paved paradise

DEEP VOICE:
# Put up a parking lot. #

CHUCKLES

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE