The Daily - Joni Mitchell Never Lies

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

In 2022, seven years after surviving a brain aneurysm that left her unable to sing or even speak, Joni Mitchell appeared onstage at the Newport Folk Festival. Singing alongside her were her supportive — and emotional — musician friends, including Brandi Carlile, Marcus Mumford, Wynonna Judd and Annie Lennox.Our critic Wesley Morris had his doubts. What was really happening here? Did Joni Mitchell even want this? Or were her younger adoring musician fans propping her up for their own reasons? When he learned this fall that Joni would be appearing onstage again, at the Hollywood Bowl, he bought a ticket to see for himself.On today’s episode, Wesley talks with his editor Sasha Weiss about the concert, and what it’s like to experience an 80-year-old in full command of her meaning.Guest: Wesley Morris, a critic at large for The New York Times.Sasha Weiss, the deputy editor of the The New York Times Magazine.Background reading: 50 Reasons to Love Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Hey, it's Michael. For our last few episodes of 2024, we're bringing you something really special. A year of culture in review. We're going to begin with one of our all-time favorite guests talking about one of the year's most astonishing performances and the really improbable story of how it even happened. Today, critic at large Wesley Morris on the comeback of the singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell. It's Christmas Day, Wednesday December 25th. I'm Wesley Morris. I'm a critic at the New York Times and back in 2022, this

news broke that this amazing event had taken place at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. Joni Mitchell had come out and played a concert for the first time in a long time. And it was a big deal! Because Joni Mitchell, the singer, the songwriter, influencer of generations of musicians, that person had virtually disappeared from public life. She'd sworn off touring.

And then in 2015, a brain aneurysm almost killed her. She survived, but her ability to sing or even speak was gone. So you can imagine the shock when she appeared on stage at Newport surrounded by a bunch of musicians led by Brandi Carlisle, and including folks like Winona Judd and Marcus Mumford. Some of these same musicians had been convening at her house in LA, and somebody started calling those gatherings Joni Jams.

And now, here they all were, taking her living room sessions public. The Joni Mitchell fans went crazy! She was back! And, I might add, back in that signature beret. But honestly, I had my doubts. Like, what was really happening here? Did Joni Mitchell even want this? Or were these adoring young musician fans making her do something for their own reasons? Was it elder care? I wasn't there! I don't know!

And then, earlier this year, I'm watching the Grammys at home in my living room, and in the middle of the show, the stage went dark and a familiar voice my living room. And in the middle of the show, the stage went dark and a familiar voice filled the room. Rows and flows of angel hair. It was low and it was deliberate. And ice cream castles in the air.

And slowly, part of the stage spun around to reveal... Joni Mitchell. Seated in an armchair, one hand stirring a walking can, the other moving to the cadences of her own lyricism. And she was indeed surrounded by other musicians. And I was like, okay, nevermind, I take it all back. Because so much about this performance was so moving. First of all, just the way the people on stage, these musicians, these great musicians were regarding Joni Mitchell, like they were having the same experience that I was at home, except they were there.

And they were in awe of the beauty of this moment. Like they were at the feet of a musical mother. And then there were the cutaways to musicians in the audience. One shot looked over Dua Lipa's shoulder at Beyonce, who was just swaying in thought. And then another shot caught Taylor Swift mid-standing ovation. And I just got the sense that a lot of people in that room

were thinking about what 50 years from now looks like for them. How is Antihero gonna sound when Taylor Swift's 80 years old? What's that song gonna be about then? But mostly, I was struck by how good Joni Mitchell sounded. She's lost an octave over the years, but there's still tremendous power in her lower register. She can still control. She can still wield it. So when more of these Joni jams got scheduled at the Hollywood Bowl, I knew I had to get myself on a plane to hear her with my own ears

and see her with my own eyes. I also knew my friend Sasha Weiss was going. Sasha's a writer and my editor at The Times Magazine, and we talk a lot. And I wanted to ask her what it felt like to be there at one of these shows. We went on different nights. She went on Saturday, I went on Sunday, and I wanted to talk about who Joni Mitchell is to her and how it feels to experience an 80 year old in full command of her meaning. Hi Sasha. Hi Wesley. How are you?

I'm good. I want to talk about the concert, obviously, but before we do that, I just, I got to ask you what your relationship to Joni Mitchell is. Like, what's your first Joni Mitchell moment? My parents introduced me to Joni Mitchell, and it was at a pretty young age. I mean, I can't really remember a time when her voice wasn't in my head. I woke to Joni, I slept to Joni, I think from the ages of like seven, I mean, very young. Wow.

They'd play it a lot on car rides. So I think Joni. That seems apt. It's so apt, of course. It seems apt for a person who's- She's a traveler. She's a traveler. She's a restless wanderer.

And I think that also implanted something in me that, I grew up in, I would say in some ways, in a kind of cozy, somewhat cloistered environment. I mean, I grew up in New York City, but you know, in a kind of strong Jewish community. I mean, there was a sense of like shtetl likeness in my upbringing, I would say. And I think Joni did implant a seed of wandering and wandering because so many of her songs are about, I mean, on Blue alone, she's in California and she's in Spain and she's in France. I have been on like, all I want is the first line is.

I'm on a lonely road and I'm traveling. Yeah. Traveling, traveling, traveling. Traveling, traveling, looking for something. What can it be? I mean, I loved to sing. I still love to sing and I really studied her singing and learned to sing from Blue.

And I think just the leaping in the range, you know, the way that Joni can adventurously, boldly, almost insolently, like she can go from really low to just leaping up. It's sort of doing a parallel bar routine where like it goes from the low bar to the high bar flips around a little bit goes back down comes up and then sticks the landing every time. I feel like there's a desire there there's a, there's a command. I wanted that vocally and I think I wanted it like interpersonally or something. Like I want it. What does that look like? I don't know.

I think the ability to explore, the ability to like take command, the ability to be daring. I mean I don't know if I've achieved these things, but I think this was like my fantasy, especially Blue. But Court and Spark too shaped my ideas about what love was. I always felt like love was a complex, laden thing, not a simple thing, because of Joni. What it was to be a writer, I think. Her songs are so writerly. So many of them are short stories in miniature.

You get a whole life in those songs. So I think that her words, I listen to them thousands of times. I mean, blue is just stamped on my consciousness. So I think I wanted to see what kind of woman I'd become by encountering Joni. Oh my God, we're just started talking and my eyes are already welling up. Okay, I first heard Joni Mitchell in the 90s.

Because I was listening to this radio station when I was a kid that was really singer-songwriter heavy. So Night Ride Home. Night Ride Home was my first Joni Mitchell album. Once in a while in a big blue moon There comes a night like this And the voice on it was unlike any of the other people they were playing in those radio stations And I cried home The voice was deeper than the leaping that you're talking about

A pool of girls and caterpillar tractors in the sand that you're talking about. All of that beauty, which I would describe in some ways as young woman-ish, by 1991 had really solidified into something that moved less, but weighed more. Hmm. There's a song on that album called Passion Play When All the Slaves Are Free, and it's essentially the sort of song that she had begun to really luxuriate in, which is a kind of moral judgment on the condition of this... Well, I'm gonna say the United States.

She's Canadian, lives in Los Angeles. According to her, it's her workplace and her home in Western Canada is her home. But she has a real sense of, you know, the way the world is operating and the way the world is different in 1991 from how it was in 1974 or 69 even. In this particular case, it's just about the possession

of land and this idea that men are not stewards of the land, they're proprietors. And like, what's it gonna look like when the people that you have laboring for you have a revolution? There's just something about the way that she says, who are you gonna get to do your dirty work? Who are you gonna get to do the dirty work? When all the slaves are free.

When all the slaves are free. And she's doubling herself. Who are you gonna get to? And that doubling, it just sounds different when your voice is that low. Who are you gonna get to? And I just was so drawn to whatever that sound was. Because there was wisdom in it,

especially with this later music, which I would say... Which I don't know as well, so I love hearing you talk about it. Most people don't. Most people don't. Yeah. All right, let's talk about the Hollywood Bowl show we went to this fall. I've been waiting. It's been hard.

I mean, I watched the Newport performance. The one in 2022? Her big comeback. Okay. I was so moved hearing her sing again. I think in those performances, her voice was still in the process of returning. There were moments when her voice broke,

moments when the songs felt like they were being explored again. So I felt both moved, amazed, sometimes anxious watching her and I really wanted to see her a couple years later and to see what had happened to her voice and her performance now that she'd really decided to take it on the road. What was different? I felt it was really her show. Yeah. Yeah.

She was the bandleader. And it's so interesting because she was seated the whole time. Right? She sits. Oh my God, the chair. In this room like chair. And we got to talk about the furniture, which is incredible. But her presence just has this gravitas and physicality, even though she's not standing,

but she really draws the 17,000 seat, beautiful outdoor amphitheater into her. There's something energetically incredibly potent. And maybe that was true at Newport too, but I just felt that she kind of returned to some kind of energetic center. I could feel it the minute I saw her come on the stage. I felt the same thing.

I mean, there's something about the chair, right? minute I saw her come on the stage. I felt the same thing. I mean, there's something about the chair, right? I mean, it really is a throne-like set piece. And it really gives everybody around her a kind of, not subservient role, but they're all there to facilitate the needs of this monarch. But at the same time, she's so playful. I mean, there's the chair and there's the scepter like cane, which looked to me to be gilded, you know, like there's like a wolf, there's a coyote, I think it might be a coyote on the actual handle of the cane.

I didn't observe that. I just saw something metallic and glinting. It's like she's wielding it, but she's so playful. As you were talking about earlier, her rhythms are so unusual. She's tapping them and tracing this rhythmic idiosyncratic signature throughout the songs. It's just incredible.

So she's at once grand, and there's just something droll and fun and playful about her in her posture. It's both. It's both end. And also I would say that the way the stage looks, it's a recreation, as I understand it, of the Joni Jams that took place in her living room over the course of many years,

which led up to this moment of coming back to the stage, where she'd gather with musician friends. I think Brandi really facilitated it and all these different people would come. Right. Many different people came to play for her over several years. Herbie Hancock, Dolly Parton, Chaka Khan, Harry Styles, but not all of those people were on stage that night at the Hollywood Bowl, definitely none of the people I just named. But it seemed like there was a core group. Yes, and those were the people who were on stage.

Those were the people on stage who clearly had a long running experience singing with her. Like an ability to improvise that seemed to me to be drawing from the experience of having done a lot of work together. But the stage, I mean, it felt very intimate. And from where I was sitting, like everyone sort of seemed in a pile. So it was like, you know, it was both really like an ensemble.

And yes, Joni was this commanding presence. I can't imagine what it would be like to go to this concert. If you're someone who has flown halfway, like, completely across the country, to hear what you think is gonna be a night of her doing blue... -♪ PASSING THROUGH THE WINDOWS OF THE WORLD... -♪ Yes. There are ten songs on that album,

and people only heard three! Mm-hmm. California. -♪ California morning... -♪ -♪ I'm in the morning... -♪ Cary, which the audience sung. -♪ C'm California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California,

California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California,

California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California,

California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California, California a case of you. I could drink a case of you, oh, darling. But most of the songs were from these later albums, from Hijira in 76 up to Shine, which is 2007. Part of the feeling that I got of her being in command was the set list, which... Oh, yeah. I felt like she was preaching.

She was not bringing nostalgia and comfort. I got the sense that this is a person who does not think that they've gotten their due as an artist past a certain point, right? I think in the popular imagination, Blue has kind of eaten her entire body of work. Which is interesting to me because, you know, the song she sang at the Grammys that night was both sides now, not on Blue, it was on Clouds. And the songs that have all of the kind of world-weariness come after that,

right? It's the experience of being extremely popular and extremely famous for those two albums that kind of put her off of, I mean, what's the great line from Free Man in Paris? I'm out here stoking the star-making machinery behind the popular songs. Stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular songs. Right, I can't be free. I cannot be a free man in Paris if I'm out here trying to sell records.

The two things are incompatible. There's making my art, and then there's toiling for money. So she gave us mostly her art songs. Yes, 100 percent. Twenty-seven songs, most of which are songs she wrote after 1976. I did feel like I was being schooled in a really good way. I mean, there's the quality of attention that you have to bring to her new register. And there's such a depth and a richness. I mean, I kept

thinking of wood grain. Like it just felt so rich and, you know, so much to hear and think about and movement. But I mean, maybe it's also about the reverence. Like you could hear the crickets. Maybe you always can in the Hollywood Bowl, but I felt it was about a sense. Again, it's this kind of energetic gravitas. And I did feel she was demanding a kind of listening, partly in the choice of song. She wanted a hush. And choosing those later songs, like, it didn't create the excitation, right? Like it created something else that was unusual.

I just was so in tune with her voice. And I was really hearing these songs in a new way. I just closed my eyes and just got transported to wherever it was she was trying to take us. I also think there is a really special kind of listening going on on the stage. Hmm. Say more about that. Well, I think this gets back to the way that these concerts came about. I mean, this is what I understand from reading and listening around, you know, that she had these regular gatherings.

The Joni jams in her living room. And at first, she wasn't singing much, because she couldn't, and she was still recovering. And I think over time, she started to chime in, you know? And sometimes it was just with a line or two. Sometimes, you know, I think as her voice strengthened, it was more and more. And eventually she started to pick up the guitar. And I felt very much the attunement

of the other musicians to her, which I guess with any great band, you feel that. But it felt really potent because I felt like they really understood when she was taking over the song. Yes. To me, it was really utopian. It modeled something really beautiful. They were partners and they could recede.

I really liked watching them do that. So I think they're doing really intense listening and you can feel that atmosphere, and it invites you to listen in a different way. There's some intimate communal collaborative act of attunement that was going on in this concert. Yes. But whatever's happening and however they're following along,

there is a shagginess and an imperfection. On the one hand, Joni is such a virtuosic, she does have a consummate Apollonian artistry to her, everything she does is excellent. But I did feel that there was a, sometimes the starts of songs were a little, a little off and I loved that. And I love that she let us hear that and see that. I kept track of when I felt she was most present. Like when she did Night Ride Home,

I mean, she was back in this song. She's back, whatever this song is about, whatever memory she's having of this dance, wherever the song came from, she was back there. -♪ I'm just a star but the man beside me... -♪ And like a romance, right? Like, no interruptions, no distractions. No phones till Friday. -♪ No phones till Friday. No phones till Friday.

I will show, I will show the love. I was struck by just how present she was in this music. And like when she sounded to me, like this arrangement has found a great place for her singing. Mm-hmm. And it happened, you know, out of 27 songs, it happened more than half the time. Yeah.

OK, let's take a break. And when we come back, I had one complaint about this show. I only had one. Oh, wait, did you have any, by the way? Zero. Zero? I think I can give you one. And I'll tell you after the break.

["The Music of the Day"] ["The Music of the Day"] Okay, I do have one complaint about this show. And I don't know how you felt about this. Okay. Brandi Carlile kept calling the music deep cuts. Deep cuts like she's singing with Cher. This is the person who has one top 10 song.

One top 10 song in 60 years of making music. Which is you turned me on on the radio? Well, that's a top 40 song, yes. Help Me. Help Me. Help Me hit number seven, by the way. Come on. Perfect song. I'm really taking all I have to not burst into song. You can do it! You can do it!

I will not harmonize with you because it will not sound good at all. Help me, I think I'm falling in love again. When I get that crazy feeling, I know I'm falling in love again. When I get that crazy feeling, I know I'm in trouble again. I'm in trouble because you're a rambler and a gambler and a sweet-talking ladies' man. And you love your loving.

Loving! But not like you love your freedom. I will never sing on this show again. That was beautiful. That was beautiful. As a person who cannot sing, but loves. I love when you sing. I do enjoy trying.

That's one of my. I love it. But that's her love when you sing. I do enjoy trying. That's one of my... I love it. But that's her only top ten song. Like, she really was following her heart and not her pocketbook. She wasn't done with that. She thought it was funny when they were like, -"Give us a hit." -"Oh, wait.

Can we listen to that part of Miles of Isles?" Sure. Where she's about to do the Circle game. Miles of Isles, of course about to do the circle game. Miles of Isles, of course, being like her first live album, which came out 50 years ago this year. And there's this moment on stage that I just think is so indicative of who Joni Mitchell is as a person. And she's standing there, I guess, tinkering with her guitar and she's just

finished Blue and there's like 30 seconds of people just shouting at her. They're just shouting out song titles. Play this! Play that! This is what she says in response to that. This is her in 1974. This is what she says in response to that.

This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974.

This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974.

This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. This is her in 1974. it, somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere till he dies. But nobody ever said to Van, go, paint a starry night again, man. He painted it, that was it. She's just like, I don't want people screaming song titles at me. And the concert felt like a culmination of that or like some bracket to that, right? Like she was like, I'm playing what I want to play. Yeah. And you're going to listen really carefully. You know, it's also worth saying, like her persona on stage, I think it's very different

than it was. I mean, in the, you know, like YouTubes I've seen of her youthful performance, where she was a little more, I mean, she always was like a cool cat, but, you know, like, YouTubes I've seen of her youthful performance, where she was a little more, I mean, she always was like a cool cat, but, you know, a little more soft. I mean, she's got a droll, unbothered persona, which is really interesting next to these adoring musicians. I mean, it's not like she undercuts them,

because I think she's really receiving, which is also something we should talk about, the receiving of the love and the adulation. But there is just a kind of knowingness, unbotheredness, and drollery that I found extremely charming and funny. And, you know, she's not ingratiating. She just isn't. No, not at all.

I mean, she's not a person out here trying to do what they call fan service. I mean, this is also a person who said she'd never perform again. I mean, I swear to God, in 2015, we found out that she'd had this aneurysm. We thought she wasn't gonna make it. And I think for people who do come out the other side of that situation,

you know, if you're even close to being at Death's Door, the idea that you're gonna live for nine more years and that for at least three of those years, you're gonna be thriving in public. You're gonna go to the Grammys and I don't know. I can't imagine what that's like. It may be worth saying that this is the second time in her life where she came back from a severe illness.

When she was a young girl, she had polio and she was stricken for months and couldn't walk. And apparently really sort of dreamed herself back into walking. She was lying in a bed and she was determined to walk. And there's some real force of will there, obviously, you know, some capacity for self-creation that she had even as a young girl. And I don't know, to me, there's something really amazing, and I mean, very upsetting about the fact that she had another experience of being bedridden again. But there's some... Something was just like, nope, not like this.

Not like this. Y'all gonna have to find another way to end this. Yeah. It's not gonna end here. Yes. I want to go back to that Grammys moment, actually. The thing that really struck me and completely embarrassed my skepticism about, was this her choice?

She got bills to pay? What is going on here with this return? But the Grammys performance, I mean, for my own two eyes, it just said, Wesley, shut up. You know? Why were you suspicious? I just, you see. She's not going to do what she doesn't want to do.

That's what we've been talking about the whole time. I understand that. Yeah. But you know, the entertainment business is full of stories where people have been weekends of Ernie. Like, lots of people have been propped up, made to keep working when they shouldn't have been. And we don't find out till it's too late.

So I just wanted to know. But this performance, to me, was just so... life-affirming. And it was beautiful because... I just can't imagine writing something when you're, what, 25, 26 years old. She was even younger when she wrote that. Probably even younger when she wrote it.

And to re-inhabit that song as an 80-year-old. And have it mean even more. Tears and fears and feeling proud to say I love you right out loud. It was an incredible thing to witness. I mean, there's a beautiful line in that song, something's lost and something's gained.

The way she phrased it in the performance I saw, she really elongated the word gained. But something's gained in the riches of experience right there on the stage in front of all of us and it was incredibly transcendently moving. I really don't know life at all. I mean, it's just so rich. I was going to ask you if there was a moment that really messed you up. Was this a moment? Yes.

Why are you so sheepish about it? No, I'm just like re-inhabiting it. Yeah, I mean, it just felt like the profundity of life right there in the Hollywood bowl. I'm throwing a tissue at you. I can't believe we're lucky enough to experience living on earth with Joni Mitchell, who is still able to interpret her own music 60 years later. Yeah. In a time of doubt and turbulence in the world.

That got absorbed into that night too. The personal and the kind of national and political meaning in all of that, in that song. Like, I just feel like she's a distiller and processor of our collective experience in a way that... kind of like none other. And it's all there in the timbre of the voice. It's all there.

I just couldn't believe my good fortune. We'll be right back. Can we talk about the laughter? She laughed through that whole show. She laughed after every applause. She has a great laugh and she laughs sometimes on her recorded songs. She has this kind of musical, slightly antique laugh. To me it evokes, this is very Jewish, it evokes the biblical laughter of Sarah. Whoa.

Who, when she was told in her 90s that she was going to be mother to Isaac, laughs. And Isaac is the name for laughter in Hebrew. And it's this deep story of Renaissance, of creation, of surprise, of fertility in old age. And I felt like the laughter was an ancient laughter of generativeness that came from someplace really deep. I heard that in the laughter. I think that's it.

Ha ha ha ha. She sang a song about Job, so she'd appreciate that. Sasha, I mean, you've been in my life for such a long time. It's wild to have a conversation with you about, on a microphone anyway, about a thing we'd be talking about at our desks. I know. So fun.

So thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it. Me too. Thank you, Wesley. Thanks for listening, everybody. Before you go, I just want to tell you that what you just heard is going to happen every week starting next year. It's going to be me talking to other people who I love talking to about everything. Art and movies and books and sports and all kinds of things that are happening in the culture.

So to be the first to know when we launch, sign up for our audio... There's an audio newsletter? I didn't know. So I'm going to sign up with you to find out what's happening with my show in the audio newsletter. You can find it at nytimes.com slash audio newsletter, which is what I'm going to do right now. All right. This episode was produced by Elissa Dudley, edited by Wendy Doran, Paula Schuman, and engineered by Pat McCusker All right. This episode was produced by Elissa Dudley,

edited by Wendy Doerr and Paula Schumann, and engineered by Pat McCusker with production assistance from Kate Lopresti. Special thanks by the way to Maddie Masiello and Nick Pittman, and thanks to you for listening. Talk to you soon! That's it for the daily. I'm Michael Bobauro. Happy holidays and see you tomorrow.