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Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell
From the celebrated novelist and memoirist, a gorgeous account of how Joni Mitchell’s work has shaped his artistry throughout his life.
From the moment Paul Lisicky heard Joni Mitchell while growing up in New Jersey, he recognized she was that rarity among musicians—a talent whose combination of introspection, liberation, and deep musicality set her apart from any other artist of the time. As a young man, Paul was a budding songwriter who took his cues from Mitchell’s mysteries and idiosyncrasies. But as he matured, he set his guitar aside and lost himself in prose, a practice that would eventually take him to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and into the professional world of letters.
As the decades passed, Paul’s connection to Mitchell’s artistry only deepened. Joni’s music was a constant, a guide to life and an artist’s manual in one. As Paul navigated love and heartbreak and imaginative struggles and the vicissitudes of a creative career, he would return again and again to the lessons found in Joni’s songs, to the solace and challenges that only her musicianship could give.
Song So Wild and Blue is a gorgeously written, beautifully intimate, and unique tribute to the woman whose artistry shaped generations of creators and thinkers. Lisicky offers his own coming-of-adulthood as testimony to the power of songwriting and staying true to your creative vision. A guide to life that is part memoir, part biography, and part homage, Song So Wild and Blue is a joy for devoted Joni enthusiasts, budding writers, and artists of all stripes.
From the moment Paul Lisicky heard Joni Mitchell while growing up in New Jersey, he recognized she was that rarity among musicians—a talent whose combination of introspection, liberation, and deep musicality set her apart from any other artist of the time. As a young man, Paul was a budding songwriter who took his cues from Mitchell’s mysteries and idiosyncrasies. But as he matured, he set his guitar aside and lost himself in prose, a practice that would eventually take him to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and into the professional world of letters.
As the decades passed, Paul’s connection to Mitchell’s artistry only deepened. Joni’s music was a constant, a guide to life and an artist’s manual in one. As Paul navigated love and heartbreak and imaginative struggles and the vicissitudes of a creative career, he would return again and again to the lessons found in Joni’s songs, to the solace and challenges that only her musicianship could give.
Song So Wild and Blue is a gorgeously written, beautifully intimate, and unique tribute to the woman whose artistry shaped generations of creators and thinkers. Lisicky offers his own coming-of-adulthood as testimony to the power of songwriting and staying true to your creative vision. A guide to life that is part memoir, part biography, and part homage, Song So Wild and Blue is a joy for devoted Joni enthusiasts, budding writers, and artists of all stripes.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published February 25, 2025
36 people are currently reading
3728 people want to read
About the author
Paul Lisicky
24 books261 followersPAUL LISICKY is the author of The Narrow Door, Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, Fence, The Iowa Review, The Offing, Ploughshares, Tin House, and many other anthologies and magazines. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he’s the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Henfield Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was twice a fellow. He has taught in the writing programs at Cornell University, New York University, Rutgers University-Newark, and Sarah Lawrence College. He teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden. .
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 12, 2025
I’m not a Joni Mitchell fanatic. I listen to ‘Coyote’ maybe twenty times per year (though it seems to be running through my head on a near-daily basis); ‘Blue’ and ‘Help Me’ get a few listens per year, and a scattering of her other songs. But this may be because listening to her music is so demanding, emotionally.
Zadie Smith, writing in The New Yorker*:
I’m in the minority of reviewers here: Lisicky’s writing voice doesn’t work for me. The jacket photo shows him without glasses, but if he did wear glasses, I’d imagine them constantly being fogged up. If I had to choose a single word to describe his style, it would be “humid”. But I read this anyway, because it’s an entire book paying homage to Mitchell and the effect she’s had on his own artistic career. It’s an idea that’s overdue.
I learned a lot about Mitchell’s life – I didn’t realize that she’d suffered from polio, resulting in permanent weakness in her left hand, forcing her to retune her guitar and giving rise to her inimitable sound. I learned she’d given up a daughter for adoption when she was about twenty, pre-fame and with no money to get through a cold Canadian winter. I learned she’d had a brain aneurism that left her essentially paralyzed and took three years to recover from.
But I learned a whole lot more about Paul Lisicky, which isn’t really what I signed up for. He tried, whenever the text would accommodate it, to pull one of Mitchell’s songs back into the proceedings. As a former highly-skilled musician and songwriter, he taught me quite a bit about Mitchell’s technique and the many ways in which she moved beyond accepted norms of songwriting. That part was deeply appreciated, but wasn’t as significant a part of the book as I would have hoped. A lot of it was about the bitchiness of the faculty and fellow writers at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, how tough it is to be a gay teenager (I sympathize, truly) and his various romantic experiences.
What I’ll take away from this is knowledge of some of Mitchell’s thrilling songs I was previously unaware of, like “The Wolf that Lives in Lindsey,” and even a PJ Harvey song that was new to me, “When Under Ether.”
I’m going to restrain myself from writing fifteen pages about how much I love PJ Harvey’s music. The debt owed to Mitchell hadn’t occurred to me before, but Harvey is another of those artists whose work is easier to respond to than to understand. And more recently, Aurora, another favorite of mine, owes a debt to Harvey. And we go round and round and round in the circle game….
*Zadie Smith, "Some Notes on Attunement," Dec. 09, 2012 issue
Zadie Smith, writing in The New Yorker*:
This is the effect that listening to Joni Mitchell has on me these days: uncontrollable tears. An emotional overcoming, disconcertingly distant from happiness, more like joy—if joy is the recognition of an almost intolerable beauty. It’s not a very civilized emotion.Not such an unusual reaction, as I can testify. With the music itself beyond analysis, maybe a more reasonable ambition is to describe one’s reaction to it. This is the task Lisicky has set for himself in Songs So Wild and Blue, which just came out a couple of months ago.
I’m in the minority of reviewers here: Lisicky’s writing voice doesn’t work for me. The jacket photo shows him without glasses, but if he did wear glasses, I’d imagine them constantly being fogged up. If I had to choose a single word to describe his style, it would be “humid”. But I read this anyway, because it’s an entire book paying homage to Mitchell and the effect she’s had on his own artistic career. It’s an idea that’s overdue.
I learned a lot about Mitchell’s life – I didn’t realize that she’d suffered from polio, resulting in permanent weakness in her left hand, forcing her to retune her guitar and giving rise to her inimitable sound. I learned she’d given up a daughter for adoption when she was about twenty, pre-fame and with no money to get through a cold Canadian winter. I learned she’d had a brain aneurism that left her essentially paralyzed and took three years to recover from.
But I learned a whole lot more about Paul Lisicky, which isn’t really what I signed up for. He tried, whenever the text would accommodate it, to pull one of Mitchell’s songs back into the proceedings. As a former highly-skilled musician and songwriter, he taught me quite a bit about Mitchell’s technique and the many ways in which she moved beyond accepted norms of songwriting. That part was deeply appreciated, but wasn’t as significant a part of the book as I would have hoped. A lot of it was about the bitchiness of the faculty and fellow writers at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, how tough it is to be a gay teenager (I sympathize, truly) and his various romantic experiences.
What I’ll take away from this is knowledge of some of Mitchell’s thrilling songs I was previously unaware of, like “The Wolf that Lives in Lindsey,” and even a PJ Harvey song that was new to me, “When Under Ether.”
I’m going to restrain myself from writing fifteen pages about how much I love PJ Harvey’s music. The debt owed to Mitchell hadn’t occurred to me before, but Harvey is another of those artists whose work is easier to respond to than to understand. And more recently, Aurora, another favorite of mine, owes a debt to Harvey. And we go round and round and round in the circle game….
*Zadie Smith, "Some Notes on Attunement," Dec. 09, 2012 issue
October 6, 2024
Reviewing a memoir feels risky - like, will anything you say be interpreted, for good or ill, as a comment on the actual person rather than the book that they wrote? I fretted about this for a day before sitting down to write this.
Lisicky has spent a lot of time in his life hating himself, or at best feeling inadequate, which is completely understandable, and it was important for him to write that out so that to one degree or another it could go away. Because I picked up this book due to the Mitchell connection, I sometimes felt impatient with that - like, Oh for heaven's sake you're perfectly good - can we talk more about Joni? The experience he and his partner have, traveling from the east coast to Vancouver to hear one of Mitchell's last live appearances, is compellingly recounted and I hope therapeutic for him.
I love Joni Mitchell's music too, but I am nowhere near as dedicated a fan as Lisicky. I think Court and Spark was the peak of my fandom. So the part of this book that talks about her evolving songs made me want to go back and listen again to the seemingly endless variety of the work, which is probably part of what Lisicky wanted to accomplish. I don't know how much research he did about her life so I don't know how close to her actual experience some of the sequences are, it did make me wonder.
This book works on two levels: a gay man's coming of age saga, and a life lived with a thread of Mitchell's music always running through it. You can read it either way but you will enjoy it most if you want to read it both ways. Lisicky is a graceful writer and Mitchell is one of the greatest popular musicians of the 20th century, so you really can't lose whichever way you come to the book. Just be prepared that it's not a book about Joni Mitchell, it's a book about Paul Lisicky.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read an advance copy of this book.
Lisicky has spent a lot of time in his life hating himself, or at best feeling inadequate, which is completely understandable, and it was important for him to write that out so that to one degree or another it could go away. Because I picked up this book due to the Mitchell connection, I sometimes felt impatient with that - like, Oh for heaven's sake you're perfectly good - can we talk more about Joni? The experience he and his partner have, traveling from the east coast to Vancouver to hear one of Mitchell's last live appearances, is compellingly recounted and I hope therapeutic for him.
I love Joni Mitchell's music too, but I am nowhere near as dedicated a fan as Lisicky. I think Court and Spark was the peak of my fandom. So the part of this book that talks about her evolving songs made me want to go back and listen again to the seemingly endless variety of the work, which is probably part of what Lisicky wanted to accomplish. I don't know how much research he did about her life so I don't know how close to her actual experience some of the sequences are, it did make me wonder.
This book works on two levels: a gay man's coming of age saga, and a life lived with a thread of Mitchell's music always running through it. You can read it either way but you will enjoy it most if you want to read it both ways. Lisicky is a graceful writer and Mitchell is one of the greatest popular musicians of the 20th century, so you really can't lose whichever way you come to the book. Just be prepared that it's not a book about Joni Mitchell, it's a book about Paul Lisicky.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read an advance copy of this book.
February 28, 2025
A beautifully written love song to Joni Mitchell, and to life.
April 12, 2025
This unique book is a combination tribute and memoir, as one artist follows and learns from the creative path of another artist.
Lisicky, author of six previous books, does a deep dive into the music and personality of Joni Mitchell. But don't open this book expecting long praises of early master works like "For Free." He's more interested in Joni's odd path, her insistence on growing from folk to jazz and from pretty face to challenging artist.
In the early chapters, I knew most of the songs he mentioned. I saw Joni in concert, I owned her albums. It was easy to connect the music with the memoir.
But I don't know Joni's later music with at all the same depth. Time spent healing from illness, or working a album-long thread of jazz great Charles Mingus, inspired and influenced Lisicky's own work. There are many worrisome departures, and many gratifying arrivals.
I rarely quote passages at length, but here's a sample to convince you that this book is speaking to you and your creative impulse:
"(Joni's songs) showed me that you can take what others saw as awkwardness, limitation -- failing -- an aspect of ridicule, and spin in into pure gold. The songs knew that this gold was irreplaceable, a substance ten times more powerful than the rote, mechanized ways we move through the calendar from one day to the next. They knew something about the hard, enduring pleasures of difficulty, of throwing out the old plans and making something new out of the broken pieces, again and again. They trusted in bewilderment, in a line-by-line path of discovery, in which the song tried to find itself, become itself through the process of testing, thinking, going the unexpected route. As for ease of production, ease of engagement, ease as a goal, the force the tech giants expect us to champion in this age? The songs knew that ease is a deceptive god, only destined to exhaust and drain us and steal our delight. Here's to delight."
Amen.
Lisicky, author of six previous books, does a deep dive into the music and personality of Joni Mitchell. But don't open this book expecting long praises of early master works like "For Free." He's more interested in Joni's odd path, her insistence on growing from folk to jazz and from pretty face to challenging artist.
In the early chapters, I knew most of the songs he mentioned. I saw Joni in concert, I owned her albums. It was easy to connect the music with the memoir.
But I don't know Joni's later music with at all the same depth. Time spent healing from illness, or working a album-long thread of jazz great Charles Mingus, inspired and influenced Lisicky's own work. There are many worrisome departures, and many gratifying arrivals.
I rarely quote passages at length, but here's a sample to convince you that this book is speaking to you and your creative impulse:
"(Joni's songs) showed me that you can take what others saw as awkwardness, limitation -- failing -- an aspect of ridicule, and spin in into pure gold. The songs knew that this gold was irreplaceable, a substance ten times more powerful than the rote, mechanized ways we move through the calendar from one day to the next. They knew something about the hard, enduring pleasures of difficulty, of throwing out the old plans and making something new out of the broken pieces, again and again. They trusted in bewilderment, in a line-by-line path of discovery, in which the song tried to find itself, become itself through the process of testing, thinking, going the unexpected route. As for ease of production, ease of engagement, ease as a goal, the force the tech giants expect us to champion in this age? The songs knew that ease is a deceptive god, only destined to exhaust and drain us and steal our delight. Here's to delight."
Amen.
June 21, 2025
So many scenes deeply moved me in this lovely tribute to the power and grace of art. I love how the book weaves in details about Lisicky's life as a writer, the insecurities that come with the work, his grad school journey, the public readings, and how Joni is "there with him" for all of it. The author reflects on her music and explores it in such personal ways—not as a critic, but as a musician and fan who allows her work to serve as a map for discovering one's own creative path. I also appreciated how Lisicky writes about shifting from a different passion, music, to writing, and how difficult it was to give up one path for another (although the book also makes a strong case that Lisicky remained a musician through his writing and listening). This was relatable for me, as I "gave up" dance and theater in favor of writing, but have continued to be a dancer and actress in different ways. I imagine other readers would find this theme resonant, especially those who have let go of one much-loved path for another. Lisicky emphasizes this theme by noting that Joni repeatedly changed courses with her music.
The book's trajectory was extremely engaging, weaving together diverse threads and calling them back. It features an ending that surprised me and provided wonderful closure to the book's journey. I won't reveal one of my favorite threads, as it would give too much away. However, I will mention that following the author's path in relationships was among the richest aspects of the book—sometimes heartbreaking, and also profoundly celebratory. The book serves as a gorgeous tribute to art and the lodestar it offers for a rich life of inquiry, overcoming obstacles, and welcoming love and joy.
The book's trajectory was extremely engaging, weaving together diverse threads and calling them back. It features an ending that surprised me and provided wonderful closure to the book's journey. I won't reveal one of my favorite threads, as it would give too much away. However, I will mention that following the author's path in relationships was among the richest aspects of the book—sometimes heartbreaking, and also profoundly celebratory. The book serves as a gorgeous tribute to art and the lodestar it offers for a rich life of inquiry, overcoming obstacles, and welcoming love and joy.
November 4, 2025
Paul Lisicky is a gay author who loves Joni Mitchell. This wasn't what I thought it would be. Lisicky reflects on his life, relationships, pets, vacations in Provincetown, and Fire Island, and his writing career. Oh yah, and he really likes Joni Mitchell. I thought he was going to weave Joni into his life, telling stories with Joni's lyrics, melodies, life, and make meaningful connections. He didn't do this in a way that made sense to me.
My whole life is echoes of lyrics and music from a life of collecting, playing, and listening to music. I hear conversations around me and finish sentences with songs. Some days I can't talk to my students without hearing songs based on their names, what they are saying, or what I am feeling. I thought I would hear a brother in Lisicky's writing as he toured his experience of Joni in his life. I didn't.
The book is largely a flow of consciousness style biography with references to Joni. I found this not a celebration of Joni, but a self-indulgent rant. The book made me sad.
My whole life is echoes of lyrics and music from a life of collecting, playing, and listening to music. I hear conversations around me and finish sentences with songs. Some days I can't talk to my students without hearing songs based on their names, what they are saying, or what I am feeling. I thought I would hear a brother in Lisicky's writing as he toured his experience of Joni in his life. I didn't.
The book is largely a flow of consciousness style biography with references to Joni. I found this not a celebration of Joni, but a self-indulgent rant. The book made me sad.
April 1, 2025
To be honest, I'm not a Joni Mitchell fan, but this book made me want to be! I loved the fluidity of this book: is it a memoir, is it a tribute, is it a coming-of-age story? It's all those things and more. The way Lisicky weaves his personal journey with Mitchell's artistry creates something that transcends typical music biography. His vivid descriptions of how her songs affected him emotionally made me understand music's power in a new way. This book made me crave a connection to an artist as strong as his connection to Mitchell. But please note: You don't need to be a Joni Mitchell fan to enjoy Licisky's memoir. I'm sure I missed many references, but I still was engaged and enthralled by this beautifully written story.
March 8, 2025
This is a wonderfully unusual memoir that explores how Joni Mitchell's music deeply influenced Paul Lisicky, from the making of his own music, to his writing, to the very way he lived his life.
Paul's exquisite prose mirrors (and pays homage to) Joni's brilliance. He explores how Joni unsettles our very ideas of what a song, what art, "should be."
As Paul says, "Maybe that's what I'd been craving all along: representations of the world that reassured me that it was stranger than all the standard ways it had been interpreted."
Joni offered this to him--and he shows us how and why such a slant deeply matters.
Paul's exquisite prose mirrors (and pays homage to) Joni's brilliance. He explores how Joni unsettles our very ideas of what a song, what art, "should be."
As Paul says, "Maybe that's what I'd been craving all along: representations of the world that reassured me that it was stranger than all the standard ways it had been interpreted."
Joni offered this to him--and he shows us how and why such a slant deeply matters.
December 22, 2025
I was fortunate enough to meet Paul Lisicky at a Joni Mitchell tribute/book signing over the summer (during which we bonded over our love for her song Cactus Tree). That being said, I didn’t love this book as much as I wanted to. It was an interesting read as a mega Joni fan, but I think it would have worked better as either a full-blown memoir or a full-blown exploration of Joni and her music. The non-linear style didn’t work for me here, and many of the connections to Joni’s songs felt shoehorned in. Lisicky’s love for Joni is palpable, and his writing style is touching, but I was left wanting more.
March 4, 2025
Paul Lisicky’s new memoir about being othered as gay, finding his path in life, and being passionate about the music of Joni Mitchell is a love letter to the singer I also adored and listened to every day of high school and beyond. Lisicky began singing and playing guitar, later turned to writing, earned an MFA, and wrote 7 books, but never stopped being moved to tears and inspired by Joni’s melodies and lyrics, her unusual tunings and fingerings, and her deep insight into life and love and humanity.
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August 13, 2025
Paul Lisicky’s love of Joni Mitchell’s music becomes the vehicle he uses to tell us about his own coming of age on his own creative path. As a fan of her music myself, I loved this look at Joni through her music, but I also loved the author’s story of a devoted fan who is inspired by her songs to create his own music as a young man. For anyone who has found the songs that carry them along through the ups and downs of life, this book is a real gem, with all the heartfelt longing of a soul connecting from afar with another soul who speaks to them through song.
September 22, 2025
Such a powerful and poignant read, but I would not expect anything less from this author. Lisicky always has a way of revealing his deepest thoughts and vulnerabilities with such searing honesty, and his respectful and devoted appreciation of Joni Mitchell - as a lifelong musician himself - fills the pages with poetry and love. A truly moving and uplifting book at a time when we could all use some optimism and light.
March 13, 2025
A beautifully written book for anyone who has been moved by the music in our lives. Lisicky's writing is vulnerable and poetic, mirroring the significant influence of Joni Mitchell's music and lyrics. A Song So Wild and Blue is part love story of friendship, lovers, family, music, and life. I highly recommend reading A Song So Wild and Blue by Paul Lisiscky.
March 16, 2025
A gorgeous memoir - as in his previous work, Lisicky writes beautifully about the forces that shaped him. Here, he uses the lens of Joni Mitchell's work to allow us to access his development as a writer. He writes with eloquence and grace about his relationships, his sexuality, his insecurities, his humanity. A moving portrait / tribute.
May 21, 2025
I really loved this. If you know how personal being a great fan of music can be, and perhaps in a larger sense, how love has a way of shifting and changing over decades, then you will find reflections that feel very familiar here.
I'm also quite jealous that Lisicky and his partner got to go to the Joni Jam at the Gorge, but I did enjoy hearing about his experience of being there.
I'm also quite jealous that Lisicky and his partner got to go to the Joni Jam at the Gorge, but I did enjoy hearing about his experience of being there.
April 10, 2025
Wonderfully written love letter to the impact of Joni’s music on the authors life
April 26, 2025
I listened to Paul read this lovely tale of his life and Joni Mitchell. Great way to "read" this book.
Read
June 14, 2025DNF-sorry, could not appreciate the author's style.
September 19, 2025
Just might be my favorite of Lisicky’s books so far
Read
September 19, 2025Not what I was expecting.
November 3, 2025
Beautiful portrayal of living life as an artist and valuing the art of others. Particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Lisicky’s growth and progression from musician to established writer.
November 7, 2025
I was both enchanted and annoyed by this book, but I couldn't stop listening to it. Now I'm going to dive into some of the author's previous works.
May 21, 2025
One of those books that is hard to review , recommend, or fathom its existence? Its an author’s personal memoir & narrative superimposed on his artistic north star; Joni Mitchell. the author timestamps periods of his life and maps them on joni Mitchell records (as almost everyone does with their favorite musicians/records) , it is written so lovingly at times it feels diaristic except written with sharp skill ? Idk how to explain it but I loved this book and it is so nice to see someone who is a genuine stan and a great artist on his own try to tie between his faves work and his artistic development/life events/personal and romantic releases.
Highly recommend if you are a Joni Mitchell fan that is also looking for a personal memoir, read this on the beach under the warm sun, somewhere similar to Provincetown.
Highly recommend if you are a Joni Mitchell fan that is also looking for a personal memoir, read this on the beach under the warm sun, somewhere similar to Provincetown.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews