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Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now
An intimate exploration of Joni Mitchell's life and art. When singer, musician, and broadcast journalist Malka Marom was asked to interview Joni Mitchell in 1973, she eagerly accepted the opportunity to converse with the performer she'd first met late one night in 1966 at an open mic in Yorkville. More conversations followed over the next four decades of friendship, and it was only after Joni and Malka completed their last recorded interview, in 2012, that Malka discovered the heart of their discussions: the creative process. In Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words, Joni and Malka follow this thread through seven decades of life and art, discussing the influence of Joni's childhood, love and loss, playing dives and huge festivals, acclaim and criticism, poverty and affluence, glamorous triumphs and tragic mistakes ...This riveting narrative, told in interviews, lyrics, paintings, and photographs, is shared in the hope of inspiring others.
293 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
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About the author
Joni Mitchell
138 books140 followersJoni Mitchell, CC is a reknowned Canadian musician, songwriter, and painter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 191 reviews
February 6, 2018
I enjoyed listening to the audiobook JONI MITCHELL: IN HER OWN WORDS by Malka Marom and narrated by Carrington MacDuffie. Malka is a singer, musician and broadcast journalist. Joni is a Canadian singer-songwriter and artist born in 1943.
Malka's first meeting with Joni Mitchell was late one night in 1966 at a Yorkville coffeehouse. Joni's music style and range of voice made a lasting impression on Malka.
This biography is an edited script of recorded interviews between Joni and Malka from the year 1973 to 2012. These conversations are about Joni Mitchell's art and life and her creative process being influenced by her childhood, love and loss, playing at coffeehouses, nightclubs and huge festivals, criticism and praise, poverty and wealth, dazzling accolades and disastrous mistakes.
JONI MITCHELL: IN HER OWN WORDS would appeal to fans of Kim Mitchell, and anyone who loves music, poetry and art.
3 stars
Malka's first meeting with Joni Mitchell was late one night in 1966 at a Yorkville coffeehouse. Joni's music style and range of voice made a lasting impression on Malka.
This biography is an edited script of recorded interviews between Joni and Malka from the year 1973 to 2012. These conversations are about Joni Mitchell's art and life and her creative process being influenced by her childhood, love and loss, playing at coffeehouses, nightclubs and huge festivals, criticism and praise, poverty and wealth, dazzling accolades and disastrous mistakes.
JONI MITCHELL: IN HER OWN WORDS would appeal to fans of Kim Mitchell, and anyone who loves music, poetry and art.
3 stars
April 28, 2015
Facsinating! As one of those fans Joni derrides who is all about the first six albums, I would have liked the book better if she talked more about their creation and her life in those days. Can't say I blame her for not wanting to live in the past, though I do think she underates her early work and overrates her 'pioneering' later jazz and political stuff. Loved to hear about her creative process, her life and her frequent cantankerous snark.
ETA: Joni Mitchell is in a coma.
[UPDATE: her website now says she is not in a coma!]
"show 'em you won't expire
not till you burn up every passion
not even when you die"
ETA: Joni Mitchell is in a coma.
[UPDATE: her website now says she is not in a coma!]
"show 'em you won't expire
not till you burn up every passion
not even when you die"
January 16, 2016
A fantastic book! Whether you are a fan or just know who Joni Mitchell is, by the end of this book, you will be a fan.
Have you ever watched those celebrity biography shows where they interview them and show us tidbits of their lives? That's what this is, and episode of that in book format. It plays out so well in your mind because of all the personal photos that are included. You never lose sight of where you are in her life. Even though I was already a fan, I feel I know so much more about Joni Mitchell now and am a bigger fan now.
The ending felt cut-off, but I suppose the end of an interview tape would be.
This is now one of my favorite celebrity biographies to date.
Have you ever watched those celebrity biography shows where they interview them and show us tidbits of their lives? That's what this is, and episode of that in book format. It plays out so well in your mind because of all the personal photos that are included. You never lose sight of where you are in her life. Even though I was already a fan, I feel I know so much more about Joni Mitchell now and am a bigger fan now.
The ending felt cut-off, but I suppose the end of an interview tape would be.
This is now one of my favorite celebrity biographies to date.
June 11, 2016
Back in the 70s, when I first came across Joni, I was told that she didn't give interviews. My cooler more in the know friends told me that Joni was something of a space cadet and she'd been criticized for making comments to reporters that were more or less incoherent. I was disappointed, but loved her music none the less.
As a somewhat more mature adult I understand that Joni isn't a space cadet, she's an artist. The same genius that paints pictures in words and melodies, poetic phrases, stories and literary references might make her hard to follow in conversation and difficult to quote from backstage interviews. Marom, on the other hand, did long form interviews and selects Joni's words as artfully as Joni articulates them.
In "Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words", Malka Marom takes the best of three interviews she did with Joni over the past fifty years and mixes them with the lyrics of Joni's songs to create a career retrospective. In the interviews, Joni quotes her own lyrics, tells stories of her life and loves and rambles off just the way you'd expect.
I treasure Joni Mitchell. Her music has always spoken to me in ways no other music has. The reason is her ability to communicate impressions with sound and words. If you know her music, you know her. This book confirmed that for me. Reading her lyrics, I could hear her songs play. Reading her stories, I could imagine her in the studio, on the road, hanging out with Leonard Cohen... good book!
As a somewhat more mature adult I understand that Joni isn't a space cadet, she's an artist. The same genius that paints pictures in words and melodies, poetic phrases, stories and literary references might make her hard to follow in conversation and difficult to quote from backstage interviews. Marom, on the other hand, did long form interviews and selects Joni's words as artfully as Joni articulates them.
In "Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words", Malka Marom takes the best of three interviews she did with Joni over the past fifty years and mixes them with the lyrics of Joni's songs to create a career retrospective. In the interviews, Joni quotes her own lyrics, tells stories of her life and loves and rambles off just the way you'd expect.
I treasure Joni Mitchell. Her music has always spoken to me in ways no other music has. The reason is her ability to communicate impressions with sound and words. If you know her music, you know her. This book confirmed that for me. Reading her lyrics, I could hear her songs play. Reading her stories, I could imagine her in the studio, on the road, hanging out with Leonard Cohen... good book!
March 18, 2021
This book, given that it was almost 100% a series of transcribed interviews with song lyrics interspersed, would have made a better audiobook. (Is it an audiobook? If not, why not?) And like the other Joni Mitchell book I read, 2/3 of it was good/interesting, and then it got really hard to read at the end because... Joni is bitter. She's in pain, and she's out of touch and says some stuff that is...pretty problematic now. Also self-defeating. Like, she's staunchly not a feminist due to internalized misogyny, yet complains about how all the women she's spent time with are more interested in manicures than real conversations. Maybe the feminists would have had something more interesting to say? And then she's annoyed (rightly so) about the sexism/sexual harassment she's experienced in the music industry. So, why aren't you a feminist again??? And her comments about race, about how black people love her, about how she dressed up as a black guy at a party, maybe were cool in 1970, but it's a really bad look in 2006 and retrospectively. Ugh. She never acknowledges her white privilege, but again, that wasn't really a thing back then.
July 6, 2014
If you are thinking, great, finally a Joni Mitchell biography, then think again. Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words is not a typical chronological biography, it is the transcripts of 3 interviews carried out by Malka Marom over the period of 35 years give or take a year. Marom is herself a singer and performer who has crossed over into the world of broadcaster and documentary maker. She first encounter Joni in a coffee house in 1966 and was entranced by the genius that is Joni Mitchell. In 1973 Malka had the opportunity to interview Joni and this and 2 subsequent interviews are the basis of this book.
What you get is a fascinating insight into the mind and the creative genius of Joni, you can see where her inspiration lies and how she has always pushed the boundaries of music, crossing from genre to genre, building upon her own personal musicianship and blending it with other great musicians from around the world. Joni Mitchell in my opinion is one of the greatest talents to emerge in the second half of the 20th century, this gifted musician, poet and artist/producer, all of which she excels at, has never had the praise that many of her male counterparts have been given and yet her music and art are as unique, fresh, forward thinking as the day they were put down on tape or paper.
This is a great book for anyone fascinated by Joni Mitchell, not only do you see something of the real woman, but to show the creative process her lyrics/poetry and art are used throughout to give us an inkling into how this great artist works.
And so on a final note, In Her Own Words is a must for fans and for anyone who loves music, poetry and art. But don't expect a page by page biography of her life and loves. This is quite special.
What you get is a fascinating insight into the mind and the creative genius of Joni, you can see where her inspiration lies and how she has always pushed the boundaries of music, crossing from genre to genre, building upon her own personal musicianship and blending it with other great musicians from around the world. Joni Mitchell in my opinion is one of the greatest talents to emerge in the second half of the 20th century, this gifted musician, poet and artist/producer, all of which she excels at, has never had the praise that many of her male counterparts have been given and yet her music and art are as unique, fresh, forward thinking as the day they were put down on tape or paper.
This is a great book for anyone fascinated by Joni Mitchell, not only do you see something of the real woman, but to show the creative process her lyrics/poetry and art are used throughout to give us an inkling into how this great artist works.
And so on a final note, In Her Own Words is a must for fans and for anyone who loves music, poetry and art. But don't expect a page by page biography of her life and loves. This is quite special.
August 26, 2022
I love Joni Mitchell I do. But this book was just not it for me.
Going in I didn't know it was a collection of three interviews Malka conducted with Joni. I was expecting a bit more of a memoir. This really limited what I learned about her because it was dependent on Malka's questions, some of which i really appreciated. They are very good as journalistic profiles and conversations, but not what I expect from a book. I also listened to the audiobook and did not love the narrator which always affects the experience.
Going in I didn't know it was a collection of three interviews Malka conducted with Joni. I was expecting a bit more of a memoir. This really limited what I learned about her because it was dependent on Malka's questions, some of which i really appreciated. They are very good as journalistic profiles and conversations, but not what I expect from a book. I also listened to the audiobook and did not love the narrator which always affects the experience.
December 18, 2017
There is nothing worse than reading a biography of an idol and coming away with a tarnished admiration. I was so relieved to come to the end of this book of first-hand interviews of Joni Mitchell, who I have adored all of my adult life, with even more appreciation for Mitchell as an artist and as a person. In these interviews, Malka Marom, who is a long-time friend, asks the sort of questions that I would want to ask, if she were my friend. She answers the questions honestly, often graphically, often controversially. I came away with an image of Mitchell as flawed, endlessly interesting, lonely, and fiercely independent artist. I loved this book.
February 10, 2024
Loved this book and couldn't stop reading it when I first started it. Love all her artwork and going through all the lyrics to her songs long live Joni
February 17, 2024
Joni Mitchell
Māksliniece. Dziedātāja. Dzejniece. Gleznotāja. Sieviete.
[..] you can paint with words [..]
šī Sieviete ir iedvesma … viņas balss un viņas dziesmu vārdi ir ikoniski! 🖤
Gleznot ar vārdiem?!
Vai iespējams pateikt vēl skaistāk un vēl jēgpilnāk?
Tā ir izredzētības sajūta - klausīties Joni dziesmas, klausīties viņas vārdos. Viņas klātbūtne šī gada Grammy Awards bija maģiska līdz sirds dziļumiem.
… ar lielāko cieņu un apbrīnu, Joni radītie vārdi iedvesmojuši arī manu Mariju
Māksliniece. Dziedātāja. Dzejniece. Gleznotāja. Sieviete.
[..] you can paint with words [..]
šī Sieviete ir iedvesma … viņas balss un viņas dziesmu vārdi ir ikoniski! 🖤
Gleznot ar vārdiem?!
Vai iespējams pateikt vēl skaistāk un vēl jēgpilnāk?
Tā ir izredzētības sajūta - klausīties Joni dziesmas, klausīties viņas vārdos. Viņas klātbūtne šī gada Grammy Awards bija maģiska līdz sirds dziļumiem.
… ar lielāko cieņu un apbrīnu, Joni radītie vārdi iedvesmojuši arī manu Mariju
March 27, 2015
I was 16 and filled with typical teenage angst when I discovered the album, Song to a Seagull. My friend and I sat in her room listening to it over and over. The same friend and I continuously listened to every track on Ladies of the Canyon while sipping Red Mountain Pink Chablis and smoking cigarettes in our San Francisco flat.
Many people remember Joni Mitchell for Both Sides Now, Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock and Circle Game. There is so much more to Joni Mitchell's work. The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira and Don Juan's Reckless Daughter are brilliant albums. The addition of Jaco Pastorious as bass player, the collaboration with Charles Mingus and her gifted, unusual style of tuning are often overlooked examples. She's been called the "James Joyce of guitar tuning." There is a photo in the book of Eric Clapton watching her play in an informal gathering with David Crosby and Mikey Dolenz. Clapton is staring at her hands with a quizzical expression, mouth agape because he can't figure out what she's doing. Joni is also a gifted painter. "I have a painter's mentality rather than a musician's or poet's", she says.
In Her Own Words with Malka Maron took place in 3 separate interviews. It is really more like listening in on conversations with a friend than an interview. The first occurred in 1973, the second in 1979 and the final in 2012. The beauty of spacing these interviews is that the reader hears Joni's perspective on her work at the time of the interview and reflections about that work in later years. At times I found Joni somewhat arrogant, but as I thought further, it was not arrogance. It was really about her artistic integrity, her confidence in the direction she wished her work to take and her desire to control how her work is produced. She often references Nietzsche and how he influenced her songs, but that went over my head. I laughed when she revealed that her mother complained about the money they wasted on piano lessons. "All that money we spent, and you quit!" This was after 12 albums and a Carnegie Hall Concert.
I thoroughly enjoyed these interviews, mostly because it reminded me how much I loved her work for so many years, through all, well almost all, of her transitions. Her words were often precise expressions of my own thoughts that I was unable to convey. "Restless sweeps like fire and rain over virgin wilderness. It prowls like hookers and thieves through bolt locked tenements. Behind my bolt locked door, the eagle and the serpent are at war in me. The serpent fighting for blind desire. The eagle for clarity." In my case, the eagle won and I'm content.
April 25, 2016
Sometime in the late 90s I heard John Kelly do Joni Mitchell at Josie's Cabaret & Juice Joint in San Francisco – a performance that hovered comically, magically, on the threshold between parody and homage. The crowd (Joni aficionados all) pitched at the edge of their folding chairs and as the first chords of one of Mitchell's standards sounded, you'd hear delighted chuckling and low murmurs of "I love this song!" My appreciation for Joni falls firmly in this mingled mess of reflexive irony, nectarous nostalgia and amazement.
So when I spotted Malka Marom's book of interviews on a table at Green Arcades I thought, really? Is there anything there? Something pushed me to pick it up. I read it all on a couple flights back and forth across the continent, impressed beyond expectation by Mitchell's life as an artist as much as by her artistry. Malka has known Joni from the beginning of her career; the interviews span the decades. Marom does a fine job editing these interviews. Instead of straight chronology she mixes things up a bit, including snippets from her interviews with musicians and producers who worked with Joni. The conversations transcend gossip or autobiography: the thread running through them is the creative process, what it means to honor one's muse, to keep exploring.
As I write this review Mitchell is silent, recovering from an aneurysm, and Prince has just died. An early recording of Prince performing "A Case of You" has just been posted on YouTube – a tender coda to the lives of two exceptional, incomparable musicians.
So when I spotted Malka Marom's book of interviews on a table at Green Arcades I thought, really? Is there anything there? Something pushed me to pick it up. I read it all on a couple flights back and forth across the continent, impressed beyond expectation by Mitchell's life as an artist as much as by her artistry. Malka has known Joni from the beginning of her career; the interviews span the decades. Marom does a fine job editing these interviews. Instead of straight chronology she mixes things up a bit, including snippets from her interviews with musicians and producers who worked with Joni. The conversations transcend gossip or autobiography: the thread running through them is the creative process, what it means to honor one's muse, to keep exploring.
As I write this review Mitchell is silent, recovering from an aneurysm, and Prince has just died. An early recording of Prince performing "A Case of You" has just been posted on YouTube – a tender coda to the lives of two exceptional, incomparable musicians.
October 10, 2017
I fell in love (again!) with Joni Mitchell reading this book. The way she made a name for herself in such a male-dominated field, and also transcribed and listened to exactly what was in her heart. It made for such beautiful music.
The way the book is written, in a dialogue style, it almost feels like I am listening to them when I remember my favorite parts. I tried to listen to each song when it was mentioned, which I wish I had done even more of because it added substantially to the experience and allowed me to pause and take in what she was trying to relay.
Joni's view of the world is inspiring, and her in-depth understanding of music is fascinating even if you don't play an instrument. It also helped me discover and appreciate her jazz phase and what it meant for her own evolution. I had only really appreciated her early work before. She is a quintessential artist to her core, with a lot of wisdom about the world.
The way the book is written, in a dialogue style, it almost feels like I am listening to them when I remember my favorite parts. I tried to listen to each song when it was mentioned, which I wish I had done even more of because it added substantially to the experience and allowed me to pause and take in what she was trying to relay.
Joni's view of the world is inspiring, and her in-depth understanding of music is fascinating even if you don't play an instrument. It also helped me discover and appreciate her jazz phase and what it meant for her own evolution. I had only really appreciated her early work before. She is a quintessential artist to her core, with a lot of wisdom about the world.
August 9, 2025
Love Joni. I listened to this on audible, but I think I would have enjoyed it much more to read the physical book as it’s written in interview style with lots of song lyrics and poems interjected.
December 31, 2022
This didn’t have a lot of biographical information that I was hoping for - it was a collection of three long interviews that gave Joni a whole lot of room to expand on literally whatever she wanted in no particular theme or order. She’s such a name dropper!! From Nietzsche to Annie Leibowitz. However, i did learn that Bob Dylan was kind of an ass to women. Not that Joni implied that at all. She’s “not a feminist” — and that’s pretty clear! Although she didn’t mind benefitting from the feminists
November 19, 2014
I was looking forward to reading this because my impression of Joni Mitchell is that she is an intelligent, thinking artist who is good at communicating her art and communicating about her art. Unfortunately, I found this to be a difficult slog to get through. Not a lot of insights to be found here.
March 21, 2024
A lot of it was amazing! But man, there's some things I wish I didn't know about my beloved Joni. She wore many faces, but one in particular is unsettling. 😬
December 9, 2025
3.5 Stars (rounded down due to the bad taste in my mouth)
The book, Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words, is a collection of three interveiws that Joni did with Malka Marom - one in 1973, one a few years later in 1979, and one in 2012. Throughout the fourty years that these interveiws took place, Malka and Joni became close friends, but at the beginning, interviewing Joni was a pipe dream in a last ditch effort to turn a new leaf for Malka. Malka seems like a really cool chick and it's so interesting how she went from being in this popular world music duo to a journalist. I love that the first interview in this (Part One), was her first interview ever. She decided to reach out to Joni after seeing her years prior at a coffee shop show before Joni was even famous. Malka was the only one there, outside of the coffee shop owner and Joni, and Malka described seeing her sing for the first time as a sort of transcendent experience. Malka was unfortunately my favorite part of this book.
I think the interview format is interesting. I listened to the audiobook version, though, and instead of being narrated in the way that a traditional audiobook is, I wish this had just been the actual interviews. I feel like I lost a lot of the tone and personality that would have come with the actual interviews. However, I was thrilled to learn more about Malka Marom, who I was not acquainted with prior to my reading this.
Honestly, reading this made me not like Joni as much as I thought I would. It honestly made me not really like her much at all. There's a lot of negative stuff that she talks about and backs up vehemently - from doing blackface (multiple times - she even says that she has started black trends because of her blackface) to flippantly dismissing antisemitic claims against Nietzsche (he wasn't an antisemite, he just didn't like Jewish people and he's brilliant, according to Joni), and bashing feminists. There's a lot of pretentiousness in the way that she talks about herself and other people. It's very obvious that she thinks of herself as above others, but she also trashes other people thoroughly throughout this book, and if people didn't like her choices, then they *~* just didn't get her or her art *~* There were a number of times that I was rolling my eyes at Joni and her waxing poetic about the people who just don't get her and how she's soooo much better than them.
The introduction and author's notes were well written and I appreciate getting to read these interviews, but I can't believe this is my first taste of Joni Mitchell and I'm already over Joni Mitchell. Would love to read more of Malka's stuff, though!
The book, Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words, is a collection of three interveiws that Joni did with Malka Marom - one in 1973, one a few years later in 1979, and one in 2012. Throughout the fourty years that these interveiws took place, Malka and Joni became close friends, but at the beginning, interviewing Joni was a pipe dream in a last ditch effort to turn a new leaf for Malka. Malka seems like a really cool chick and it's so interesting how she went from being in this popular world music duo to a journalist. I love that the first interview in this (Part One), was her first interview ever. She decided to reach out to Joni after seeing her years prior at a coffee shop show before Joni was even famous. Malka was the only one there, outside of the coffee shop owner and Joni, and Malka described seeing her sing for the first time as a sort of transcendent experience. Malka was unfortunately my favorite part of this book.
I think the interview format is interesting. I listened to the audiobook version, though, and instead of being narrated in the way that a traditional audiobook is, I wish this had just been the actual interviews. I feel like I lost a lot of the tone and personality that would have come with the actual interviews. However, I was thrilled to learn more about Malka Marom, who I was not acquainted with prior to my reading this.
Honestly, reading this made me not like Joni as much as I thought I would. It honestly made me not really like her much at all. There's a lot of negative stuff that she talks about and backs up vehemently - from doing blackface (multiple times - she even says that she has started black trends because of her blackface) to flippantly dismissing antisemitic claims against Nietzsche (he wasn't an antisemite, he just didn't like Jewish people and he's brilliant, according to Joni), and bashing feminists. There's a lot of pretentiousness in the way that she talks about herself and other people. It's very obvious that she thinks of herself as above others, but she also trashes other people thoroughly throughout this book, and if people didn't like her choices, then they *~* just didn't get her or her art *~* There were a number of times that I was rolling my eyes at Joni and her waxing poetic about the people who just don't get her and how she's soooo much better than them.
The introduction and author's notes were well written and I appreciate getting to read these interviews, but I can't believe this is my first taste of Joni Mitchell and I'm already over Joni Mitchell. Would love to read more of Malka's stuff, though!
April 4, 2015
Short version: As others have noted, this is not really a biography; it's an exploration of Joni Mitchell's views of her own musical artistry, as told to & by one of her friends. The interviews largely touch on those incidents in Mitchell's life that have inspired her lyrics and as such are most valuable as a gloss on those lyrics. The interviews also describe aspects of her musical style and how she has sought to change it -- what she wanted to do & the extent to which she felt she succeeded.
The book does what it sets out to do: it presents Mitchell in her own words -- that's why much of the reaction that's ostensibly towards the book is really aimed at Mitchell the person. In these interviewes, Mitchell does come across as egotistical, but... she has a lot to be egotistical about. She does seem defensive about some of her struggles in the music business, but when I caught myself rolling my eyes about that, I had to ask myself whether I hadn't encountered similar issues in 30 years as a mere corporate cog in a male industry, & isn't it true that we're all social animals who will be affected by the world in which we live? If business forces attempt to push you one way, & you push back, all that pushing will cause distortions somewhere -- it would be a miracle if Mitchell had whatever a "perfect" personality might be -- just because she's a genius doesn't mean she isn't human, too.
I still enjoy listening to many of the musicians I listened to when I was young & in several cases, I have kept buying their newer music. With Mitchell, I often hear new things in the older music; she doesn't inspire nostalgia so much as a fresh listen, & she continued to evolve. I respect her as a poet, musician, and artist. When someone has a strong, (in my case) 40+ year appreciation of an artist, if I read an interview depicting her as a person other than what my imagination & her songs created, & that view is not of a self-deprecating saint, so what? Is my pleasure in her artistry suddenly lost forever? My tastes aren't quite so porcelain. I plan on listening again to some number of her albums, probably with access to the book to look up things as I listen.
To focus on the book as a book (rather than on Mitchell herself), I found the section in which Mitchell spoke about the rules or laws of music & how they related to limitations in recording technology the most interesting because I had never heard that before -- e.g., that the size of record tracks in 33.3 records affected how anyone could use bass, for example. We take the technology for granted -- as if it's passive -- & don't always recognize the role it plays in shaping the end product. Also, I was struck by how wise Mitchell was to have figured out that if she kept her production costs low, she didn't have to produce Top 40 hits because she could still keep the record company profit margins high enough to leave her free to do what she wanted. I don't hear that kind of business savvy from most artists, especially not from one so dedicated to her art for art's sake. At another point, Mitchell talks about how little an established artist can advise an up & comer, but I think that insight about production costs, profit margins, & artistic freedom would be one useful thing young folks would benefit from hearing.
At one point, Mitchell talked about how unhelpful it is to think of the allegory of Adam & Eve as being about sex -- that it's the duality that represents the fall from grace. This idea is repeated again & again in the poetry of William Blake (& Blake was both artist & poet) so asking Mitchell about Blake seemed a very natural line of inquiry. But Marom didn't mention it, which was disappointing. There have been a few times when Mitchell has written songs that used poetry or other written work as starting points: Shades of Scarlett Conquering, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, etc. I wonder why she never used Blake, and I was chagrined Marom didn't ask.
In addition, I would have been interested to learn more about Mitchell's art -- a small amount of it was shown in the book (by the way, I prefer a simple touch Nook for reading, but when I finished, I did look at this ebook on my iPad because I wanted to see the colors in the paintings. The paintings reproduced well enough, but I was disappointed to note that some of the photos were distorted to fit on the page.) The art of Mitchell's with which I am most familiar tends to be self-portraits. Is this because I've mostly seen album covers? Does she favor self-portraiture? In her music, she often used unusual chords -- did she have an unusual palette? Oils or acrylics? This could have been an interesting appendix, at least, or perhaps booksellers could have included a catalog from an exhibit of Mitchell's work in their promos of this book.
Marom clearly cares about art herself (but didn't know Mary Cassatt?), so I was hopeful that she would have had more to ask on the subject. But she didn't. I also wished Mitchell & Marom had discussed Emily Carr more. She's not as well known in the US (or the world) as she deserves to be -- if she were an American instead of a Canadian, I think her reputation would be as big or bigger than Georgia O'Keefe's. Mitchell talked about Carr a little as an artist and some as a writer, but additional material on the subject by Marom (an appendix, perhaps?), for the edification of ignorant Americans would have been delightful. Similarly, a footnote (if not an appendix) on the work of Helen Lucas would have been another delightful introduction -- did Mitchell know Lucas? Did Lucas inspire her art? Did she use any of the techniques Lucas used (e.g., staining the canvas)? Elsewhere in the book, Mitchell took pleasure in being the means of enabling others to become better known or to further their art -- wouldn't this have pleased her?
Another set of questions nagged -- Canada offers some unusual light conditions for painters. Did Mitchell ever seek to do anything with the midnight suns of summer, which was a preoccupation of the Impressionists in Scandinavia? There's a great Mitchell painting of the sun on the prairie snow -- how did she use color to capture that light? The coastal part of British Columbia is a temperate rain forest -- how does she capture light in the gray? In the forest? In the shade? These are the sorts of questions about Mitchell's art that I still had at the end of the book.
The book does what it sets out to do: it presents Mitchell in her own words -- that's why much of the reaction that's ostensibly towards the book is really aimed at Mitchell the person. In these interviewes, Mitchell does come across as egotistical, but... she has a lot to be egotistical about. She does seem defensive about some of her struggles in the music business, but when I caught myself rolling my eyes about that, I had to ask myself whether I hadn't encountered similar issues in 30 years as a mere corporate cog in a male industry, & isn't it true that we're all social animals who will be affected by the world in which we live? If business forces attempt to push you one way, & you push back, all that pushing will cause distortions somewhere -- it would be a miracle if Mitchell had whatever a "perfect" personality might be -- just because she's a genius doesn't mean she isn't human, too.
I still enjoy listening to many of the musicians I listened to when I was young & in several cases, I have kept buying their newer music. With Mitchell, I often hear new things in the older music; she doesn't inspire nostalgia so much as a fresh listen, & she continued to evolve. I respect her as a poet, musician, and artist. When someone has a strong, (in my case) 40+ year appreciation of an artist, if I read an interview depicting her as a person other than what my imagination & her songs created, & that view is not of a self-deprecating saint, so what? Is my pleasure in her artistry suddenly lost forever? My tastes aren't quite so porcelain. I plan on listening again to some number of her albums, probably with access to the book to look up things as I listen.
To focus on the book as a book (rather than on Mitchell herself), I found the section in which Mitchell spoke about the rules or laws of music & how they related to limitations in recording technology the most interesting because I had never heard that before -- e.g., that the size of record tracks in 33.3 records affected how anyone could use bass, for example. We take the technology for granted -- as if it's passive -- & don't always recognize the role it plays in shaping the end product. Also, I was struck by how wise Mitchell was to have figured out that if she kept her production costs low, she didn't have to produce Top 40 hits because she could still keep the record company profit margins high enough to leave her free to do what she wanted. I don't hear that kind of business savvy from most artists, especially not from one so dedicated to her art for art's sake. At another point, Mitchell talks about how little an established artist can advise an up & comer, but I think that insight about production costs, profit margins, & artistic freedom would be one useful thing young folks would benefit from hearing.
At one point, Mitchell talked about how unhelpful it is to think of the allegory of Adam & Eve as being about sex -- that it's the duality that represents the fall from grace. This idea is repeated again & again in the poetry of William Blake (& Blake was both artist & poet) so asking Mitchell about Blake seemed a very natural line of inquiry. But Marom didn't mention it, which was disappointing. There have been a few times when Mitchell has written songs that used poetry or other written work as starting points: Shades of Scarlett Conquering, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, etc. I wonder why she never used Blake, and I was chagrined Marom didn't ask.
In addition, I would have been interested to learn more about Mitchell's art -- a small amount of it was shown in the book (by the way, I prefer a simple touch Nook for reading, but when I finished, I did look at this ebook on my iPad because I wanted to see the colors in the paintings. The paintings reproduced well enough, but I was disappointed to note that some of the photos were distorted to fit on the page.) The art of Mitchell's with which I am most familiar tends to be self-portraits. Is this because I've mostly seen album covers? Does she favor self-portraiture? In her music, she often used unusual chords -- did she have an unusual palette? Oils or acrylics? This could have been an interesting appendix, at least, or perhaps booksellers could have included a catalog from an exhibit of Mitchell's work in their promos of this book.
Marom clearly cares about art herself (but didn't know Mary Cassatt?), so I was hopeful that she would have had more to ask on the subject. But she didn't. I also wished Mitchell & Marom had discussed Emily Carr more. She's not as well known in the US (or the world) as she deserves to be -- if she were an American instead of a Canadian, I think her reputation would be as big or bigger than Georgia O'Keefe's. Mitchell talked about Carr a little as an artist and some as a writer, but additional material on the subject by Marom (an appendix, perhaps?), for the edification of ignorant Americans would have been delightful. Similarly, a footnote (if not an appendix) on the work of Helen Lucas would have been another delightful introduction -- did Mitchell know Lucas? Did Lucas inspire her art? Did she use any of the techniques Lucas used (e.g., staining the canvas)? Elsewhere in the book, Mitchell took pleasure in being the means of enabling others to become better known or to further their art -- wouldn't this have pleased her?
Another set of questions nagged -- Canada offers some unusual light conditions for painters. Did Mitchell ever seek to do anything with the midnight suns of summer, which was a preoccupation of the Impressionists in Scandinavia? There's a great Mitchell painting of the sun on the prairie snow -- how did she use color to capture that light? The coastal part of British Columbia is a temperate rain forest -- how does she capture light in the gray? In the forest? In the shade? These are the sorts of questions about Mitchell's art that I still had at the end of the book.
December 14, 2019
I loved this. I started it as an audiobook, and then when I had about 15-20 minutes left, mine expired and somehow my library no longer has the license for it, so I wasn't able to finish it. Fortunately, they have the physical book, I grabbed a copy and I'm so glad I did. The physical book is lovely and I found myself going back through it to look at the photos, art pieces, and some of the formatting.
It was really fascinating to hear/read about Joni Mitchell's life through the lens of interviews with her friend over the course of many, many decades, as it provides an intimacy the other biographies couldn't quite capture. This also was less of a biography than it was conversations about anything and everything.
A must-read for an Joni Mitchell fan.
It was really fascinating to hear/read about Joni Mitchell's life through the lens of interviews with her friend over the course of many, many decades, as it provides an intimacy the other biographies couldn't quite capture. This also was less of a biography than it was conversations about anything and everything.
A must-read for an Joni Mitchell fan.
April 8, 2022
Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words conversations with Malka Marom (ECW Press 2014) (780.92) (3633).
This is a transcription of three long interviews held between songbird Joni Mitchell and author Malka Marom which were held years apart between 1973 and 2012.
These interviews are a deep dive into Joni the singer, painter, poet, and composer by an interviewer with whom Joni has an obvious rapport.
I loves me some Joni Mitchell. I think that her songs “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock” were brilliant. However, I was disappointed in this volume.
I eagerly anticipated this read for insight into Joni’s as a young rock and roll artist in LA. I was looking forward to reading Joni’s side of the history of her life with Graham Nash and CSNY back in the day.
This is not that book. Unless I missed it somewhere, the name Graham Nash, with whom Mitchell lived in the 1960’s. (Nash’s song “Our House” is about domestic bliss when he lived with Joni Mitchell:
“Our house is a very, very, very fine house
` with two cats in the yard.
Life used to be so hard.
Now everything is easy ‘cause of you…”)
While I appreciate Mitchell’s openness with this remarkable and talented interviewer, I’m not really interested in 259 pages of Joni’s detailed introspection into her poetry and painting.
Joni Mitchell is supremely talented and brilliant to boot; I mean to cast no aspersions on this volume. I’ll just have to find another book about Joni to learn the rest of her story.
My rating: 7/10, finished 4/8/22 (3633).
February 13, 2024
An enigma. To write a biography of Joni Mitchell would, I think, do her personality and artistry a disservice. But to transcribe her unfettered words and stories... now that it some other sort of magic entirely.
These interviews left me with a greater appreciation of Mitchell's originality, grit, and lightness. It was especially valuable to have her first-hand accounts of the barriers built into the music industry for female musicians, producers, and composers.
One note for the audiobook: it would have been lovely if her songs were played rather than the reader orating song lyrics. I suppose my standards were set too high by Malcom Gladwell's "Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon." :)
These interviews left me with a greater appreciation of Mitchell's originality, grit, and lightness. It was especially valuable to have her first-hand accounts of the barriers built into the music industry for female musicians, producers, and composers.
One note for the audiobook: it would have been lovely if her songs were played rather than the reader orating song lyrics. I suppose my standards were set too high by Malcom Gladwell's "Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon." :)
October 23, 2017
Joni er kunstner med stort k, men hun har enkelte ok refleksioner. Fx overvejer hun, hvad hendes rigdom gør ved relationen til fans/købere.
Fin sladder om kendte.
Direkte interessante ting om hendes fag, faglige valg. Ærgerligt, at hun ikke bare kan fortælle dette, men skal pakke det ind i al den modstand, som hun føler sig udsat for. Hovedhistorien bliver derfor klicheen om, at hun som kunstner skaber og fornyer på trods af alle andres forstokkethed.
Fin sladder om kendte.
Direkte interessante ting om hendes fag, faglige valg. Ærgerligt, at hun ikke bare kan fortælle dette, men skal pakke det ind i al den modstand, som hun føler sig udsat for. Hovedhistorien bliver derfor klicheen om, at hun som kunstner skaber og fornyer på trods af alle andres forstokkethed.
January 14, 2023
A mental badass wrapped up in the body of a poet. She has written some of the best songs on Planet Earth and never really got full credit for them. One example is "Both Sides Now", a song I have loved since I was a child. I thought it was a Judy Collins song most of my life. She's also a resilient fighter, battling personal illness and stereotypes in her industry.
September 30, 2024
I thought I couldn’t love Joni Mitchell any more…. But reading this real and raw book took me to the next level. Loved reading her humor, wit, and silliness, despite the heavier topics she tackles in her music.
January 31, 2025
If you ever wanted to know more about Joni Mitchell, this is the book for you.
An in depth portrait of not only the singer, but also the painter, poet, lyricist, composer and woman.
A must read for any Joni fan.
An in depth portrait of not only the singer, but also the painter, poet, lyricist, composer and woman.
A must read for any Joni fan.
March 26, 2019
Excellent. I could hear Joni's voice when I read this book. One of my favorites yet.
August 28, 2024
joni is an icon. i endlessly adore her.
though her opinions on feminism as expressed in this book are iffy, i think it likely comes down to her misunderstanding modern feminism, which comes not from a desire to be better than men, but simply to achieve equality, a sentiment she seems to very much agree with. due to this reconciliation, my opinion of her is not at all marred after reading.
also - tell me why i had never heard of open g tuning before this book? will be using it all the time.
that is to say, i really enjoyed this book and have already drawn lots of inspiration from it, as an aspiring singer-songwriter who has always held an admiration for joni.
though her opinions on feminism as expressed in this book are iffy, i think it likely comes down to her misunderstanding modern feminism, which comes not from a desire to be better than men, but simply to achieve equality, a sentiment she seems to very much agree with. due to this reconciliation, my opinion of her is not at all marred after reading.
also - tell me why i had never heard of open g tuning before this book? will be using it all the time.
that is to say, i really enjoyed this book and have already drawn lots of inspiration from it, as an aspiring singer-songwriter who has always held an admiration for joni.
July 3, 2016
This book is lovingly put together--great interviews by Marom interspersed with apropos song lyrics and pictures of and by Joni. The hardest thing about this book is Mitchell herself. Admittedly not an easy person to work or live with, she annoys because she is so convinced that she's a Great Artist, and that most people Just Don't Get It. Would I find her point of view as thorny if she were a man? I definitely would. Do I think she's had a much harder row to hoe being a woman with this point of view? I definitely do.
The song lyrics make me remember that the songs are the point in the first place. Nothing here--not her disavowal of feminism, of any contemporaries, of people who think Morgellons is a made-up illness--makes me want to lose these songs. I want to try to hear more of them. Favorites I've heard: "Amelia," "Lesson in Survival," "Little Green," "Urge for Going," "The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey," "People's Parties," "The Last Time I Saw Richard." Favorites I've never heard: "The Three Great Stimulants," "Tax Free," "The Magdalene Laundries," "Face Lift."
The song lyrics make me remember that the songs are the point in the first place. Nothing here--not her disavowal of feminism, of any contemporaries, of people who think Morgellons is a made-up illness--makes me want to lose these songs. I want to try to hear more of them. Favorites I've heard: "Amelia," "Lesson in Survival," "Little Green," "Urge for Going," "The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey," "People's Parties," "The Last Time I Saw Richard." Favorites I've never heard: "The Three Great Stimulants," "Tax Free," "The Magdalene Laundries," "Face Lift."
March 12, 2015
This is a fascinating look at Joni's career over the decades in a series of interviews done by a Canadian musician-journalist who Joni knows and is very comfortable with. Her insights into the music business, the challenges she has encountered, and people she has worked are both entertaining and enlightening. She talks at some length about Tom Scott, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and others. Much is covered about individual albums, their creation, and lyrics from this painter-cum-poet singer. Note this audiobook has no audio from Joni herself.
One thing that really struck me that Joni is quoted on about changing studio technology is how in the '70s the marketing expectation of 10 or so tracks on a vinyl LP and the fact that bass sounds widened LP grooves meant prominent rhythm sections and even some instrumentation had to be foregone in the studio. Engineering limitations intruding on art - very interesting.
One thing that really struck me that Joni is quoted on about changing studio technology is how in the '70s the marketing expectation of 10 or so tracks on a vinyl LP and the fact that bass sounds widened LP grooves meant prominent rhythm sections and even some instrumentation had to be foregone in the studio. Engineering limitations intruding on art - very interesting.
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