The 1967 classic Joni Mitchell thought was never her “best work”
If you were to ask a Joni Mitchell fan what her masterpiece is, they’d probably take an age to deliberate over which of her records is the most deserving of the title.
Her consistency in the early part of her career was not just solid, but demonstrated talent far beyond what most people would be able to achieve in an entire career in the space of just one album, in some cases. So, are you picking the album that demonstrated her first major artistic leap in Ladies of the Canyon, the sublimely personal and crushing Blue, or the start of her jazz-inflected era in Court and Spark?
The fact that these aren’t the three sole options only goes to show just how much of a task it is to pick, given how there are plenty of stunning records to choose from, but it would become an even tougher prospect if you were to narrow down the criteria to individual songs. Each of her classic albums has a handful of standout moments, so singling out one in particular is hardly going to be a straightforward task.
However, while many people might lean towards one of her earliest classics, 1967’s ‘Chelsea Morning’, Mitchell herself is loath to look at this song, or anything from this early on in her career, as being worthy of such heightened levels of adulation.
“I wrote that in Philadelphia after some girls who worked in this club where I was playing found all this coloured slag glass in an alley,” Mitchell revealed of the song’s origins in a 1996 interview with The Los Angeles Times. “We collected a lot of it and built these glass mobiles with copper wire and coat hangers.”
While Mitchell continued to reflect positively on this period of her life, explaining that she took her handicraft back to her apartment in New York’s Chelsea District and referenced how she would gaze at its wondrous colours in the song’s lyrics, she also protested that, despite its brilliance, it doesn’t live up to the standards she would go on to reach.
“It was a very young and lovely time before I had a record deal,” she mused. “I think it’s a very sweet song, but I don’t think of it as part of my best work. To me, most of those early songs seem like the work of an ingénue.”
Granted, ‘Chelsea Morning’ and other songs taken from her first two albums are not as elaborate as some of her work that would follow it at the start of the 1970s, but to call it the work of an ingénue is to dismiss the raw talent that she had on show, even by this young point in her career. Having written the song at around the age of 23, it’s still a remarkable achievement for someone at such a junior stage of their career to come out with, and it doesn’t bear thinking about it as being naive or sub-par.
Evidently, Mitchell has always held herself to a high standard, but that shouldn’t mean that she has to play down her abilities. ‘Chelsea Morning’ might not be her own personal favourite, but there’s plenty of reason to love it as a prime example of just how exceptional Mitchell was destined to become.
