The 1972 song Joni Mitchell wrote as a goodbye to the music industry: “It’s kind of a macabre thing to say”
Joni Mitchell always had something of a complicated relationship with the pop machine.
The legendary Canadian singer-songwriter spent the first decade of her career climbing the industry ladder, culminating in a massive pop crossover with 1974’s Court and Spark and its lead single, ‘Help Me’, which was Mitchell’s only top ten hit in her career.
But even before reaching her peak, Mitchell was already feeling disillusioned. She had already gone through a famous relationship with former Hollies singer Graham Nash, placing her personal life in the spotlight. 1972’s For The Roses focused largely on getting back to a simpler kind of life, and when Mitchell introduced the title song at her February 23rd concert at Carnegie Hall that year, she didn’t hold back when explaining the titular metaphor.
“That comes from the expression ‘To run for the roses.’ You know what that’s all about: you take this horse and he comes charging into the finish line and they throw a wreath of flowers around his neck and then one day they take him out and shoot him,” Mitchell explained. “It’s kind of a macabre thing to say, isn’t it, I guess?”
Macabre or not, ‘For The Roses’ never shied away from its poison-tipped cut at the music industry. “Remember the days when you used to sit / And make up your tunes for love / And pour your simple sorrow / To the soundhole and your knee / And now you’re seen / On giant screens / And at parties for the press” makes that connection more or less direct.
“The was my first farewell to the business”
Joni Mitchell
Mitchell’s discomfort with fame was rooted partly in how seriously she viewed songwriting as an art form rather than a commercial product. Throughout her career, she resisted the expectation that artists should endlessly repeat the formula that first made them successful, instead following her creative instincts wherever they led.
That refusal to compromise often placed her at odds with record executives and audiences alike, particularly as her music became more abstract and jazz-oriented during the mid-1970s.
Yet it is precisely that artistic restlessness that has helped preserve Mitchell’s reputation as one of the most important songwriters of her generation.
Albums such as Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and Mingus may have alienated some casual listeners at the time, but they demonstrated an artist completely unwilling to stagnate creatively. While many of her contemporaries chased commercial relevance, Mitchell became increasingly interested in musical freedom, even if it meant stepping further away from mainstream success.
“That was my first farewell to show business,” Mitchell recalled to the Los Angeles Times in 1996. “I was in Canada, where I have a sanctuary where I still go sometimes, and I had decided to quit show business and get away from all the pressures I felt. To me, this was an unfair, crooked business and it has nothing to do with real talent. I was up in Canada about a year and I guess it strengthened my nervous system a little, so I finally came back.”
After the massive success of Court and Spark, Mitchell spent the following years experimenting with her style. 1975’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns was her first major embrace of jazz, a genre that would have a bigger influence on Mitchell than either pop or folk in the subsequent two decades. For roughly a 20-year stretch beginning in 2002, Mitchell finally left the music industry behind, content in the massive slate of classic material that she had produced across the decades.
Check out ‘For The Roses’ down below.
