The 1998 song Joni Mitchell called the most brilliant: “So happy”
Joni Mitchell was never one to give out praise lightly whenever she turned on the radio.
A lot of what turned up on the pop stations was usually too simple for what Mitchell was going for, and since the genre had come a long way since the days when she was strumming 1960s folk tunes, it wasn’t like she was prepared to see what the next work of art Madonna was rolling out whenever she made a new record. A lot of the greatest hits all seemed to be written, but there was always going to be someone willing to turn pop music on its head every now and again.
At the same time, no one was in the same league as Mitchell when it came to poetry and song construction. Compared to the biggest names in rock and roll at the time, Mitchell’s dabblings in jazz and fusion were unlike anything that her contemporaries were thinking of, and when listening to some of her more mature recordings like Hejira, it’s hard to think of any song being any more perfect than it already was.
There was no room for Mitchell to sprinkle in any of her old hooks anymore, but that wasn’t a drawback by any means. She felt she had entered the realm reserved for people like Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis, and that didn’t always cater to having hits. But the 1990s were already in for a shakeup once the alternative revolution kicked in.
Mitchell may not have been the biggest Nirvana fan or embraced the entire flannel shirt mentality, but the greatest thing about grunge was dismantling the manufactured side of pop. No one wanted to hear the same kind of drab songs about girls and partying all the time anymore, and left the door wide open for more accomplished songwriters to come in. Kurt Cobain laid the groundwork, but it was up to real songwriting geniuses like Tori Amos and Fiona Apple to help move pop back to something a bit more sophisticated.
But even then, Gregg Alexander looked like the last person who was going to lead the next revolution. His early incarnation as the post-ironic version of Jim Morrison was one of the most unintentionally hilarious left turns of the 1990s, but when he formed New Radicals, something felt different. He finally found his calling from underneath that bucket hat, and when ‘You Get What You Give’ crept its way onto the charts, Mitchell felt that there was something more that pop had to offer.
The biggest names were still people like Limp Bizkit and The Spice Girls, but Mitchell needed to meet Alexander to understand how someone could write such a fantastic tune, saying upon their meeting, “When I heard that song, I changed my mind about quitting the business, I was done. I wasn’t going to do anything more. But that is the most brilliant song. I am so happy to meet you.” And for anyone who knows music theory, the song is practically a love letter to the greatest pop songs of the 1970s.
Alexander had studied every piece of pop culture to make a song like this, and you can hear him cramming every single earworm that he could find into a few minutes. There are some pieces that still sound like the 1990s slacker genre, but there are also more than a few sonic touches that sound like they could have come off a Steely Dan record or birthed from Jeff Lynne’s musical mind as well.
Some of the shine has worn off the song after it has been featured at the end of any feel-good movie that has come out since 2005, but that shouldn’t negate what Mitchell has said about the tune. She had a much higher standard than every other songwriter, and to say that this was the shining light in the decade of irony was the highest compliment that she could have paid to someone.
