“No one is on her level”: Joni Mitchell’s eight greatest songs, according to Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello is a huge Joni Mitchell fan. “She’s a fairly unprecedented songwriter,” he once said, like he has given it a lot of thought since first receiving a copy of one of her records from his father before a moment’s endearment turned into a career-long fixation. While he would later learn more about the singer by interviewing her, those early seeds entered him into the “shocking” world of a legend, knowing that whatever she had to say, he was always listening.
Most musicians remember the first time they fell in love with music, but with Costello and Mitchell, it was like a match made in heaven. Using her words as poetic guidance, he, like many others, learned the power of sophisticated wordplay to enliven life’s most inexplicable ambiguities, particularly with records like Blue effectively reinstating what it meant to be an authentic songwriter during a time when music really needed a refresher.
“She’s hardly made a record that doesn’t have something to interest you,” Costello explained, hinting at a deep-seated love that gripped him in his teenage years and never let go. While most extract snippets of artistry from different musicians across all eras and genres, Costello adored Mitchell holistically and how her words were underscored by her unique guitar playing, even if he couldn’t grasp her technique enough to replicate it in his own work.
While Mitchell’s records provide snippets of moments in her life, that’s precisely what kept Costello coming back. Rather than doing the same thing over and over, Mitchell let people into different chapters in both her personal life and artistic vision, all while maintaining accessibility. As Costello put it for Pitchfork: “Even though she was really singing about quite a rarefied society here—I would guess kind of a Hollywood life in songs like ‘Same Situation’—she could make it accessible. No one is remotely operating on her level.”
While this level of admiration would likely make singling out favourites a difficult task, Costello once picked a handful for Vanity Fair, proving his appreciation for her different, albeit hard-hitting, musical stages. While it’s understandable why Blue‘s ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’ would make it onto his list, others, like ‘Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire’, ‘Shades of Scarlet Conquering’, and ‘Down to You’ prove the fondness of a mind that has ventured beneath the surface, one with an affinity for intricacy.
He also claimed Hejira‘s ‘Amelia’ and Taming the Tiger duo ‘Man from Mars’ and ‘Stay in Touch’ as favourites, further highlighting his appreciation for Mitchell’s songwriting evolution and her ability to draw from various influences, like jazz. While Costello enjoys the popular hits, he also knows that Mitchell’s strength stems from her subtleties and how she used her resilience to make some of history’s most raw and vulnerable musical narratives.
Throughout her career, Mitchell has always used uncertainty as power, not just with her personal experiences but in navigating a despaired and disillusioned industry. In writing Blue, for instance, she showcased just how poignant songwriting had the potential to be, namely by leaning into her anguish to create truly beautiful narratives and soundscapes. Though his artistry differed in various ways, Costello recognised this fearlessness, utilising it to stand above conventional restraints.
