Five of the most overlooked Joni Mitchell songs
Joni Mitchell is one of the most influential songwriters in history. It’s impossible to understate her importance to female musicians, confessional lyricism and the entire folk genre alike. After her breakout in the mid-1960s, the musician was prolific, releasing 19 studio albums. Sadly, some of her finest tracks have slipped under the radar in the mix.
Mitchell stands out as a supremely influential artist. Icons like Bob Dylan, Prince, Kate Bush and more all reference Mitchell as a major source of inspiration. Without her, who knows what other albums the world may never have got as she sits in the direct lineage of confessional writers that would introduce the world to Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Taylor Swift and more.
Across her 19 albums, Mitchell’s sound continually evolves from her early stripped-back folk into fully orchestrated, whole band glory. Hits like ‘Case Of You’, ‘Both Sides Now’ and ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ have been written into history books as some of the best songs ever written. But sitting on all of her albums are some of her most underrated wonders.
From the parred-back folk of her early albums to the not-holds-back savage lyricism on her later albums, Mitchell’s back catalogue is well worth a deep dive. Here are five of her most overlooked tracks to start with.
Five underrated Joni Mitchell songs:
‘That Song About The Midway’
From her second album, Clouds, this 1969 track is a folk wonder. Lyrically, ‘That Song About The Midway’ deals with the end of Mitchell’s relationship with David Crosby. Singing, “You were betting on some lover, you were shaking up the dice / And I thought I saw you cheating once or twice, once or twice,” it’s a subtly devastating take on loss and heartbreak.
Sonically, the track is a perfect example of Mitchell’s early sound. With her signature intricate finger-picking style and unique tuning, it’s such an underrated track on Clouds. Overshadowed by hits like ‘Both Sides Now’ and ‘Chelsea Morning’, ‘That Sound About The Midway’ deserves to be placed as one of Mitchell’s finest takes on the end of love.
‘This Flight Tonight’
It seems impossible to think that any of the tracks off Blue could go undervalued. As her most popular album, the 1971 record has gone down in history as one of the greatest ever made. But there is never enough hype for the seventh track, ‘This Flight Tonight’.
Sandwiched in the middle of the album, ‘This Flight Tonight’ is a swelling and intense guitar tune. Rich with several instruments playing at once, the track deals with spiralling introspection as Mitchell runs away from love and regrets it. But the glory of the song comes in the middle section when the gears suddenly switch, the electric guitar comes in, and the vocal effect turns on as Mitchell does her impression of the Beach Boys. That exciting little moment alone makes this song deserving of more attention.
‘Rainy Night House’
Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen are two of the greatest songwriters of all time. Both are dominating forces when it comes to songs about love and loss. It’s no wonder, then, that the songs they wrote about each other are incredibly beautiful. While there are rumours that ‘Case Of You’ might even be about Cohen, there is no doubt that ‘Rainy Night House’ was penned for Mitchell’s fellow Canadian folk master.
A dramatic ballad played on piano with a cello backing, ‘Rainy Night House’ is Mitchell’s goodbye to Cohen. To the Hallelujah singer, Mitchell sings, “You are a holy man / On the FM radio / I sat up all the night and watched thee / To see who in the world you might be.” Delivering her storytelling abilities at their very best and her lyrical takes on love at their strongest, it’s a crime that this song isn’t better known.
‘Trouble Child’
Sitting on the second side of her 1974 album Court and Spark, ‘Trouble Child’ is underrated gold. As Mitchell began to expand her sound away from clean-cut folk and into something broader, this track feels like a gateway to more. From the opening notes, ‘Trouble Child’ is seductive. Bringing in sounds from jazz, blues and beyond, the subtle horns and interesting rhythms at play here are just so good.
Lyrically, ‘Trouble Child’ is Mitchell’s take on fame. The song deals with the exhaustion of being an artist, especially one with new notoriety and increasing external pressures. As the sonics build and build into a huge and hopeful climax, both lyrically and instrumentally, ‘Trouble Child’ welcomed a new confidence in Mitchell.
‘Lead Balloon’
“‘Kiss my ass’, I said, and I threw my drink,” Mitchell rages as the opening line to the killer ‘Lead Balloon’. Released in 1998 on Taming The Tiger, the ‘90s welcomed a very different sound from Mitchell. Here, she goes all out rock on this rager of a song, expelling all her pent-up anger and frustration towards men in music.
Famously, ‘Lead Balloon’ deals with an argument between Mitchell and Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, who once awarded Mitchell ‘Old Lady of the Year’. Mitchell had a long-held issue with the publication, once telling the press, “I have a personal grudge against mister Jann Wenner. He’s very irresponsible.” On ‘Lead Balloon’, the grudge finally boils over. No stranger to writing about the music industry and its multitude of issues and abuses, there is no holding back on this track. “An angry man is just an angry man / But an angry woman / Bitch,” Mitchell sings on a savage track that deserves more attention.
