The Joni Mitchell album that influenced Waxahatchee’s lyricism
Decades after her heyday in the genre, the influence of Joni Mitchell continues to reverberate throughout the sound of modern folk. The enduring themes of love and freedom, the palpable sense of longing in her wavering tones, the soft strums she accompanies them with, all seem to bleed into the stylings of contemporary guitar-wielding women. Waxahatchee is no exception.
Since making her debut back in 2012, Waxahatchee, also known as Katie Crutchfield, has situated herself in and around the folk genre. There are certainly other elements to her sound, such as Americana influences and country twangs, but her songwriting style is very close to Mitchell’s folk stylings. It follows that the folk songwriter created one of the records that changed Crutchfield’s life.
While picking out five albums that had a transformative impact on her for Tidal, Crutchfield shared her love for Mitchell’s 1971 record Blue, which many would argue to be her magnum opus. A collection of tender twangs and tales of California, adorned with imagery of sweet champagne and filthy fingernails, it soon earned its place as one of the greats, a position Crutchfield has reaffirmed.
“That record is one of the greatest records of all time,” she declared before sharing her particular love for Mitchell’s lyrics. “I think the reason that I put it down is because of the lyrics,” she explained, “The way that she writes is just… it’s really, really influenced the way that I approach writing lyrics.”
Crutchfield rightly described Mitchell’s writing as “raw and emotional and autobiographical” but perhaps captured it most faithfully in the phrase, “cloaked in all of this experience.” The beauty of Mitchell’s writing so often comes from how real it feels and the emotion it seems to be drenched in. Every song feels as if it could have come from a diary entry penned in the throes of feeling, edited later for a little more poetic flair.
Blue is certainly one of the records where Mitchell’s ability to cloak compositions in experience shines brightest. ‘California’, for example, contains so many specificities that it’s impossible not to find Mitchell herself amidst the lyrics. “I caught a plane to Spain, went to a party down a red dirt road,” she sings, “There were lots of pretty people there reading Rolling Stone, reading Vogue.”
The record is full of moments and feelings pulled from real life, each enhanced by Mitchell’s vulnerabilities in delivery. Though she may have coined this songwriting style in the 1960s and 1970s, it continues to resonate with audiences today. Beyond the enduring love for Blue, modern folk artists are adopting a similar style, filling their compositions with rich and raw feelings.
Waxahatchee is one of the leading figures in this contemporary scene. On her last record, Tigers Blood, she littered her lyrics with sincerities and specificities. “Photograph of us in the spotlight on a hot night,” she sings on lead single ‘Right Back to It’, “I was drifting in and out.” Soft twangs accompany her words, and it’s difficult not to feel the influence of Mitchell.
Crutchfield has certainly made the genre her own, straying further into country and Americana realms where Mitchell experimented with jazz, but the influence of the folk songwriter on her lyricism is clear.
