“I need black”: The time Joni Mitchell held a funeral for her own tour
Some artists rejoice when a lengthy tour comes to an end. Rather than living out of suitcases and tour buses, they can head home to their family and friends for a little while, rest their heads on a more familiar pillow and eat home-cooked meals rather than service station fast food. Other musicians live for the road, finding themselves longing to get back on stage whenever a tour reaches its conclusion. And some artists, namely Joni Mitchell, throw funerals for their tours.
Mitchell has always been a truly original artist. Her songwriting was entirely driven by this premise, bolstered by her unflinching authenticity and commitment to innovation. She paired soft folk strums and jazz influences with real-life tales of wandering and freedom, of love and loss, proving herself to be a singular songwriter in the process. However, Mitchell is also a true original outside of her lyricism, in every element of her artistry and approach to life.
Take, for example, the folk singer’s album artwork. Rather than enlisting the help of another artist or a designer to create covers for her record, the folk legend often opted to create her own artwork. She painted psychedelic pieces and self-portraits, mirroring each creation to the record it accompanied. Her singular approach to her artistry also bled into her touring, as she demonstrated in the mid-1970s.
Mitchell spent the beginning of 1976 out on the road, touring across the United States following the release of The Hissing of Summer Lawns at the end of 1975. She played stages across the country, concluding the tour in February at the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin. After the final date, Mitchell commemorated the tour with a solo funeral out on the ice.
The cold winter had led the largest lake in the city, Lake Mendota, to freeze over, and Mitchell could think of no better setting to hold a funeral for her late tour. She took to the lake in a black beret, black skates, and a flowy black outfit that almost made her look like a bird on the ice. She had certainly dressed for the occasion, and photographer Joel Bernstein would be there to document it, but why did Mitchell feel the need to throw the tour a funeral?
She explained the decision during a conversation with Mojo, stating, “My tour was dead. The stages had gotten too tall, the songs less intimate. There was a Quonset hut [in Maryland] having a funeral for my dead tour. I need black.” Mitchell was certainly correct that the venues and audiences she was playing to were getting larger.
She played to thousands of people each night on her 1976 tour, the scale of each venue almost certainly removing that more personal aspect of her music. It was characteristic of Mitchell to commemorate this loss out on the ice, in all black. Mitchell would play live only once more in 1976, around the same time she released Hejira in November.
Mitchell would then take a break from touring, which lasted three years, and return to the roads of the States in 1979. Perhaps a funeral was warranted, as fans were left desperately waiting for another chance to see the folk legend, mourning the chance to see her in a more intimate setting. Though it could be considered dramatic or theatrical, it only adds to Mitchell’s character and artistry, and it led to some gorgeous black-and-white photos.
