David Crosby on how Joni Mitchell played the guitar “like a band”
Blending poetic and personal lyrics with intricate instrumentation, Joni Mitchell carved out a place for herself as not only one of the most important songwriters in folk but one of the most influential songwriters in the history of music as a whole. Her power still remains, transcending genre and generation – it seems that everyone, from Led Zeppelin to Taylor Swift – has been influenced by Mitchell’s unique talent.
At the centre of Mitchell’s songwriting is her masterfully vulnerable lyricism, which has charted almost every experience of human life, her own and others. ‘A Case of You’ contains some of the most beautiful meditations on love ever put to song, while ‘For The Roses’ takes a look at the toxicity within the music industry.
From love and loss to reflections on freedom and the self, Mitchell’s songbook has seen it all, but her talent wasn’t limited to her ability to string poetic sentences together. Mitchell’s lyrical contemplations were always accompanied by the perfect soundtrack, nestled in a bed of lamenting keys or infatuated strings that would only serve to elevate her words.
Somehow, even when she was barely accompanied by more than a guitar, Mitchell’s songs seemed just as full of instrumentation as they were with emotion. Fellow folk and psych legend and Mitchell’s former lover David Crosby once explained this phenomenon, noting her unique approach toward indicated arrangement.
During a conversation with Rolling Stone, Crosby explained: “She was a folkie who had learned to play what they call an indicated arrangement. Where you are like a band in the way you approach a chord and string the melody along. She was so new and fresh with how she approached it.”
“It’s the reason I fell in love with her music,” the Byrds co-founder reminisced. “She was a fantastic rhythm player and growing so fast. She had mastered the idea that she could tune the guitar any way she wanted to, to get other inversions of the chords. I was doing that too, but she went further.”
Mitchell herself has echoed this sentiment, suggesting that sounding like a full band was always her intention. “When I play the guitar,” she once told Acoustic Player, “I hear it as an orchestra: the top three strings being horn section, the bottom three being cello, viola, and bass – the bass being indicated but not rooted.”
Not limited by the instrument and always looking to innovate and experiment, Mitchell never failed to accompany her dense lyrics with equally affecting instrumentation. Her guitar sounded just as full as her vocals. Whether they were espousing love, pain, or something in between, they always served to enhance their meaning.
