The song Joni Mitchell wrote about David Geffen: “He begged me to take it off the record”
Joni Mitchell has honed a discography filled to the brim with poetic vulnerability, pairing soft folk and jazz with tales of freedom and love. Her songwriting is steeped in her talent and love for sonic storytelling, but while she might love music, she certainly doesn’t love the industry that has been created around it.
Mitchell has been discussing and critcising the industry she operates within for almost as long as she’s been making music. Her 1974 record, Court and Spark, featured one of those lyrical rejections of the music industry on a track titled ‘Free Man in Paris’. The song was inspired by music industry professional David Geffen, whom Mitchell was friends with.
Over jubilant soundscapes that fuse folk and jazz, the track follows the music executive finding freedom on a trip to Paris, cherishing a moment away from the bustling pressures of the star-making machinery back home. “The way I see it, he said, you just can’t win it,” she sings, “Everybody’s in it for their own gain, you can’t please ‘em all.”
The song was penned in the city it took its name from. Though ‘Free Man in Paris’ never mentioned Geffen by name, Mitchell revealed that was inspired by him during a conversation with the Los Angeles Times. “I wrote that in Paris for David Geffen,” she shared, “Taking a lot of it from the things he said.”
She went on to deem it “another song about show business and the pressures”. Her lyrics certainly portrayed that theme, but Geffen himself wasn’t entirely complimentary about the track and even asked Mitchell not to include it on Court and Spark.
“He didn’t like it at the time,” she remembered, “He begged me to take it off the record. I think he felt uncomfortable being shown in that light.” Despite his protests, Mitchell featured it on her sixth record and even released it as a single, openly criticising the industry it existed within.
Her disdain for the business side of music has been unwavering ever since, and she even made an attempt to quit music at the beginning of the 2000s. She announced that her 2002 album, Travelogue, would be her final album. Still, she would return five years later in 2007 with Shine, her love for music itself proving to be too strong.
Mitchell’s critique of the music industry remains more important than ever, as aesthetics and profits continue to take precedence over true artistry.
Listen to ‘Free Man in Paris’ by Joni Mitchell below.
