The Joni Mitchell song inspired by a chat with Bob Dylan on Paul McCartney’s boat
It’s probably fair to say that it has always felt quite commonplace for stars to be knocking about with one another in their spare time and living the good life with their fellow A-listers, but the 1970s seemed absolutely rife with tales of the big names in music hanging out with one another. If you can imagine the likes of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney celebrating on board a boat together, that’s either because it’s not too much of a stretch to think of them as friends, or it’s because you’re already aware that such a thing happened.
Mitchell was already Dylan’s close friend, having met on a number of occasions while their careers in the folk world overlapped, but the duo shared more than just a musical connection. They were both avid painters, and when they did cross each other’s paths, they would often reach the topic of their artistic endeavours with brush and easel rather than in a musical sense.
They’d eventually have one particularly fortuitous meeting with one another on board a boat named Queen Mary, where Paul McCartney was hosting a party and both Mitchell and Dylan were guests. Sharing a table with others, you’d imagine that they kept the conversation away from their indulgent discussions of art while entertaining the others, but as their fellow party-goers began to clear the area, the duo were left alone to strike up a chat.
According to a 1979 interview with Rolling Stone, Mitchell attests that Dylan posed her an intriguing question once alone, asking her: “If you were going to paint this room, what would you paint?” After giving Dylan’s query some thought, she responded by saying: “I’d paint the mirrored ball spinning, I’d paint the women in the washroom, the band.”
This would eventually come to inspire her 1977 song ‘Paprika Plains’, the 16-minute centrepiece of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter that works its way through opulent orchestral movements and experimental jazz. “Later, all the stuff came back to me as part of a dream that became the song ‘Paprika Plains’,” Mitchell declared, recalling her conversation with Dylan. Less remarkably, she also said that Dylan was adamant when asked the same question that he would paint a coffee cup.
‘Paprika Plains’ is a rich tapestry of all of Mitchell’s songwriting and storytelling talents weaving a tapestry of melody and grandeur, and you can picture it playing in the scene she describes from the boat. However, the rest of the album is a lot less classically inspired, leaning on the jazz influences that had been shining through on much of her mid-1970s output. The song features contributions from Weather Report’s Wayne Shorter and Jaco Pastorius on saxophone and bass, respectively, while other members of the band appear throughout the album.
It’s not often considered one of Mitchell’s masterpieces and is often overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the artwork that features Mitchell in tasteless blackface, but ‘Paprika Plains’ is an ambitious work that perhaps wouldn’t have come about had she not been on board the Queen Mary with Dylan on that day.
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