How Joni Mitchell inspired a classic Led Zeppelin song: ‘The queen beautiful music’
The impact of Joni Mitchell on music remains powerful despite her debut album arriving over 50 years ago. The Candian-born artist single-handedly changed how artists approach the songwriting process and remains the ultimate heroine of the counterculture scene. While her influence is most striking among those sonically similar, even Led Zeppelin looked across to Mitchell for inspiration.
Mitchell is an artist in every sense of the word, and the musical landscape would be significantly less rich without her influence. With records in her canon such as Ladies of the Canyon, Blue and Court and Spark, Mitchell is an essential act that every budding musician should study meticulously to understand the art of songwriting.
A true iconoclast, Mitchell has remained intensely loyal to her artistic soul and colourful creative vision. Over the course of her career, she has bravely experimented with folk, jazz, and rock while augmenting her music with the siren-like quality of her voice, espousing an otherworldy essence that has made her work adored by many different generations.
It takes a spectacular talent to garner the respect of artists across the musical spectrum, ranging from legends Opeth to contemporary popstar Harry Styles, indicating the universal appeal and the ability to connect people from all walks of life that it has.
Notably, pop queen Madonna credits Mitchell as the one that galvanised her as a teenager. She said: “I was really, really into Joni Mitchell. I knew every word to Court and Spark; I worshipped her when I was in high school. Blue is amazing. I would have to say of all the women I’ve heard, she had the most profound effect on me from a lyrical point of view.”
One of the most notable proponents of Mitchell, however, is the English rock legends Led Zeppelin. While Mitchell has vastly tested herself in various musical areas, hard rock is one area she has refrained from visiting. Nevertheless, Led Zeppelin duo Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page worshipped her artistically, which they allowed to bleed into their song ‘Going to California’, which appeared on 1971’s Led Zeppelin IV.
The band have openly stated how her song ‘California’, taken from her 1971 masterpiece Blue, was one of the main inspirations behind their folk-oriented track. At the time of composing her piece, Mitchell was living in the artistic hub of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. On the one hand, her home was in the centre of a culturally significant place that proved rich for inspiration. However, the Laurel Canyon was also a somewhat perilous environment, as it was so earthquake-prone.
The song ‘California’ finds Mitchell recounting her European adventures, marred by her desire to return home to her Californian corner of paradise. Echoing this, in ‘Going to California’, Plant assumes the guise of a man wanting to leave his unkind wife behind and start afresh in California. Both Plant and Page were so mesmerised by Mitchell that in their song, Plant’s character seeks out a girl just like her, who has “love in her eyes and flowers in her hair” and “plays guitar and cries and sings”.
‘Going to California’ was one of the tracks Zeppelin played during the acoustic segments in their sets between 1971 and 1977, and reflecting just how great of an effect Mitchell had on them, Plant would sometimes sing the word “Joni” after the line, “She plays guitar and cries and sings”.
Although ‘California’ spurred Led Zeppelin to create a classic track, it’s not Plant’s favourite song in Mitchell’s oeuvre. Instead, that mantle belongs to ‘Amelia’, released by the legendary singer-songwriter in 1976.
Heaping praise upon the creation, Plant remarked: “What a song. Joni Mitchell, if you like, the queen of all that beautiful music that was written around that time for the late ’60s. Her catalogue – it’s incredible, and her concerts were really beautiful, incredibly moving. The whole Laurel Canyon music scene up there in Sunset Boulevard was something really special”.
He continued: “This song, ‘Amelia’, to me it’s the sound of a mature woman who visits her songs and gives them more brevity and perhaps even more beauty. I can relate to that, because I am a mature singer myself and I’m looking for ways to express that suit my time.”
While Led Zeppelin and Joni Mitchell may not have much in common sonically, she has played a crucial role in soundtracking Plant’s life. In recent years, he’s become a fully-fledged folkie, and while this genre has always interested him to some degree, his love of Mitchell has never been clearer.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.