Lana Del Rey on her decision to cover Joni Mitchell: ‘I was that girl who was pure of soul’
It was never as if Lana Del Rey was hiding her devotion to Joni Mitchell. The Canadian singer-songwriter had been a massive influence on every subsequent generation of musicians after her, and Del Rey was just one of many acolytes. But the Norman Fucking Rockwell singer went the extra mile on her 2021 album Chemtrails Over the Country Club by recording a version of Mitchell’s ‘For Free’.
Del Rey had alluded to the cover in the lyrics to ‘Dance Till We Die’, but when the track actually came up, she tapped her fellow singer-songwriters Weyes Blood and Zella Day to help her bring the Ladies of the Canyon song to life. During her appearance at the 1969 Newport Folk Festival, Mitchell told the crowd about the song’s initial inspiration.
“There’s a young man in New York City, I don’t know his name, but he’s blind, and he sits on the street and plays his clarinet for whatever money people will give him,” Mitchell explained. “I’ve often ridden past him and wondered about his life, and I’ve written this song for him. It’s called ‘The Boy Who Plays for Free’.”
Del Rey related to the period of playing music for the love of it and nothing else. “The way things started off for me in the way I was portrayed was that I was feigning emotional sensitivity. I really didn’t like that,” Del Rey told Mojo Magazine. “Because I didn’t even get famous ’til I was, like, 27 and until then, I sang for less than free. And I loved it. I really was that girl who was pure of soul. I didn’t give a fuck.”
“I think the verse that Lana sings – ‘Me, I play for fortunes’ – it’s her story too,” Weyes Blood added in the same interview. “She understands the ephemeral quality of music and that it can’t be completely commodified, even though she’s done a great job of doing that. I think Joni is very similar.”
Mitchell added a new verse to the track in 1983 that solidified the song’s themes: “Playing like a fallen angel / Playing like a rising star / Playing for a hat full of nothing / to the honking of the cars.” ‘For Free’ would remain one of Mitchell’s most beloved deep cuts, especially as its fellow album tracks like ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ and ‘The Circle Game’ would raise Mitchell’s profile.
Check out Lana Del Rey’s cover of ‘For Free’ down below.
