The one singer Joni Mitchell said gave up on writing: “He’s not a natural writer”
The career arc of Joni Mitchell was never based on a few hits that she had at the height of the counterculture.
She was the perfect artist of her generation, and a lot of what she did was based on getting the right sound on all of her records to create a pure tapestry of music to leave behind. The records certainly speak for themselves, but there are more than a few times when Mitchell saw great songwriters fall by the wayside as well.
While most artists are only as good as how many albums they put out, Mitchell was far more interested in quality over quantity throughout her career. She would always take years away from the studio, and while that would be frustrating for most of her fans, it was reassuring to know that whatever she was going to put out next was bound to be good since she had no real distractions or momentum to worry about.
After all, that’s what the singer-songwriter scene was about in the first place. The money-hungry side of things may have crept up later, but when everyone from Cat Stevens to Leonard Cohen to John Denver was making their masterpieces, they weren’t thinking about what the next record was supposed to sound like. They were quoting their hearts, but none of those masterpieces exactly come without getting their hands dirty, either.
As much as people like Elton John can churn out albums like clockwork and still have a firm grasp on their sense of melody, there’s bound to be a few that see their music as work. Billy Joel knew that getting the right song was like pulling teeth, and even Mitchell knew to walk away for a while, but when looking at how James Taylor’s career panned out, she felt that he had left his muse behind long ago.
Then again, Taylor never really went anywhere. Throughout every era of his career, he was known to serve up tunes that were always some degree of good, but there’s a certain purity about a tune like ‘Fire and Rain’ that could never really be captured again. And as much as Mitchell respects all of Taylor’s work, she felt that he fell victim to one of the most bitter truths of the music business: touring.
Mitchell has countless Taylor songs that she loves, but she felt that his life on the road often got in the way of him writing stellar tunes, saying, “He’s opted, as Dylan has, for the road. You have to make a decision in that respect. If you’re going to be a road rat, you can’t be a writer. There’s just no life to write about. And I think, in some ways, he regrets his decision. He’s not a natural writer in the sense that he’s driven to write.”
There’s no shame in being an entertainer in that sense, though. Most people would be happy to entertain an audience like that whenever they hit the road, and while Dylan did eventually have his never-ending tour go in some weird directions, it’s easy to understand the vibe that Taylor was going for every single time he opened his mouth. He wasn’t the most exciting artist in the world, but you were bound to have a smile on your face every single time he tore into a tune like ‘You’ve Got a Friend’.
He wasn’t going to have nearly as much time to devote to his songwriting as before, but that’s one of the prices that most people have to pay for being a touring musician. Still, it’s a decent trade to not get the occasional James Taylor album and hear ‘Your Smiling Face’ whenever he comes to town.
