“Only from me”: The album Joni Mitchell wants to be remembered for
The most beautiful thing about music is its subjectivity. Even though everyone might be listening to the same song, each person’s connection to it is unique. Different lyrics and sounds resonate in different ways. Across an artist’s discography, various moments will stand out for different listeners, but Joni Mitchell hopes this album is the one people remember her by.
Mitchell, in particular, is one of those artists who impacts different people in different ways. I know one person whose all-time favourite release from Michell’s career is Mingus, a niche pick but one that impacted him greatly. I know a woman with lyrics from Blue tattooed on her. I know people who hold songs like ‘Both Sides Now’ or ‘Cactus Tree’ close and dear to their hearts. For me, it will always be Court and Spark I reach for first.
While obviously hits are hits and tracks like ‘A Case Of You’ or ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ are always going to be the ones most predominantly associated with Mitchell, popularity isn’t always the same as legacy. Legacy is so much more than that – it’s not about sales; it’s about intention or the way a certain thing seems able to reflect an artist’s intention and identity. Surely, the thing all artists want to be remembered for is the thing that feels closest to them, a beautiful display of them and their talent.
That’s definitely the case for Mitchell. Each of her records holds a special place in her life as each is, in some way, confessional and reflective of the version of herself that wrote it. But out of all of them, there was always something about Hejira that felt poignantly hers.
“I suppose a lot of people could have written a lot of my other songs, but I feel the songs on Hejira could only have come from me,” she said in 2006, reflecting on the album 30 years after the fact. I’d definitely argue her point that anyone else could have written her other songs, given quite how incredible they are and how imbued they all are with clearly deeply personal images and her own unique melodies, but her main point stands. To her, Hejira feels like the ultimate reflection of herself captured on tape, and that’s what she’d like to be remembered for.
It was born out of a moment where she clearly felt very like herself, in that she felt deeply inspired and excited about her own work again. In the early 1970s, Mitchell was keen to quit it all, writing on both For The Roses and Court And Spark about her frustrations about the industry and her desire to escape it. But by 1976, when Hejira came out, she seemed reignited, stating the album feels “really inspired” and adding, “There is this restless feeling throughout it.”
It was born from the road after a period of travel and touring, a period that undeniably prompted self-reflection as she said that inspiration came from “The sweet loneliness of solitary travel.”
In her eyes, Hejira is a singular creation that could only be hers and with that, she hopes that’s what she is remembered for.
