The songwriter Joni Mitchell thinks is leagues above the rest: “No one has come close”
Joni Mitchell has spent her entire life trying to crack the code to perfect songwriting.
Though she may have made her fair share of perfect songs across the 1970s, Mitchell has always sought the perfect blend of lyrics and melody, sculpting her tracks like fine works of art across albums like The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Although Mitchell may have become a living legend these days, one artist still can’t be beat in her mind.
From the folk tradition, Mitchell used songs to document her life, crafting fine works of art through songs like ‘Blue’ or ‘A Case of You’. Even when she didn’t have the definitive version of her song down, Mitchell’s writing would become classic all over again through covers, with Crosby, Stills and Nash delivering a breathtaking version of ‘Woodstock’ on the album Deja Vu.
Despite Mitchell’s own niche in rock music, the first time such a dramatic shift in folk music happened took place nearly a decade before. As Mitchell crafted her first melodies, Bob Dylan was already making the most significant comments on modern society in his tracks, releasing songs like ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’, which looked at where humanity has come in the age of war.
Although Dylan could be a divisive figure throughout his career, Mitchell would find a songwriting mentor. Even though she may not have aligned with Dylan’s point of view when they eventually took to the stage together, Mitchell had a crash course in how to frame a narrative in a song, making her characters feel like they had flesh and blood rather than the hollow stories being released on the hit parade.
When talking about Dylan’s influence with Rolling Stone, Mitchell would say that no other writer could compare with what he has done, recalling, “No one has come close to being as good a writer as Dylan. He had these grand themes, these cast-of-thousands kind of songs, people running around with cats on their shoulders, street scenes.”
Although Mitchell may have been considered the female counterpart to someone like Dylan, her songs were never about preaching from a pulpit. Rather than talk about the massive problems in the world every time she stepped up to the mic, Mitchell saw fit to quote what was in her own heart, creating songs that were ripped straight from the tattered emotions she experienced every day.
Mitchell wouldn’t always be so sweet about Dyan’s songs, though. She famously wrote a track about the “miserly” figure and how he refused to talk to her during a tour. But it went further than that. In 2010, she was less than happy when a comparison was made between the two. “We are like night and day, [Dylan] and I,” she said. “Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.”
In 2013, her opinion seemed to have softened as this time she was drawn to Dylan and conceded that she “liked a lot of his songs”. But then she added: “Musically, Dylan’s not very gifted; he’s borrowed his voice from old hillbillies. He’s got a lot of borrowed things. He’s not a great guitar player. He’s invented a character to deliver his songs … it’s a mask of sorts.”
Given the massive success of albums like Blue, though, it would take a few more years for Dylan to catch up to what Mitchell was doing. Leaving behind the sarcastic side of his writing of his 1960s material, Blood on the Tracks is indebted to the world that Mitchell had created with her songs, being just as free to express oneself emotionally as they were to speak about the greater problems afflicting society.
Mitchell may not have been the first or last songwriter to take cues from Dylan’s playbook, but she never claimed to do a carbon copy of him. Instead of the usual songwriting of folk singers’ past, Mitchell delivers her take on the material that took Dylan a few more years to master.
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