The cutting criticism Kris Kristofferson gave Joni Mitchell about ‘Blue’
In the modern music industry, artists tend to bear their souls through their work and leave nothing unsaid through their songwriting. However, when Joni Mitchell began to establish herself as a musical talent, even in the liberal arts sphere, acts were still expected to offer a reserved version of themselves.
When she began her journey, Mitchell was a typical singer armed with an acoustic guitar, and it wasn’t until she took songwriting seriously that she found her voice. Before that critical moment, Mitchell exclusively sang the work of Judy Collins, who ironically had a hit single with a cover of ‘Both Sides Now’ in 1967.
Unlike many of her contemporaries, who were mainly influenced by political events, Mitchell was exclusively inspired by the issues she faced in her personal life. While tackling this topic is nothing revolutionary and has been part of music since the beginning of time, Mitchell was brave enough to go a step further than anybody else would dare on 1971’s Blue.
Her friend and fellow singer-songwriter, Kris Kristofferson, was also no stranger to using his experiences as fuel for his work. Take ‘For the Good Time’ as an example. The track tells the tale of a love affair that Kristofferson involved himself in while travelling from Nashville to the Gulf of Mexico, but part of his life was strictly off-limits.
On the other hand, on Blue, Mitchell treated songwriting as a healing experience and took her level of honesty to an unprecedented level. Reflecting on her mindset while making the album, she admitted to Acoustic Guitar in 1996: “I was opened up. As a matter of fact, we had to close the doors and lock them while I recorded [Blue], because I was in a state of mind that in this culture would be called a nervous breakdown.”
Before the record was released to the public, Mitchell provided advanced listening parties to a selection of her friends, including Kristofferson, who pleaded with her to scale back the emotion she expresses on the album.
In the same interview, she recalled: “When [Blue] first came out, I played it for Kris Kristofferson, who said, ‘God, Joan, save something of yourself.’ He was embarrassed by it. I think generally at first that people were embarrassed by it, that in a certain way it was shocking, especially in the pop arena. People [usually sing], ‘I’m bad, I’m bad, I’m great, I’m the greatest.’ It’s a phony business, and people accept the phoniness of it. It’s fluff, it’s this week’s flavor and it gets thrown out, and it isn’t supposed to be anything really more than that.”
Thankfully, Mitchell didn’t let outside influence impact her thinking and stayed true to her artistic integrity. While the safer option for her would have been to dilute the contents of Blue, it would have been a cruel disservice to herself.
Despite the unflinching personal nature of songs such as ‘Little Green‘, which deals with the pain of putting her daughter up for adoption, the set of tracks connected on a profound level with audiences, even though most had never experienced a comparable level of anguish. Although Kristofferson’s remarks came from a place of love, ultimately, Mitchell was validated in her decision to stick to her guns.
