A lead balloon and rock misogyny: The moment Joni Mitchell hurled a folk masterpiece at her critics
More so than feelings of love or loss or yearning, the one thing that characterises Joni Mitchell’s lyricism is honesty. Whether it’s a grand confession of adoration, or the final words of separation like spitting “there is your song from me” on ‘Blue’, she simply never dulled down the sharpness of what she had to say.
That’s exactly what has made Mitchell a legend and such an endlessly inspiring source. Even to look at ‘Case Of You’, one of her biggest songs, there’s a simplicity to it, as even though it’s richly poetic, it’s not distracted. The opening line alone proves that as she refuses to hide behind anything, placing the listener right into the moment and the story as she sings, “Just before our love got lost you said…”
Across each and every album, it’s her vulnerability in this way that shines brightest. But sometimes, that feeling came in the form of anger. Vulnerability and honesty aren’t always soft or tender. Sometimes, in the wake of being hurt or disrespected, the feeling is rock solid and cold. It can be brutal, like the writing in ‘Song About The Midway’, which Mitchell simply sang at David Crosby to break up with him.
But in Mitchell’s discography of brutally honest songs, nothing stands out like the savage ‘Lead Balloon’.
While her honesty made her a star, for a long time, it was also the thing that led people to disregard and belittle her. She was often brushed off as girlish or not allowed access to the respected realm of people like Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen, despite the fact that both of them admired her. Especially when it came to the music press of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s and the misogynistic attitudes that were far more outright at those times, Mitchell was often treated appallingly by male writers.
One figure in particular was endlessly piggish towards her: Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone. Despite launching one of the biggest music magazines of the time and gaining access to so many of its stars, it still didn’t stop Wenner from routinely overstepping boundaries or forgetting who he was dealing with. In 1972, despite Mitchell being at the top of her game, having just released Blue, Rolling Stone’s Wenner couldn’t help but let his sexism shine as he labelled the star “Old Lady of the Year”. After that, she refused to speak to the magazine for seven years.
In 1978, though, the blood was still bitter between them. When the magazine hosted a Rolling Stone vs Eagles baseball game, she went along and publicly stated, “I’m here as an enemy of Rolling Stone. I have a personal grudge against Mister Jann Wenner. He’s very irresponsible. He doesn’t even read his own rag, so why should anybody else? I’m so happy they lost.”
It was only at the end of the decade when a team of incredible female writers came into the publication, and as Cameron Crowe, whom Mitchell trusted, entered their freelance pool, that she allowed the magazine to interview her again, and only if Crowe did it. But the second he was grown up and gone, and Wenner got his hands on the editorial again, the truce was over as in 1983, she was listed “the most overrated people in America”, inevitably alongside a cast of other powerful women, like Gloria Steinem.
After that, it all came to a head. The story goes that at an awards ceremony in the mid-’80s, Mitchell and Wenner had a face-to-face stand-off. That inspired the writing of ‘Lead Balloon’ where Mitchell recounts, “‘Kiss my ass!'” I said / and I threw my drink / It came a-trickling / Down his business suit.”
What she unleashes in that track isn’t just her rage towards Wenner, though. Instead, it’s her rage towards the entire misogynistic industry and the double standards between the treatment of men and women, singing, “An angry man is just an angry man / But an angry woman / Bitch!” Wenner was the face of it, but Mitchell didn’t mince her words here as she finally said how she really felt about the men in suits who had forever been grinding her down.
