The song Joni Mitchell wrote as a “farewell to show business”
By the start of the 1970s, Joni Mitchell was ready to pack it all in. Following the success of her 1971 record Blue, the folk star was learning that with greater notoriety comes great pressures and an onslaught of external voices ready to pile expectations onto the shoulders of an artist. Frustrated, fed up and prepared to give in and retreat to a simple life again, she picked up her pen to write what she thought would be her goodbye to the music industry.
Mitchell’s relationship towards her success has always been a complex thing. When she first started releasing music, it was powered by a drive to prove people wrong, to take her talent and let that talent, in turn, take her places that people from her past doubted she could ever go. But the core of her desire to make music always came from a deep love of the artistry. It was her adoration for poetry and storytelling that made her pick up a pen, and her own unique approach to guitar playing and musicality that made those stories so gripping.
However, like all artists come to learn, the music industry is not quite the haven for creativity it’s sold to be. Instead, Mitchell found what she described as a “corrupt cesspool” as she faced misogyny, voices that tried to limit her artistry or a general lack of freedom that seemed to forever be trying to squash her evolution or impact her true voice.
There was also the fact that her peers and lovers were stuck everywhere around her under the same pressure. When it came to writing her 1972 album For The Roses, her lyricism is also coloured by her relationship with and heartbreak over James Taylor, with that partnership also falling victim to the brutal effects of success due to his booming fame.
Things had hit an all-time low, and despite being one of the most influential artists in history, Mitchell was ready to retire. Thinking it would be the last time, she picked up her pen and wrote the album’s titular track.
“That was my first farewell to show business,” Mitchell said of the song. “I was in Canada, and I had decided to quit show business and get away from all the pressures I felt. I put my thoughts into that song,” she continued.
“’Remember the days when you used to sit/And make up your tunes for love…/And now you’re seen/On giant screens/And at parties for the press/And for people who have slices of you/From the company,” she sings, capturing the way that the music industry coaxed her in and let her down, squandering her love for the craft. “To me, this was an unfair, crooked business and it has nothing to do with real talent,” she said, using the song to air her grievances with that world.
But the thing with artistry is that it’s nearly impossible for an artist to stop creating. During the time she retreated back to Canada, these songs poured out of Mitchell, leaving her with really no choice but to share them. “I was up in Canada for about a year, and I guess it strengthened my nervous system a little, so I finally came back,” she said, with generations of fans being so thankful that she did.
