Track of the Week: Girlsweetvoiced is co-signed by Joni Mitchell for ‘Tonight’
In the words of Talking Heads, “Say something once, why say it again?” If something has already been done to perfection, why try to recreate it? When Joni Mitchell has already captured joy and yearning in all their colours, why attempt to do it again?
That’s what passed through Girlsweetvoiced’s head when it came to making ‘Tonight’. Built like a sonic diary, the artist first posted a clip online of her singing over the top of a looped sample from Joni Mitchell’s ‘California’. Picking out that iconic and instantly recognisable guitar line, Mitchell’s 1971 tune feels like the ultimate song about that unique place between yearning for adventure and missing home.
Adding her own lyrics on top, the artist sings their own story of a kind of push and pull. It’s a tale of longing to run to someone and the lingering fear that makes you run away.
Keeping the same emotional core as ‘California’ but switching out the context, the decision to use the guitar line from the original tune ends up doing as much emotional heavy lifting as the actual new lyrics themselves.
In that sense, ‘Tonight’ becomes a unique musical collage. Borrowing from the legacy not just of ‘California’ or Blue, but of Mitchell’s entire position as a strikingly honest and open songwriter, leading in that confessional world, Girlsweetvoiced joins the ranks. Giving her own song that quality of vulnerability before she’s even opened her mouth, it borrows from all of our own connections to Mitchell, too.
But on every level, collaging feels like the right word for it. As she added little more than an electronic drum beat and her vocals, the layering is so interesting. Mitchell’s guitar line is so distinct and busy that these little additions manage to feel both stripped back and maximalist.
It’s like having two different songs playing in each headphone, but it works because in the middle of your brain, you hear that connection.
You know it’s good simply because Mitchell herself signed off on the sample’s use. Incredibly rare in Mitchell’s world, the use of the track was cleared as obviously someone in the folk star’s camp, or even the icon herself, hears the beauty in ‘Tonight’.
But that beauty is obvious. The guitar in ‘California’ is timelessly beloved for a reason, and with Girlsweetvoiced’s angelic tones over the top, it’s gorgeousness on gorgeousness, and interesting from start to finish.
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