When Joni Mitchell fell out of love with Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan: “Disappointing to me”
In her book Both Sides Now, Malka Marom gives an excellent account of seeing Joni Mitchell live for the first time. She talks about her career being in tatters, her life falling apart, and driving around aimlessly one night in search of revelation. She took solace in a near-empty Riverboat Café, where a young Joni Mitchell took to the stage and started tuning her guitar.
“This girl, who looked no older than 17 or 18 – 20 at most – portrayed an existential reality with such power, it broke me down even as it lifted my spirits,” wrote Maron. “Whoever she was, her unique gifts generated an extraordinary elation inside me. I applauded till my hands burned, but compared to how I felt, my applause sounded hollow.”
Maron felt as many people did when they heard Joni Mitchell perform for the first time. She had a way with words that connected with listeners, making them feel as though Mitchell knew them on a deep level despite the fact that she hadn’t even met them. After the performance, Maron went over to the young Mitchell to pass on praise.
The words were new to Mitchell at the time but ones she would become accustomed to as her career progressed. Mitchell has always been an excellent musician, with the talent to compose some of the most fragile and raw-sounding songs an artist has ever performed.
Mitchell told Maron she did write the songs, which heralded more praise from the lost soul who had come into the cafe in the dead of night. As was the case for any songwriter at the time, Mitchell was immediately compared to the two biggest names in songwriting, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. Maron admits that she made this comparison as soon as Mitchell announced she wrote her own music.
Naturally, Mitchell was excited by this comparison at the time, as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen were two of the biggest songwriters in the world. They had a way with words that most musicians could only aspire to, and that meant that they could perform in a way that resonated with anybody who listened.
That being said, despite Mitchell originally being a fan of both artists, there was also a point where she fell out of love with their work. For Cohen, this came when she looked deeper into his lyrics and realised similarities between other poets. “I briefly liked Leonard Cohen,” she said. “Though once I read Camus and Lorca, I started to realise that he had taken a lot of lines from those books, which was disappointing to me.”
Mitchell worked with Dylan on a few occasions, including supporting him on tour; however, she had some poor experiences with the folk icon. She admits that it took her a while to come round to the singer because initially, she didn’t think there was anything original about him. “Dylan was an influence even though initially I was a detractor,” she said. “I thought he was a Woody Guthrie copycat.”
Joni Mitchell’s music is always a reflection of the period during which she wrote it. She was always willing to have her songs be a representation of the moment they were written. This constantly changing attitude towards music meant that her opinions about other artists changed as well. As such, despite originally being a fan of both Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, there was a point when she moved on from their work.
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