Joni Mitchell and her defence of her “weird chords”
You may see Joni Mitchell as eccentric. Sure, she could have many claims to that title from incidents over the years. But if you look beyond some of her more outlandish characteristics, there is a true genius underneath.
Of course, that’s an obvious fact which has been more than evident right from the very first notes of Song to a Seagull through to the very last notes of Shine, along with everything that has come in between. But there’s also no denying that, within the course of that prolific tenure, there were the odd moments which raised some eyebrows. That’s just part of how Mitchell’s recordings rolled.
If you were to base your assumptions of a folk, pop, or jazz singer on your most rudimentary perceptions of any of the respective genres, you may come to think of a relatively soft, harmonic, and palatable sound. As such, when Mitchell came along and claimed to be treading those same boards, her twangly tunings and twisted melodies were not exactly what anyone bargained for.
Clashing modulations and unheard harmonies were certainly a lot to put at the door of any audience, particularly in an era which was so set on what the definition of any given genre was. But the sheer fact that Mitchell had the guts to stand up and try something ahead of the curve was largely what endeared people towards her – even if, sometimes, they did get the wrong end of the stick.
Naturally, we all know that Mitchell bemoans many of the labels attached to her, and next on the hit list was the idea of her “weird chords”. For years, people used this somewhat reductive label to define her sound, but it wasn’t wholly appreciated by the singer herself.
“I thought, ‘How can there be weird chords?’ Chords are depictions of emotions,” she once said. “These chords that I was getting by twisting the knobs on the guitar until I could get these chords that I heard inside that suited me – they feel like my feelings. You know, I called them, not knowing, ‘chords of inquiry’. They had a question mark in them. There were so many unresolved things in me that those chords suited me.”
It may seem like a simple sentiment, but pain is not supposed to be pretty. Any song you hear lamenting the most traumatic or formative moments in one’s life shouldn’t really be put to a soundscape of sereneness and eloquence. Should it not be messy, heartbreaking, disturbing, and jarring? Clearly, that’s the mantra which Mitchell has always lived by. Through the juggernaut journey that her music takes you on, that one thing has always rung true: it’s just real.
As a result, this is actually a rare occasion in which one of Mitchell’s seemingly more exorbitant opinions actually has a semblance of sense once you dig deeper, and therein also lies her genius. If things are stark, heavy, and destructive, why should the melody follow a straight line? By the same token, if you’re celebrating the joys of life, why should that pattern be predictable? The talent of the woman is rooted in the fact that her ways are not complex to understand – it’s just that she may be the only one to frame it that way.
