Sitting Behind Joni Mitchell

One of the highlights of living in L.A. was the late afternoon when I sat behind Joni Mitchell and her entourage at an “art deco” movie house. I mean, I was directly behind her and could hear everything and anything she said. Of course, I don’t remember any conversational bits, after all, we were there to view an obscure Italian flick of no lasting importance.

I don’t remember the date—there was no reason to enshrine the moment—but it was circa 1975. I had liked her music of a few years prior—I wore out these two albums: Ladies of the Canyon and Blue in a period where my tastes leaned towards Neil Young and hard driving guitars.

I had a chance before the house lights went down and after the movie ended to say something to her stupid like “I’m a fan, love your music,” but I didn’t. She deserved some public privacy.

In a 1979 Rolling Stone interview with Cameron Crowe, she said: “The Blue album, there’s hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either.” After reading this, I was glad I’d left her alone.