Joni Mitchell’s Comeback

By Alex Hargreaves

You probably know her best for her spellbinding ballad ‘Both Sides Now’ featured in the famously heart-breaking Emma Thompson CD/Necklace scene in 00’s rom-com Love Actually. Some 23 years later, Joni Mitchell is on yet another comeback into the mainstream. Having lived relatively out of the spotlight for the past decade or so, Mitchell made her return to the stage at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022, a performance that recently won her a Grammy for Folk Album of the Year. Her return to the stage and subsequent acclaim is a gift to those who love her and to those who aren’t yet familiar with her music. She is a poet, a musician of timeless brilliance, and her recent resurgence gives yet another new lens through which to enjoy her music. 

I, like many others, had presumed Mitchell’s time on the stage to have finished in 2015, when she suffered a brain aneurysm, aged 71. A traumatic injury such as this would prevent most people from performing again, due to its effects on basic motor skills and speech, but not Joni. Through watching old videos of herself playing the guitar, she was able to re-learn the instrument from scratch. Her performance at the Folk Festival was her first full length set since 2000, and was her first live performance since the aneurysm. In spite of her obvious decline in health, she delivered a perfect set, performing old songs with a sense of knowing, a lived-in, raw rendition of herself. 

Perhaps one of the most influential figures involved in Joni’s return to the stage is singer songwriter Brandi Carlile. Prior to the Newport performance, Carlile had been instrumental organising ‘Joni Jams’ at her house in California. These exclusive evenings are famously rumoured to have involved musicians such as Harry Styles, Elton John and Paul McCartney. Joni herself cites these evenings as the catalyst for both her physical recovery and her journey back into performance. Her recent performances at Newport, The Gorge and the Grammy’s provide us with an insight into these intimate evenings, almost as though we are sat in her Bel Air house with them.  

The diverse age range of the musicians in attendance at her ‘Joni Jam’ sessions points to her ability to transcend generations with her song writing. Her recent performance of ‘Both Sides Now’, accompanied by Carlile, Alison Russel and Lucius at the Grammy’s is perhaps the most moving example of this. Sure, her voice has changed dramatically since the song’s initial release in 1966, but this change only adds to its depth. Her deeper, shakier tones offer a nostalgia, a rawness, that can only be acquired through age. The final chorus “I’ve looked at life from both sides now/ From win and lose and still somehow/ Its life’s illusions I recall/ I really don’t know life at all” carries the same poignance to an 80 year old Joni Mitchell as it did to her 23 year old self.  I dare you to watch this performance without shedding a tear, as somehow these lyrics apply to us all, regardless of age or experience. 

Joni Mitchell has a unique ability to create enduring and ageless lyrics, and her comeback into the mainstream offers us another opportunity to revel in her ability. With every iteration of her presence, we see a new side to her music, and open another generation to the marvel that is her lyrical ability. We all have something to learn from her grit and determination, and I for one couldn’t be happier to see her back on the stage.