From “Big Yellow Taxi” to “A Case Of You”, Joni Mitchell’s work through the years still manages to be truly timeless today. Let’s dive into just five of Joni Mitchell’s most influential songs that casual fans and diehards alike should know!
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1. “Big Yellow Taxi”
When it comes to Joni Mitchell’s most influential songs, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Mitchell original that has been covered more often than “Big Yellow Taxi”. It’s her biggest anthem, and it’s a hopeful one, too. Mitchell penned this song as an ode to humanity and hope for a better world to come. That world hasn’t exactly come to be in the last half-century, but “Big Yellow Taxi” still has a message worth singing.
2. “I Had A King”
Joni Mitchell has enjoyed a long career and picked up fans throughout different eras. However, the majority of Mitchell fans would likely say that “I Had A King” was the first song they heard from the singer/songwriter back in 1966. It’s one of the best album-openers of all time, and certainly one of the very best from Songs From A Seagull.
3. “The Circle Game”
This lovely track was written about Mitchell’s friend from back in her native Canada, who some might know as Neil Young. The two met in the mid-1960s at a folk club in college, and she wrote “The Circle Game” about him. In a way, Mitchell knew Young more than he knew himself. The song follows a young (ha!) man who is terrified of getting old. This is a recurring theme you’ll hear in much of Neil Young’s own music.
4. “Hejira”
By the 1970s, Mitchell learned how to be sharp and biting with her music. “Hejira” shows off Mitchell’s newfound embrace of being a bit of a lone wolf with a lot to say. The entire album of the same name shows Mitchell embracing herself as a loner, a poet, and a charismatic woman who didn’t want to stay inside the box.
5. “A Case Of You”
“A Case Of You” has to be one of Mitchell’s best pieces of work, if not her career best. She never shied away from vulnerability, but she really set the mood for an entire era of music with “A Case Of You”. Allegedly, a number of her male contemporaries weren’t happy about the song and its success. They weren’t a fan of the album Blue as a whole, because they were afraid that they would “have to get this honest now.” Mitchell didn’t invent vulnerability in music, but she sure made it “cool”.
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