Joni Mitchell

As the road leads, cursed and charmed

Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Image

It’s been a brutal week and it’s only Tuesday. First, there’s the chaos in the House and everything it implies. Then, making that pale in comparison, the horrors continue to unfold in Israel and Gaza. I will have much to say about both in the coming days, but today, I confess, I’m exhausted. I imagine many of you are as well. So, tonight, if you can, unplug. I can’t—not entirely—but I wanted to take a few minutes to share some music with you that kind of suits my mood tonight.

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From the moment I first heard “Chelsea Morning” on the radio, Joni Mitchell’s music has brought me enormous amounts of joy. She does joy spectacularly well. But she also plumbs the depths of longing, uncertainty, and the heartbreak of loss which tonight rings truer than ever.

“Urge for Going” was first released in 1966 in a version sung by Tom Rush (the guitar on that track is stunning). Joni didn’t record the song herself until 1972, released as the B-side on a 45 with “Turn Me On, I’m a Radio.” But doesn’t appear on any of Joni’s albums until her 1996 compilation, Hits, which is why I didn’t hear “Urge for Going” until I learned how to play it on the guitar in 2010.

It is, to me, the quintessential autumn song.

“I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky, then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold
And all trees are shivering in a naked row
I get the urge for going but I never seem to go.”

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In addition to being a song I’ll listen to whenever it comes on, “Amelia” is my favorite Joni Mitchell song period. The first time I heard it, I felt a chill of recognition. I didn’t know why then and, to this day, I still don’t. But that sense of recognition has never gone away. It’s a mystery—confounding and yet, somehow, reassuring. “Amelia” is just a beautiful, beautiful work of art and it never fails to resonate.