Desert Island Dispatches: ‘Clouds’ by Joni Mitchell

I had a conversation a couple years ago with my mom about the idea of ‘bucket list concerts’ — those artists we wanted to see before it was too late. Stevie Nicks made the list, so did Shania Twain. One that didn’t make the shared list, but who I’ve often said I want to see live so badly is Joni Mitchell. I was something of a latecomer to Mitchell’s work — I knew Big Yellow Taxi because of a Counting Crows cover that was basically inescapable for the better part of the early 2000s, and I also knew Both Sides Now because my grandparents would play Judy Collins, but I didn’t know Joni’s actual work until I was basically grown up and exploring music from the 70s singer-songwriter period that I’d overlooked. I loved Carol King, so I started looking at her peers — Judee Sill, Joan Armatrading, Linda Rondstadt, Marianne Faithfull, and then there she was, Joni Mitchell.