The first time I listened to Joni Mitchell, aged eleven, I remember thinking her voice was way too ‘girly’ for my liking. I played her album ‘Blue’, my Christmas present that year, on my CD player for around two minutes, scowled, pressed pause, ejected the CD and never thought about her again for a few years. When I rediscovered her, at age seventeen, it was through ‘Song for Sharon’ on her album ‘Hejira’. From that moment on, I listened to the album obsessively, for months at a time. Whether I was on a train, walking places, or sitting on my bedroom floor, I would devour the album, dissecting every song, trying to solve the mystery embedded in them. I’ve still not quite figured out what hooks me into the album. It has, however, taught me much about being a woman, about being torn between one’s individuality and one’s duties to society. Joni Mitchell confesses her most intimate experiences of travel and womanhood in ‘Hejira’, opening herself up to listeners as if she were drawing back the curtains to her heart and mind. Displaying her vulnerability is not a sign of weakness; rather, I have learned, it is the bravest thing that she, and indeed all women, could ever do. She is not afraid to find strength in her womanhood.
Growing up, I’ve noticed that the female figures in my life have often been the held responsible for the world’s misgivings and have unconsciously taken on the burden of blame. In ‘Hejira’, a reference to the migration of the prophet Mohammad in 622 AD, Joni Mitchell refuses to live in the shadow of failure that is so often cast upon women. Her journey was one that “dealt with the leaving of a relationship, but without the sense of failure… I felt that it was not necessarily anybody’s fault”, she confessed in an ‘Uncut’ interview. In the closing track of the album, ‘Refuge of the Roads’, Joni sings “He saw my complications/ And he mirrored me back simplified/ And we laughed how our perfection/ Would always be denied… I left him for the refuge of the roads”. She seems to find comfort in her own migration, one where her imperfection is wholly embraced. Women tend to hold themselves to a male standard of excellence in order to be accepted as worthy and respected members of society. I’ve done it myself; becoming a football expert in order to be ‘one of the lads’, for example. It is exhausting. We should be creating our very own version of excellent. My first lesson from this album, then, is that I will only feel fulfilled once I stop pursuing a patriarchal version of success.
In the few relationships I’ve had, I’ve felt a loss of self-identity at points. I would only realise this when I was already lost. The signs were there – I would be writing less, I would rarely play guitar, and I would start to forget what I liked – but, somehow, I could not stop it from happening; my mind was so devoted to being in love. In these moments, Joni Mitchell has often guided me back to myself. ‘Hejira’ is the tale of a woman pursuing freedom in art and self-expression, and finding that she has to sacrifice love. In the title track, she expresses this feeling so well I almost feel she is watching me trip and fall: “In our possessive coupling/So much could not be expressed/So now I'm returning to myself/These things that you and I suppressed”. Of course, it is possible to find a balanced relationship, but I cannot help but notice a similar pattern emerge in the lives of the women around me. Is this the curse of being a woman? Must it always come down to a battle between ourselves and our role in relation to other people – whether it is being a devoted lover, a selfless mother, or a dutiful daughter?
In ‘Amelia,’ her tribute to the pilot Amelia Earhart, Mitchell describes the outcome of this civil war dividing the female self: “A ghost of aviation/ She was swallowed by the sky/ Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly/ Like Icarus ascending/ On beautiful foolish arms”. Amelia has achieved her own independence and solitude in the clouds. However, her emotions and desires have led her to unexpected places, as her independence has inevitably led to loneliness. And so, she finds herself crashing, losing everything, and having to rebuild. Perhaps this is where our strength as women comes from – the constant rebuilding. Indeed, falling in love, for a woman, is dangerous, as Mitchell confesses in ‘Song for Sharon’. ‘Song for Sharon’, where her genius truly takes the throne, is the ultimate tale of being torn between the mould society has fashioned for her, her individuality, and love. Mitchell understands that this can end tragically: “A woman I knew just drowned herself/The well was deep and muddy/She was just shaking off futility/Or punishing somebody”. Nevertheless, she admits that the lure of love “still veils this reckless fool here”. So, what are we to do? Must we simply avoid falling in love at all costs?
‘Hejira’ preaches the very opposite. Where Mitchell admits her failures and embraces the power of her emotions, she emerges stronger, and closer to herself. Despite her realisation that love is constantly steering her off track, she still loves love. By the final song, Joni Mitchell seems to have complete agency over her emotions, her songs, and her very core. She has shaped her own success, rejecting what is expected of her, as an artist and a woman. When the needle of my record player begins to skip as the album finishes, I feel as if though Joni has whispered in my ear one of the greatest acts of rebellion a woman can commit: to breathe, dance, and find happiness on her own terms.
By Tess Mallinder Heron.
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