Both Sides Now: Joni Mitchell Captures It
“I’ve looked at life from both sides now, I really don’t know life at all.”
“Both Sides Now” is one of Joni Mitchell’s most famous songs. Written in 1967 the song began to get covered by other artists almost immediately from Judy Collins and Dave Von Ronk to showmen like Frank Sinatra and Robert Goulet. It now ranks as #171 on Rolling Stone’s list of all-time greatest songs.
The appeal of the song is undoubtedly due in part to its simplicity and universality. Who among us has not experienced the emotions that accompany optimism toward love and life, and the subsequent disillusionment and despair. Mitchell’s concise cycle-of-life story is presented in profoundly painful prose.
According to Wikipedia the catalyst that set Joni Mitchell’s pen in motion was the experience of reading a passage about clouds while in a plane flying over the clouds herself. The poet penned lines that dance, the imagery so apt. “Row and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air and feathered canyons everywhere…” Yes, words so apt for this sight from above.
But now, looking at clouds from another angle, they only block the sun. Who hasn’t experienced this? The grey, the chill of our sun’s warmth blocked…. and the epiphany: “I really don’t know clouds at all.”
This is the pattern. We…
