The rock & roll industry is very incestuous, and we have all been close at one time or another. A lot of beautiful music and a lot of beautiful times came from that. A lot of pain, too, because, inevitably, different relationships broke up.
Interpretation
The rock & roll industry is interconnected, leading to both beautiful music and personal turmoil.
Joni Mitchell reflects on the complex relationships within the rock & roll industry, suggesting that the closeness and personal connections among artists create both wonderful music and emotional difficulties. The inevitability of relationship breakups amidst this intimacy implies that while beauty can arise from these bonds, they also come with significant pain.
In practice
During a music festival speech discussing the importance of collaboration in the industry.
There's a man who's been out sailing In a decade full of dreams And he takes her to a schooner And he treats her like a queen Bearing beads from California With their amber stones and green He has called her from the harbor He has kissed her with his freedom He has heard her off to starboard In the breaking and the breathing Of the water weeds While she was busy being free
Unlike some of my peers, I haven't really hit a writer's block. When I hit a block I just paint, which is an old crop rotation trick.
This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.
You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you're still young at heart.
I have an aversion to being mislabeled. Here's a label I'd accept: I'm an 'individual.' I'm someone who can't follow, and doesn't want to lead.
What I do is unusual: chordal movements that have never been used before, changing keys and modalities mid-song.
Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.
My aim as a frontman is always to try and shrink the venue, if you can, to turn that football stadium into the world's smallest club. At least you have to try.
When you start your first band and it has an impact on the rest of the world you go through a lot with those guys and you become very protective of that legacy.
The greatest voice of all time.
It used to be called boogie-woogie, it used to be called blues, used to be called rhythm and blues...It's called rock now.
It's a gift, and a blessing, just to have a voice. And I'm proud that people do appreciate it, you know?
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