When I was first getting into Prince's music (mainly the hits) I was skeptical about his citing Joni Mitchell as a main influence but I can definitely hear it in his music now. The jazzy harmonies of Sign O The Times are very reminscent of her mid '70s work and I was just listening to "Hejira" (the song) and thought of"Diamonds and Pearls".

So what are his most Joni-influenced tracks?

When We're Dancing Close & Slow

The Cross

various elements of Sign O The Times

"The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" is often cited as a track influenced by the sound of Joni Mitchell (it has obvious similarities and elements).

"A Case of You" is a cover/tribute song which is blatant reference to Mitchell's influence.

Don't have the exact source, but I read an interview in which Prince stated Mitchell's music should be taught in schools.

Prince's more experimental/jazz based songs are similar in nature to Mitchell's dabbling in the same genre.

[Edited 1/1/11 18:58pm]

Yes, this woman has a lot to do (in depths) with Princey and his musical likeness. Thanks to her, we have Prince! Well, the part that she heavily influenced. Only person that he openly claims as an influence, other than somewhat of Carlos Santana

I was thinking Dorothy Parker as well

That track that is by far the closest, although undoubtedly thanks to W&L, is Sometimes It Snows In April.

Some Prince/Joni Mitchell stuff....

Prince's "When We're Dancing Close And Slow" takes it title from a line in the Joni Mitchell song "Coyote" from 1976, and The Time's "Ice Cream Castle" was also taken from a line in the Mitchell song "Both Sides, Now" from 1969.

When Prince previewed Around The World In A Day for Warners during the "listening party," Joni Mitchell and Prince's father were among the people present.

The obvious lyric in The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker is a direct Joni reference when Prince sings "......it was Joni singing 'Help Me'........." which is the title of another Mitchell song.

Prince's "The Circle Of Amour" also references the Joni Mitchell song "The Circle Game."

Prince has also stated in the past (not sure of the source) that listening to Joni Mitchell taught him a lot about the importance of having silence in his music.

[Edited 1/2/11 5:23am]

well the fact that prince has mentioned her in his songs pretty much proves she is an influence. I havent listened to any of her stuff though, so i cant say how big an influence she is.

"The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker" is pure genius though

I'm afraid most of you are seeing things (well, hearing them).

I was a big JM fan lots of years before I got hooked to Prince.

Joni's influence on Prince is just LYRICAL.

NOTHING to do with the music.

The only thing that might resemble Mitchell on 'TBODP' is just the quote of her 'Help Me' song.

'When we're dancing close and slow' is taken from a line on Joni's 'Coyote'. But that's it.

Apart from that, Prince absolutely DESTROYED a beauty like 'A Case Of You'.

But MUSICALLY I'm unable to find similarities after years listening to both artists.

soulyacolia said:

Joni herself said that Prince is influenced by her harmonies her unusual choice of chords.

I never read that quote from Joni.

What's more, I think that assertion is absolutely untrue.

Joni doesn't use unusual chords, she uses unusual TUNINGS (lots of them) which make her chords sound absolutely special.

I think there's no song at all where Prince doesn't use standard tunings.

Joni's harmonies presence in Prince's music is very very small, imho.

vitriol said:

Well, lol, one would have to be deaf to not like 'The Hissing Of Summer Lawns', but he mainly said that in an iview for Rolling Stone, because they had rated 'Hissing' as the worst album of the year.

The story of Joni spotting a VERY YOUNG Prince (when he was nobody) and remembering years later that she then knew it was Prince because of his eyes has been acknowledge by them both but I just can't help considering it a sort of publicity stunt (which in this case is just an euphemism for 'bullshit').

I was about to mention in my previous post that I think maybe 'The Truth' album is the only one which you could tell it bears a 'little Joni Mitchell influence' but still that's very faint.

Because of her astounding and nearly unbelievable tunings, I maintain that NO ONE EVER has sounded like Joni Mitchell. The closest thing I can think of is Wendy and Lisa's 'This Is The Life'.

"soda fizzin on the lawn, come a butterfly straight on my skin"

vitriol said "Apart from that, Prince absolutely DESTROYED a beauty like 'A Case Of You'."

I think Prince's live version of Case of You from the 1983 benefit concert is great, and he does make it fit his princly/new wave/rock thing he had going with that concert... and quite beautifully I think.

vitriol said:

I'm afraid most of you are seeing things (well, hearing them).

I was a big JM fan lots of years before I got hooked to Prince.

Joni's influence on Prince is just LYRICAL.

NOTHING to do with the music.

The only thing that might resemble Mitchell on 'TBODP' is just the quote of her 'Help Me' song.

'When we're dancing close and slow' is taken from a line on Joni's 'Coyote'. But that's it.

Apart from that, Prince absolutely DESTROYED a beauty like 'A Case Of You'.

But MUSICALLY I'm unable to find similarities after years listening to both artists.

I would agree that the lyrical raw emotion aspect is the influence.

vitriol said:

I'm afraid most of you are seeing things (well, hearing them).

I was a big JM fan lots of years before I got hooked to Prince.

Joni's influence on Prince is just LYRICAL.

NOTHING to do with the music.

The only thing that might resemble Mitchell on 'TBODP' is just the quote of her 'Help Me' song.

'When we're dancing close and slow' is taken from a line on Joni's 'Coyote'. But that's it.

Apart from that, Prince absolutely DESTROYED a beauty like 'A Case Of You'.

But MUSICALLY I'm unable to find similarities after years listening to both artists.

Hmmm..I disagree. I think there are moments when Joni's musical influence on Prince can be heard.

Reflection

Let's Have a Baby

So Blue

Condition of the Heart

The Sacrifice of Victor - listen to the eerie "Amen" at the very end and compare to Joni's "Rainy Night House".

Best non-musical influence: posing bare arsed on record sleeve/cover. See Joni's For the Roses/Prince's 1999.

Runner up: crediting band on cover art, but not officially in the title (Joni's Miles of Aisles has ...and the L.A. Express hand-written on the cover/Prince's 1999 says ...and the Revolution on the cover (backwards!)

Some good examples are mentioned allready: Sometimes it snows in april (very 'Blue'-like in terms of songwriting and sound), The Ballad of Dorothy Parker (refering to Joni's song 'Help me') and Reflection.

Some others to mention:

It was reported that the wife of Owen Husney made Prince familiar with Joni's music. You can hear him trying to produce this type of music on the songs Crazy you and So Blue on his debut album. But others have stated that these songs might also be Michael Franks-influenced.

To me 'Comeback' on the Truth-album sounds very Joni-influenced, especially the outtro with him singing 'tears go here'.

The arrangement of the Family's version of Nothing Compares to You reminds me a lot of Joni's song Shadow and Light from her album 'The hissing of summer lawns'. Of course, that arrangement owed a lot to Clare Fishers orchestrations, so it could be coincidental.

Anyway Prince did say 'The hissing of summer lawns' was his favourite album somewhere during the eighties.

When i listen to the intro of Condition of the Heart it reminds me a lot of the orchestral passages on Joni's album Court and Spark.

The most obvious Joni-influence to me is the way Prince arranges his vocal arrangements and the sound of them. When you listen to the background vocals of Thieves in the temple and Wendy's and Lisa's vocals on the Parade album, you can hear the influence of what Joni was trying to achieve on albums like Court and Spark and 'Hissing'. Layered background vocals somewhat dissonating with the lead vocals.

I could hear some influence in "Power Fantastic".

Cornelius1973 said:

Some good examples are mentioned allready: Sometimes it snows in april (very 'Blue'-like in terms of songwriting and sound), The Ballad of Dorothy Parker (refering to Joni's song 'Help me') and Reflection.

Some others to mention:

It was reported that the wife of Owen Husney made Prince familiar with Joni's music. You can hear him trying to produce this type of music on the songs Crazy you and So Blue on his debut album. But others have stated that these songs might also be Michael Franks-influenced.

To me 'Comeback' on the Truth-album sounds very Joni-influenced, especially the outtro with him singing 'tears go here'.

The arrangement of the Family's version of Nothing Compares to You reminds me a lot of Joni's song Shadow and Light from her album 'The hissing of summer lawns'. Of course, that arrangement owed a lot to Clare Fishers orchestrations, so it could be coincidental.

Anyway Prince did say 'The hissing of summer lawns' was his favourite album somewhere during the eighties.

When i listen to the intro of Condition of the Heart it reminds me a lot of the orchestral passages on Joni's album Court and Spark.

The most obvious Joni-influence to me is the way Prince arranges his vocal arrangements and the sound of them. When you listen to the background vocals of Thieves in the temple and Wendy's and Lisa's vocals on the Parade album, you can hear the influence of what Joni was trying to achieve on albums like Court and Spark and 'Hissing'. Layered background vocals somewhat dissonating with the lead vocals.

Yes, good call on the vocal arrangements. He did a lot of that "main vocal (backing vocals chime in)" after the '80s and I heard a lot of that on 'Hissing'

[Edited 1/2/11 16:29pm]

ufoclub said:

"soda fizzin on the lawn, come a butterfly straight on my skin"

vitriol said "Apart from that, Prince absolutely DESTROYED a beauty like 'A Case Of You'."

I think Prince's live version of Case of You from the 1983 benefit concert is great, and he does make it fit his princly/new wave/rock thing he had going with that concert... and quite beautifully I think.

Agreed.

I like them both, but musically few songs like TBODP, Power fantastic, Sometimes it snows in April and Old Friends 4 sale remind me of Joni (similar storytelling and sometimes jazzy turns), but I think the main influence Prince might have received from her is more spiritual. They both are very adventurous artists and I think that the influence Joni might have had on Prince is “teaching” him to be more confident where the artistic freedom can take you. Prince has been experimenting a lot musically, so has Joni and they have not always been commercially successful doing it, but this is a downside of creative freedom. At their creative peak they were both unstoppable and superb!

Condition of the heart is imho one of the songs in which you can hear Joni's influence.

Tremolina said:

Condition of the heart is imho one of the songs in which you can hear Joni's influence.

"Blinded by the daisies in your yard"

^

The words, the music, the piano, the vocals. I can hear his admiration for her style and skills in this song.

Tremolina said:

Condition of the heart is imho one of the songs in which you can hear Joni's influence.

I don't get the So Blue/Crazy You thing...

Just because Prince is basing the instrumentation of a song on acoustic guitar should we say it's a Joni Mitchell influence?

NOTHING on those songs makes me think of Joni. Same for Condition Of The Heart.

on wiki:

For instance, Prince's song "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" on the album Sign 'O' the Times (1987), pays tribute to Mitchell, both through his evocative Mitchell-like harmonies and through the use of one of Mitchell's own techniques: as in Mitchell's song "This Flight Tonight", Prince references a song in his lyrics (Joni's own "Help Me") as the music begins to emulate the chords and melody of that song. Another Mitchell reference left by Prince can also be seen on the back cover of his 1981 Controversy record, where one of the headlines reads "★JONI★." His song "Raspberry Beret" also references "McGee's general store" from Joni's song "Paprika Plains".

TBODP -along with Housequake and If I Was Your Girlfriend- are my favourite ever Prince songs.

Still there's nothing on TBODP -bar the 'Help Me' lyrical (and only slightly musical) quotations- that makes me think of Joni Mitchell.

Can anybody name a Joni Mitchell song that sounds like it?

PRNelson said:

Prince can be influenced by Joni Mitchell and not have many, if any, identifiable aspects of such influence in his work. He has said in interview that Joni taught him a lot about 'space' and 'colour' in music. These are compositional tools and not necessarily distinctive sounds exclusive to joni's work. Instead prince has taken these approaches in creating his own musical style. Prince is without doubt one of the greatest users of space in music (something miles Davis also attested to). It's in these elements where Joni Mitchell's influence rests.

I agree, most of it is conceptual influence. However being such an inspiration I do think identifiable elements do appear in his music, especially during his jazzy NPG period. Those horn sections ("Love 2 the 9's) sound straight out of her mid '70s work.

vitriol said:

TBODP -along with Housequake and If I Was Your Girlfriend- are my favourite ever Prince songs.

Still there's nothing on TBODP -bar the 'Help Me' lyrical (and only slightly musical) quotations- that makes me think of Joni Mitchell.

Can anybody name a Joni Mitchell song that sounds like it?

Actually while the recording itself doesn't necessarily sound like a JM studio track, the lyrical rhythm, the way the story is told and the melody wouldn't be too far removed from Joni's jazzier records.

However, if it does hark back to any sound, it seems vaguely reminiscent of The Hissing Of Summer Lawns material as performed live in the late 70's. The way Prince sings recalls the way Joni sings lines of "Edith & The Kingpin" live, imo, for example.

vitriol said:

I'm afraid most of you are seeing things (well, hearing them).

I was a big JM fan lots of years before I got hooked to Prince.

Joni's influence on Prince is just LYRICAL.

NOTHING to do with the music.

The only thing that might resemble Mitchell on 'TBODP' is just the quote of her 'Help Me' song.

'When we're dancing close and slow' is taken from a line on Joni's 'Coyote'. But that's it.

Apart from that, Prince absolutely DESTROYED a beauty like 'A Case Of You'.

But MUSICALLY I'm unable to find similarities after years listening to both artists.

The only time I loved hearing A Case Of You was during the 1st Avenue 1983 show that song was steaming, and it fit the Purple Rain era