The Ballard of Dorothy Parker

"Mind if I turn on the radio?"

"Oh, my favorite song" she said
And it was Joni singing "Help me I think I'm falling"

(From Joni's "Help Me".)

"When We're Dancing Close And Slow" is from a line in the Joni Mitchell song "Coyote".

Q&A with Joni Mitchell:

But even when you were somewhat obscure, so many musicians were citing you as an influence or even name-checking you in songs. Of all the musicians and rappers who have cited you as an influence, whose work do you appreciate most?

"Prince. Prince attended one of my concerts in Minnesota. I remember seeing him sitting in the front row when he was very young. He must have been about 15. He was in an aisle seat and he had unusually big eyes. He watched the whole show with his collar up, looking side to side. You couldn’t miss him—he was a little Prince-ling. [Laughs.] Prince used to write me fan mail with all of the U’s and hearts that way that he writes. And the office took it as mail from the lunatic fringe and just tossed it! [Laughs.]"

Many people may not know? But on the album jacket of Controversy, one of the newspaper headlines simply read "*Joni*" in honour of Joni.

And The Time's "Ice Cream Castle" is taken from Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now".

Prince on Joni Mitchell:

http://blog.kenficara.com...-mitchell/

Poorlovelycomputer said:

Most prince fans know he was a big Joni Mitchell fan. He covered A case of you and has said her Hissing of summer lawns was his last favorite album hopefully there are more covers in the vault of Joni tunes. I myself admire both musicians. Are most prince fans Joni fans too?

“With everything going on there this week, I had a lot I needed to get out,” Prince said.

He then segued into a brief discussion about Joni Mitchell's health scare.

“That news this week, and what's happening in Baltimore,” he paused, “well, you know.”

Prince is perhaps one of Joni Mitchell's biggest fans. Recently I learned "Court & Spark," Mitchell's 1974 album release, is one of the artist's top five favorite albums of all time. You may remember the reference to the folk legend in The Ballad of Dorothy Parker on his 1987 release "Sign O' the Times.

'Oh, my favorite song' she said.

And it was Joni singing

'Help me I think I'm falling'

In a healthy display of emotion, he looked at the studio floor for a second. Fighting tears of his own, Prince politely excused himself to serve water for the both of us. Even in a fleeting moment of sadness, Prince remains magical. More so in his mourning over Joni's condition.

Wendy freeformed on an acoustic and Prince was blown away," says Lisa.

"Even Joni Mitchell heard her play some chords once and asked, 'What tuning was that? It was really beautiful.'

Prince on Joni Mitchell

Prince previewed the album for Warner bros.
during a ceremonious listening party
for about 20 company officials
in early February 1985 in Los Angeles.
Joni Mitchell and Prince's father John L. Nelson
were among the special guests present.
Attendees were seated on the floor of a large conference room,
and as the high pitched flute that begins "Around the World in A Day"
lilted from the speakers,
Prince & Lisa walked in holding flowers;
the whole scene was according to one attendee very Haight Ashbury

the Heijera album cover under the round window in Under the Cherry Moon

BASS PLAYER
November, 1999

His Highness Gets Down!
By Karl Coryat

Starting with 1982’s 1999, Prince began crediting a band, the Revolution, on his recordings. Though he still played many of the parts, over the next few albums the Revolution played an increasingly important role. "I wanted community more than anything else. These days if I have Rhonda [S., formerly The Artist’s primary live bassist] play on something, she’ll bring in her Jaco influence, which is something I wouldn’t add if I played it myself. I did listen to Jaco -- I love his Joni Mitchell stuff -- but I never wanted to play like him." The Artist still raves about the original Revolution bassist, Brown Mark (who took over for Andre Simone), calling him the tightest bass player next to Graham himself.

Poorlovelycomputer said:

I have always said his cloud outfit in raspberry beret was a wink at Joni's album Clouds

Poorlovelycomputer said:

The story behind the recording of Dorothy is very interesting upon my first listen of the track I knew it sounded rawer than the rest of the album.glad he kept that way wish he had released a 12" version

In a way, he did create one in a live setting. He added Madhouse's "4" on the end of it, which oddly really worked with it. The first time I remember him doing that was during The Rainbow Children period, namely on The Tonight Show 2-night gig, when he performed it (having performed "The Work" the other night). I'm not sure, otherwise, if it was a song built to have an extended mix.

OldFriends4Sale said:

the Heijera album cover under the round window in Under the Cherry Moon

That's "Hejira"

as Stephen Thomas Erlewine once put:
"After the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may appear as the greatest female artist in 20th century rock".

http://prince.org/msg/7/417373

[Edited 10/31/16 14:02pm]

HerecomethePurpleYoda said:

I'm definitely a fan of both, though more thoroughly for Prince. TheY are similar in their artistic sensibilities, their decision to turn away from the mainstream at the height of their commercial popularity (for Joni, it was right after Court and Spark, which spawned several singles). In fact, she rarely spoke highly of anyone in the music industry, and I recall where she said that Prince was great in the way he synthesized such a wide array of musical influences (not exactly her words, but close --- she was so effusive for her). I still consider her Blue, the album with Case of You, one of the top 10 albums of all time.

Here Hejira and Hissing of the Summer Lawns are two of my favourite albums because, well, they just got that warm seventies sound but really I love them all. Her musical poetry and her voice are some of the most beautiful sounds that I have ever heard... Her and Prince are the two main artists that I think have mastered the art of imagery through perfectly crafted and emotionally evocative songs.

Gandorb above used the words 'artistic sensibilities' and I think that summarizes them both quite well.

What a great guitarist she is.
She invented a bunch puzzling of open tunings,
and can play anything that resembles a six-strings.
A very personal way to handle the instrument.

You'd think that "Sex Kills" relies mostly on arrangements,
but it also works unplugged, which is testament to quality of the song.

Lyrically, no one went as far as pointing out how sex can be diverted to exploit the human.
It makes him go to war (Marylin Monroe singing for the troops), buy useless junk,
makes addicts, killing love... What could sound upon first hearing as a Moral Majority slogan,
is in reality Joni's sadness to witness such a beautiful gift from God/Nature,
sex as it was at the end of the sixties: instead of uniting us, it has divided society
by making the women and men just another prize in the Rat Race.
"Everyone hates everyone". This is not a love song.
"Sex sells everything".
It's massively influenced by SOTT the song, but Prince mixes in fate and accidents (across a needle, an hurricane, the Challenger explosion), whereas Joni is much more bleak:
We all are responsible for the mess the world has become, because we're simply too weak.
Joni was in her twenties during the sixties. Those guys still believed who could turn the tables.

You can also compare the studio version
to the apocalyptical arrangement (blast that at 11 and cut your damn phone!) of Travelogue.

[Edited 11/1/16 2:59am]

bonatoc said:

What a great guitarist she is.
She invented a bunch puzzling of open tunings,
and can play anything that resembles a six-strings.
A very personal way to handle the instrument.

You'd think that "Sex Kills" relies mostly on arrangements,
but it also works unplugged, which is testament to quality of the song.

Lyrically, no one went as far as pointing out how sex can be diverted to exploit the human.
It makes him go to war (Marylin Monroe singing for the troops), buy useless junk,
makes addicts, killing love... What could sound upon first hearing as a Moral Majority slogan,
is in reality Joni's sadness to witness such a beautiful gift from God/Nature,
sex as it was at the end of the sixties: instead of uniting us, it has divided society
by making the women and men just another prize in the Rat Race.
"Everyone hates everyone". This is not a love song.
"Sex sells everything".
It's massively influenced by SOTT the song, but Prince mixes in fate and accidents (across a needle, an hurricane, the Challenger explosion), whereas Joni is much more bleak:
We all are responsible for the mess the world has become, because we're simply too weak.
Joni was in her twenties during the sixties. Those guys still believed who could turn the tables.

You can also compare the studio version
to the apocalyptical arrangement (blast that at 11 and cut your damn phone!) of Travelogue.

[Edited 11/1/16 2:59am]

I am not sure if turning the tables was quite the intent behind her art, even in the earlier seventies.Her music seems to be a reflective way of diffusing her and others' emotions whilst reminiscing upon the past before letting go...I feel that Prince is slightly different, and perhaps a bit more militant in his approach in that he often encourages other to 'take action' or to 'see something' a certain way.

^ I see what you mean. She's more like a cat.
Introspective and not that much concerned with the ways of the world.

Still, she lived what it's like to be a single mom.
She experienced free sexuality, and while we see it as a prowess,
it couldn't have been easy to make society embrace it when you're a woman.

Of course the L.A. music scene provided like an isolated cocoon that allowed
to believe the world could be changed through peace and love only.

Prince continued this tradition of optimism and social contest.
He' maybe the only artist who brought back the true meaning of the sixties,
right in the middle of conservative Reagan americana.
Love and freedom as if they were imprinted in the constitution.
"I wish there was no black or white I wish there were no rules".

bonatoc said:

^ I see what you mean. She's more like a cat.
Introspective and not that much concerned with the ways of the world.

Still, she lived what it's like to be a single mom.
She experienced free sexuality, and while we see it as a prowess,
it couldn't have been easy to make society embrace it when you're a woman.

Of course the L.A. music scene provided like an isolated cocoon that allowed
to believe the world could be changed through peace and love only.

Prince continued this tradition of optimism and social contest.
He' maybe the only artist who brought back the true meaning of the sixties,
right in the middle of conservative Reagan americana.
Love and freedom as if they were imprinted in the constitution.
"I wish there was no black or white I wish there were no rules".

...and maybe was trying to take us all further back than the sixties, and revert society back to the garden of Eden, before the fall. 'I wish we were all nude'.

HerecomethePurpleYoda said:

Q&A with Joni Mitchell:

But even when you were somewhat obscure, so many musicians were citing you as an influence or even name-checking you in songs. Of all the musicians and rappers who have cited you as an influence, whose work do you appreciate most?

"Prince. Prince attended one of my concerts in Minnesota. I remember seeing him sitting in the front row when he was very young. He must have been about 15. He was in an aisle seat and he had unusually big eyes. He watched the whole show with his collar up, looking side to side. You couldn’t miss him—he was a little Prince-ling. [Laughs.] Prince used to write me fan mail with all of the U’s and hearts that way that he writes. And the office took it as mail from the lunatic fringe and just tossed it! [Laughs.]"

.

Elsewhere she was somewhat dismissive of his significance as an artist. In an old Rolling Stone interview she stated flat-out that she did not consider him an innovator.