Will You Take Me as I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period by Michelle Mercer

Author:Michelle Mercer [Mercer, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: music, History & Criticism, Biography & Autobiography, history, social history, General
ISBN: 9781416566557
Google: mvv-Ij2BLgoC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2009-04-07T23:58:13.655263+00:00

“You know, there was a black woman who came up to me. We were in the green room at the Grammys. I was in the holding pen, so it must have been for Turbulent Indigo. Anyway, there were rappers like blackbirds on one side of the room and the white people on the other side, and they were not commingling. Kind of deadly quiet because the rappers were being wary and so the whole room had taken on that tone. And through the door came this brown-skinned hairdresser with bleach-blond hair, and she threw her arms open wide and she went, ‘Girl, you make me see pictures in my head! Give me a hug.’ She gave me this hug and the whole room began to interact. She was like this icebreaker, you know? The best compliments I’ve gotten have been from the black community. A black pianist named Henry said that I made raceless, genderless music. I really treasure that he felt that way about it, because that’s what I hoped I would do…

“There are several movies, Love Actually being one and You’ve Got Mail being another…in those two movies, guys ask a girl ‘Why do you like Joni Mitchell?’ I forget what she says in You’ve Got Mail, but he’s got another retort and puts me down, kind of like ‘What is she getting at, did she take flying lessons?’ Their whole relationship becomes estranged because of me, because she doesn’t like his boat and he doesn’t like her music. Whereas in Love Actually, he asks her why she likes Joni Mitchell, and she says, ‘She taught your cold English wife how to feel.’ I thought that was touching, because that’s one of the things that it’s trying to do.

“There was this big-hearted bouncer in a bar in Chicago. I walked in and he took one look at me and started to tear up. He said, ‘Without you, I never would have understood women.’ How was that accomplished, what was the breakthrough line? Sometimes they’re funny little things. Like one guy told me the line that got him was ‘If you’re a friend to me’ as opposed to ‘friend of mine’ [from “For Free”]. The simple distinction—possessing the friend or not—that made it for him. Sometimes you put something down, and a lightbulb goes off in someone’s head. You never know exactly what it is that people are getting out of this stuff, or what is the piece they need.”

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