Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Last weekend, Joni Mitchell performed her signature song, Both Sides Now at the annual Clive Davis' Pre-Grammy party. A few days beforehand, she had performed it at FireAid, a benefit to help Los Angeles residents affected by the fire. It's a song she's revisited many times in her career, including on her concept album of the same name, which was released 25 years ago tomorrow. For another installment of our 25th anniversary album series, Silver Liner Notes, this is Both Sides Now.

[MUSIC - Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now]

I've looked at love from both sides now

From give and take and still somehow

It's love's illusions that I recall

I really don't know love

I really don't know love at all

Alison Stewart: Originally, Mitchell released Both Sides Now in 1969 on her album Clouds. In 2000, she revisited the song in that new orchestral arrangement along with another song, A Case of You. The other 10 tracks on the album were much older and came from the Great American Songbook tracks like Stormy Weather and At Last. The New York Times wrote about Mitchell by lifting her voice out of the matrix of her usual complex arrangements for guitar and keyboards, the record allows you to hear her gifts as a singer more starkly.

Joining me now to talk about the album for its anniversary is NPR music critic Ann Powers. Ann is also the author of the book Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell. Welcome back.

Ann Powers: Hey, it's great to see you. Looking so great.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, do you have a connection to Joni Mitchell's music and this album in particular? Call in or text us now at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Where was Joni Mitchell in her career when she made that album?

Ann Powers: It's interesting, Alison. I mean, she was embarking on her legacy period. I think one thing that's beautiful about this album is that it begins this process of looking back and it does it in such a classic way, and dare I say tasteful way. I mean, Joni loves to characterize herself as like a broad, whatever, like a tough, broad, or whatever. This was a perfect kind of transition into her reassessment of her career in her own songs, even though we only get two original songs on this album.

Alison Stewart: Where was she in her personal life?

Ann Powers: Well, it was a time when she was also kind of coming out of some struggles, health struggles, but she was opening herself up to the doyenne role she had in the '90s, been reunited with her daughter who she entrusted in adoption at birth, Kilauren. She was experiencing her own motherhood in a different way than she did when she was a birth mother. A new generation of younger artists, especially women, had fallen at her feet, right? The Lilith Fair women and all of that. She was still working with her longtime partner and ex-husband, Larry Klein.

Well, he and Don Henley had invited her to be part of a benefit for Walden Woods, Henley's environmental cause. At that, she sang with an orchestra. I think that kind of put the spark in their minds, that this would be a good way to take her to a new place. Always creative, always curious. It was a great way for Joni to do something new with material she knew very well.

Alison Stewart: A review by Rolling Stone at the time began like this. "Deep down, Joni Mitchell has always been a jazz singer." Do you agree with that?

Ann Powers: [chuckles] Yes and no. I mean, I think Joni exists in her own categories and to kind of cop some of what the musicologist Kevin Fellezs says in his book about jazz fusion. She really inhabits that space between. At the same time, she certainly is a standard singer. She certainly grew up with this music. Her dad was a huge jazz fan. It's a very natural transition into doing these standards.

I write in traveling that I imagine her and Larry sitting down with a really good bottle of Chateau Lafite and going through their record collection, her record collection, and say, "Oh, I love this song. Sinatra did," or whatever, and that's the ones they chose.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Monique, thanks for calling in. You're on the air.

Monique: Hi. I just wanted to say thank you for that beautiful song. I was a child of immigrants in Chicago, and that was the first song I learned in our high school Glee Club, or not Glee Club, but chorus, back in the '70s in Chicago in an all-girls Catholic high school. It was just lovely. It's such an affirming, beautiful, timeless song. Thank you.

Ann Powers: Lovely story. I mean, it's been very interesting, Alison, to see how Both Sides Now, how Joni is completely embraced Both Sides Now as her signature song now. I think there were times in her life when she would have wanted to run as far from it as she could. She's doing much more complicated, thorny material. When a standard emerges, when a song resonates in so many ways, and I love that our caller just talked about a choral arrangement in high school. How can you not own that? How can you not say yes? Both Sides Now is actually more complex than we think of it sometimes.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking to Ann Powers, NPR music critic and author of Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Joni Mitchell's album Both Sides Now, and we are taking your calls. Do you have a connection to Joni Mitchell's music and this album in particular? Call or text us, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. This album is generally described as a concept album. What's the concept?

Ann Powers: Larry Klein writes about it in his liner notes for the album, is that it's the arc of a relationship from early optimism and excitement to fulfillment and love and romance to disappointment. It's so funny to me, Allison, because what you notice if you look at the track listing is disappointment comes pretty early. I mean, by track four, you've changed one of the most desolate sounding songs on the album. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: When she tackles these standards, what is different about the way that Joni Mitchell sings them?

Ann Powers: Yes. Well said. Another really important thing about this record is that it is a reintroduction or really kind of like a full introduction of her 21st century voice, right? That voice is so different than certainly way different than the early, very acrobatic, spinning into Arabesque's voice that we love Joni for. Then different than the '70s jazz fusion voice. This is a more limited voice in some ways, a different timbre, a different register, that smoky alto that she's using. It fits so perfectly with her persona and with this material. It's a revelation to hear how her own songs mean different things in this voice.

Alison Stewart: The album is really-- it's really lush. The orchestration is really lush.

Ann Powers: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Who did she work with?

Ann Powers: She worked with a guy named Vince Mendoza. He's a composer and an arranger. He's younger than Joni by about, I guess, 20 years or so. They brought him in and he said at the time, Joni was great to work with. At times, she was just a chick in the band. At times, she was very intense. A poet, at times. She's just the girl from Saskatoon. It was a good relationship. In fact, Mendoza won a Grammy for his arrangements.

Alison Stewart: Here's a question for you. "How much did her being Canadian inform her music and perspective?" Thank you. That text is from Mary.

Ann Powers: That's a great question about Joni in general. I think it's always present in her music, her Canadianess, both in that it gives her kind of an outsider view of the scene, especially in her LA life, but also, I've always thought about her voice and almost like her accents and that Canadianess that remains in her voice. Just to hazard a theory, I think that in a strange way, it allowed her to avoid a trap that a lot of white American singers fall into, which is imitating Black vernacular. Almost irresistible when you're doing this kind of material as well.

She never once did that, even though she certainly did other things that were crossing some racial lines, but she never did that. She developed her own timbre, her own enunciations. In this, I think she's really entering a space of that. You walk into a bar and there's someone at the piano, and there she is, the seasoned bohemian who's singing us a few songs.

Alison Stewart: You wanted to play You’ve Changed. Why did you pick this out in particular?

Ann Powers: Well, I do think this is a great example of where Joni let herself go on this album vocally. It's a pretty dark lyric, and the arrangement reinforces the darkness of the song. I think her more weathered voice really works perfectly with this. I just want to say, send out flowers to Marianne Faithfull, who passed away recently, another singer who gifted us with the beauty of her older voice, throughout the second half of her life. This song kind of fits in, like I could have heard Marianne covering it as well.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to You’ve Changed.

[MUSIC - Joni Mitchell: You’ve Changed]

You've changed

The sparkle in your eyes is gone

Your smile is just a careless yawn

You're breaking my heart

You've changed

You've changed

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. This is Mary in Westchester. Hey, Mary, how are you?

Mary: I am doing fine. Today's my birthday.

Ann Powers: Happy birthday. You know what? My birthday was just a few days ago, so happy birthday, fellow Aquarian.

Mary: Aquarian with the criers.

Ann Powers: [laughs]

Mary: Actually, this is almost like my theme song as a kid from the South Bronx to now a mom, grandma, great grandma, and a widow. I certainly now look at life from all different sides. But you know what? I'm still moving. Mr. Right Foot, Mr. Left Foot gets me around. There's still more adventures ahead. That's the way I have to look at things.

Alison Stewart: First of all, happy birthday to you. Thank you so much for calling. We really appreciate it. I hope you have a great, great day. Let's talk to Perry from Massachusetts. Hi, Perry. Thanks so much for calling. You're on the air.

Perry: Hi. Thanks so much for taking my call. I wanted to call in because I would not be who I am today were it not for Joni Mitchell, this song, this album. I ended up with a 35-year touring career as a musician and a guitar player. Really, listening to her music was an entire education. We talk about whether she's a folk singer or a jazz singer. The answer is, I think for me, that she's unclassifiable and that what she taught any of us who came up behind her as musicians is, that we could make our own path and sing what we sing and write what we write.

That it was going to be okay and that if it was musical and had a musical message, that that was enough. I'm eternally grateful for her leadership in that way.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling. Did you want to respond?

Ann Powers: Yes. Well, that was a beautiful story to share of how you were inspired by her and you made your own career as a singer and a player. I think it's important to say that Joni doesn't-- this is a record that's putting her out as a vocalist. She's working with an orchestra. She does have some of her favorite bandmates on this record, though. Wayne Shorter is on this record, Herbie Hancock is on this record. I always want to celebrate Joni, not only as an instrumentalist, a guitarist, but as a band leader.

I want to stress that for this record, Both Sides Now, she and Larry, their true partnership really shows, that she is always in charge. Joni Mitchell doesn't walk from one room to another in her house without being in charge. She is always in charge. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Joining me for this edition of Silver Liner Notes is Ann Powers, NPR music critic and author of Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Joni Mitchell's album, Both Sides Now. We'll have more after a real quick break. This is All Of It. You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. This is Silver Liner Notes. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Joni Mitchell's album Both Sides Now with me is NPR music critic. All right. We're going to listen to Both Sides Now, but first, how does it take on new meaning on this new album?

Ann Powers: Say that again. Sorry. You cut out for a second.

Alison Stewart: Oh, it's okay. How does it take on new meaning in the--?

Ann Powers: Oh, Both Sides Now?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Ann Powers: It's remarkable that Joni Mitchell wrote this song in her 20s. I mean, imagine, being that young and writing a song that pretty-- As an earlier caller said, can stand at the end of your life and really, really-- or at the later years of your life and really encapsulate what it means to live a full life. Now, at this point, when she records this song, she was in midlife. She wasn't as she is now, in her 80s, but she really could sing it realistically. She could sing it as someone who had seen life from so many sides.

I think the combination of singing it in a different timbre, singing it with this arrangement that shows that it is a standard and singing it from her own experience really changes the meaning. It fulfills the song. It brings the song to its culmination.

Alison Stewart: Well, first, let's listen to the original version of Both Sides Now.

[MUSIC - Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now]

Rows and floes of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

Looked at clouds that way

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to the 2000s version.

[MUSIC - Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now]

But now they only block the sun

They rain and they snow on everyone

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way

Alison Stewart: So beautiful to hear them back to back.

Ann Powers: Oh, it's incredible. It's a life story. You know what's interesting, Alison, is? Watching all of Joni's comeback appearances that she's made. You mentioned she just did two more at Clive's party and at the FireAid tribute. She's singing the later arrangement. This is the one that she feels connected to still. It's the one for her.

Alison Stewart: This is an interesting text that we got. "Love her and Judy Collins version of Both Sides Now." Curious to me, that Big Yellow Taxi is the song that is done with a popular with the younger generation. I would have thought Both Sides Now would be that song she's most known for. Maybe when they're older, they'll get it.

Ann Powers: [chuckles] I think they get it now. I mean, it's true that Big Yellow Taxi, when Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton did their version, it was a huge smash and it brought the song back. I do think also A Case of You, which she does on this record, is a beloved song by many younger people that I know. That song is just such a rapturous account of desire and romance. Maybe it takes you a little time to live this song. Maybe it takes you a little time to relate. I'm not surprised that it resonates the most with people over, say, 40.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to A Case of You while we have it.

Ann Powers: Yes.

[MUSIC - Joni Mitchell: A Case of You]

Oh, I am a lonely painter

I live in a box of paints

I'm frightened by the devil

And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid

Alison Stewart: That's the 1971 version. Let's listen to the 2000 version.

[MUSIC - Joni Mitchell: A Case of You]

I remember that time you told me

You said, "Love is touching souls"

Surely you touched mine

'Cause part of you pours out of me

In these lines from time to time

Alison Stewart: So fun. We play them back to back.

Ann Powers: I love it, I love it. This was a brave-- I mean, do you hear the like-- think about the courage it took to sing this song and that new voice. I mean, Both Sides Now is one thing, but A Case of You, that's a very challenging song. There's leaps in that song that she had to figure out how to make those leaps in a different way.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Al from the Rockaways. Hi, Al. Thanks so much for calling in and joining us on the air.

Al: Hi, Alison. Thank you so much for taking my call. Oh, gosh. I'm overwhelmed by you guys playing those songs. She just brings me to tears. She's so amazing. I just wanted to add to the conversation. Years ago, when the biography by David Yaffe, Reckless Daughter came out, I bought it, and I read through it while I listened to Joni's songs and her albums chronologically, as I was reading about them being made and everything that went where she was in her life when she was making this music. I was listening to the albums in order, and it was just an amazing experience.

I got to know her music in such a unique way. I highly recommend it for anyone who is a Joni Mitchell lover. I also just want to say that I first heard the album that we're talking about. I've heard Both Sides Now when I watched Love Actually. That scene with Emma Thompson, it still breaks. I mean, it's a problematic movie in many ways, but that scene with Emma Thompson just broke my heart open. Anyway, I'm loving the segment, so thank you so much for it.

Ann Powers: Thank you for that. I have to say, please do read David Yaffe's wonderful biography, Reckless Daughter. I'll also say that many readers of my book Traveling have said they've done the same thing. I think this is something to think about when you're reading any music book. You have the tools, you can make your own soundtrack to your reading experience, and it's a very enriching thing to do.

Alison Stewart: She mentioned Love Actually. It's the movie where Alan Rickman has given Emma Thompson a piece of jewelry. It's not for her. Well, she thinks it's for her. It's not for her. The song Both Sides Now is also on the soundtrack. The climactic moment of the Best Picture winner, CODA.

Ann Powers: Yes, yes. Beautiful version in that.

Alison Stewart: How do you think it's placed in our pop culture today?

Ann Powers: It is a standard, and it puts me in mind of another standard I've been thinking about recently because I've been writing a little bit about The Beatles and the song Yesterday, another song covered by so many people. Paul McCartney has said, famously, that he woke up with that melody in his head and he thought someone else had written it. He actually didn't record it for so long because he thought someone else had written it and he was plagiarizing someone. I think Both Sides Now has that same feeling. It's such a universal melody and experience expressed in the lyrics.

It's a simple song to sing in some ways, but you have to bring a lot of depth to it. That's why I think it survives. You talked about Love Actually, where it plays a literal role in that movie. It's Emma Thompson, a kind of buttoned up person, saying, "Oh, but I have this depth of feeling and I've had these experiences." In CODA, it's a very different. It serves a very different function. It's a young woman who is choosing to sign the song for her deaf parents as she performs it as well as singing it.

You see it from that youthful perspective, and you almost see it as a standard. It's a song that crosses generations. I think filmmakers can find what they need in this song.

Alison Stewart: This text says, "I'm in my late 50s, and my kindergarten teacher used to have all the kids sing Both Sides Now along with her.

Ann Powers: [laughs] I love that.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Tom, Long Island. Hi, Tom, you're on the air.

Tom: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I'm calling in connection with one of Joni Mitchell's songs, Chelsea Morning. She wrote that back in 1967. She was living on West 16th Street in Chelsea. I was a student at a Catholic high school, boys' high school across the street. It was all military back then. It was run by the Jesuits. She lived across the street at 61 West 16th. I never knew this back then. I think she just signed her first contract that year. She wasn't famous yet, but I learned a story within the last year.

I looked it up on documented several places on the Internet and actually found a video of her talking about the song when she was introducing it up in Toronto way back when. There's a line in the song, "Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning. And the first thing that I saw. Was the sun through yellow curtains. And a rainbow on the wall," et cetera. She said that she hung the curtain because to keep the boys from the high school across the street from looking in the-- they weren't coming right up to the window, but I guess they noticed that there was a pretty girl living on the ground floor there across the street--

Alison Stewart: Across Xavier. That's where they were. That's so funny.

Ann Powers: That's amazing. That's so funny. What a great story.

Alison Stewart: We're going to play I Wish I Were In Love Again real quick, and we'll talk about it on the other side.

[MUSIC - Joni Mitchell: I Wish I Were In Love Again]

The sleepless nights

The daily fights

The quick toboggan when you reach the heights

I miss the kisses and I miss the bites

I wish I were in love again

Alison Stewart: Why did you want us to play that?

Ann Powers: I think it was Robert Christgau, the great music critic and my spiritual dad, who said in his review of this record that this song Joni must love because it has lyrics that kind of perfectly suit her sensibility. They're very wry, they're funny. It reminds me of her own songs, like her lyrics for Mingus, when she wrote songs, lyrics for the Mingus' composition Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. There's a playfulness to this song that she just totally connects with. Also, a song that famously was recorded by Frank Sinatra on his album A Swingin' Affair!

I think you can see a correlation between this album, Both Sides Now, and Sinatra's late work. Sinatra also gave us the gift of his older voice, and a kind of a gravitas that enters into his performances later in life. I know, I'm sure she's thinking of Sinatra when she's delivering these lyrics.

Alison Stewart: I've been speaking with NPR music critic Ann Powers. Read her book Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell. Thanks for the time, Ann.

Ann Powers: Always a pleasure. Thank you so much, Alison.