SONG SO WILD AND BLUE
A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell
by Paul Lisicky
HarperOne. 272 pages, $28.
WRITERS HAVE a long tradition of seeking inspiration from “muses”; in ancient Greek culture, the muses were minor deities. The relationships of modern gay male artists with the divas they admire seem like part of a spiritual tradition of communion with a mysterious source outside the self, yet closely connected. In a brief introduction to Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, author Paul Lisicky comments: “Sometimes, as I was writing, the line between Joni and me felt so thin that it nearly dissolved—whose mind was whose?”
The author traces his admiration for the legendary singer-songwriter to his solitary childhood in New Jersey. Imagining Mitchell learning to retune her guitar to counteract the long-term effects of polio on her left hand, young Paul is inspired to take parallel risks with his own music, played on the family piano. Recreating his childhood emotions, he connects them to what he has learned about Mitchell’s early life: her interest in drawing, her experience of long Canadian winters, the terrible disease that confined her to a hospital bed for months.
A certain synesthesia makes Lisicky’s descriptions of different art forms especially vivid. Mitchell’s visual imagination appears to have led her to music, which young Paul visualizes as an intricate palette of colors, and he eventually transfers his love of sound and rhythm to creative writing. Lisicky advises all student writers to explore other art forms to enrich their means of expression.
Individual songs by Mitchell are introduced to mark the phases of young Paul’s life. Her song “Both Sides, Now” is described as both straightforward and bittersweet. Lisicky describes his first reaction to the cover of Clouds, the 1969 album named for that song. He notes Mitchell’s calm, clear-eyed self-portrait with a “Bavarian castle” in the painting’s background. Later, he discovers that this is the Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, one of several hotels built by the Canadian National Railway that serve as temporary residences for visiting members of the British royal family.
Lisicky mentions that the landmark hotel was Mitchell’s favorite place to stay in her hometown at the time and describes the red prairie lily in Mitchell’s hand, but he doesn’t acknowledge that it’s the official flower of Saskatchewan, which also appears on the provincial flag. The visual image of young Mitchell seems to be clearly located in a particular place and time, when the Canadian nationalism of “Centennial Year” (1967) was still strong. However, young Paul seems to understand that all identities are subject to change.
Mitchell’s escape from conservative parents who apparently didn’t think the life of a popular musician was suitable for their daughter seems to parallel Lisicky’s quiet discovery of a local gay community and a dating scene, despite the influence of his Catholic parents. There are no dramatic confrontations in this chronological narrative, even when Lisicky describes the end of his twelve-year relationship with a man he once thought was his soulmate. He refers to Mitchell’s music as a record of her emotional life while tactfully describing his own relationships as seasons in his life. Heartbreak in both lives is treated as unavoidable, and no one is blamed.
The three sections of this book, titled “Gathering,” “Becoming,” and “Letting Go,” are about youth, adulthood, and loss. The author mourns the deaths of both his parents and his best female friend, and he continues to write while mentoring younger writers. He expresses resentment of reviewers who want to categorize living, evolving artists.
Having known how Mitchell relearned to walk after childhood polio, Lisicky describes being moved beyond words when he attends a comeback concert in 2023 after her recuperation from a 2015 brain aneurysm. Surrounded by other fans, he describes the concert as a near-religious experience, a witnessing of rebirth. Jude Theriot, the author’s partner, is credited with explaining how the human brain can rewire itself, even after extreme injury. Theriot is a medical doctor who apparently “dropped” into the author’s life shortly before he began writing the book. Sometimes, it seems, the universe provides unexpected guidance and joy. _________________________________________________________________
Jean Roberta is a widely published writer based in Regina, Canada.
