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Regarding gender issues in evaluating Joni Mitchell's oeuvre, it should be noted that her lyrics are notable for using third person in many of her most tender and sensual songs, such as Cactus Tree. This means many of her songs can be sung by males and females without switching gender terms

I once heard Joni say that today's writers tend to be calculated in their approach to song composition and that her approach was always meditative.

I grew up hard of hearing-- so words in a song were always little more than'La la la' sounds. What I responded to in Joni's songs was the musical 'Language'. Even though I did not know what the actual lyrics were-- the song always conveyed the wordless 'story' she was telling.
This makes her songs stnad out above everyone else.
Music IS a language. And Joni 'speaks' it naturally and eloquently

Bach shifts keys to make points as well; for example, often as the singer moves away from God in his religious music, the key goes down. It's called harmonic catabasis (when going down - anabasis when going up) if I recall.

You might call her notationally illiterate, but musically? More accurately, she might be called musically multilingual, with her ability to meld jazz, rock, folk, country, really world music, and bend it to her artistic will.

I am a big joni fan and have always been astounded by her system of alternate tunings, a true wonder of nature, over 80 unique guitar tunings, and contra rhythmical picking patterns. can the guest comment on her guitar technique and harmonic underpinings of her various tunings? thanks

Technically her voice stays pure without a lot of verbrato no matter what part of her range she is singing in. Its beautiful That also allows the listener to get a pure understanding of the emotion in the lyric. Brilliant!!!

Joni Mitchell is a genius and let's face it, society and its historians, especially the male ones, are intimidated by women genuiuses.

I was exposed to "Help Me" as a child. I've never heard a soothing quality that also contains a fearful sorrow. Emotionally complex to the utmost. It makes me think of my mother calmly explaining some huge scary fact of life that she couldn't protect me from.