10 Songs That Will Reduce An Open Heart To Tears: #2

I don’t know if it’s because I have pre-memory memories of it.

During the earliest years of my life, we had a cassette player in our dining room that served as one of the family music hubs. (The other was the kitchen radio).

On this early 80’s model, my parents would pop in all sorts of folky and/or kids music.

Peter, Paul & Mary’s Puff the Magic Dragon and Roger Whittaker’s Greensleeves stick out in my mind. Pete Seeger and The Weavers. I remember Free To Be You And Me and Really Rosie. A lot of things like that.

And even though I don’t actually remember it, they must have played Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now on that machine.

I believe this to be so because every time I hear it, I’m brought back into that room, in those very early years. And it feels like a dream.

Obviously at that age I had no idea at all as to what she was singing about.

According to Mitchell herself it had something to do with the loss of a child, and human ugliness.

And she didn’t think it was that effective of a song.

“I never felt it was a very successful song because it was such a big meditation. It seemed to just scrape the surface of it. But in retrospect, in its generalness, there was much that people could read into it. It became very profound in its ambiguity to a lot of people.”
(from the book Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words by Malka Marom)

Well, to me (and as a huge fan of so much of her catalogue – both the well-known and the “deep” stuff – this is a pretty bold statement to make) it’s her greatest song.

And more often than not, I get teary when it comes on. When I’m not expecting it, the response is almost guaranteed.

And, lastly, I played Joni’s original version to my wife’s pregnant stomach, and our unborn baby inside reacted with more excited activity than for anything else during the whole pregnancy.

So take that for whatever it’s worth.

According to the woman herself: “It was a song that I think I had to grow into. I don’t think I performed it well until I was in my 50’s.” (also from Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words)

So I’ll leave you with this pretty amazing (and very different) later rendition.

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