Joni Mitchell has been on my mind (and iPod) a ton this month, ever since reading Emily Gould’s excellent piece on This Recording from the day after April Fool’s Day. I’ve never been so intrigued by a musician that I can barely stand listening to. She’s brilliant and beautiful, for sure, but I’m inexplicably intolerant of the feelings her songs induce. Maybe Mitchell’s work moves and irritates some like Joanna Newsom’s “Sadie” moves me and inspires my friends to demand I turn the Milk-Eyed Mender down. Either way, Mitchell just added some fuel to the fire…
Mitchell and actor/singer/impersonator John Kelly sounded off with in an article posted by the LA Times tonight, and wow: Mitchell dropped possibly the most scathing piece of Bob Dylan criticism I’ve ever seen, as well as a few pull-quotes from legendary musicians that only an insider’s ear might hear, such as Jimi Hendrix’s admission that he’d “like to just stand still like Miles [Davis],” and Prince’s informing his idol (Mitchell), “You used to be shocking, but I can cut you now!”
As for said Bob Dylan diss, here goes nothing: “Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.”
For more on Mitchell’s unusual Morgollens disease and other new stunning quotes, go here.