The Enduring Impact of Joni Mitchell
by Steve Desroches
In the author’s note at the beginning of writer Paul Lisicky’s new book Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, he writes “Sometimes, as I was writing, the line between Joni and me felt so thin that it nearly dissolved—whose mind was whose?” And as Mitchell wrote in her 1971 song “A Case of You,” “part of you pours out of me/ In these lines from time to time.” As an artist, Mitchell is masterful with the intimacy of her lyrics and the beguiling nature of her compositions. She is so in tune with her own emotions, questions, and humanity that a song can feel it was written just for you and an album an unconscious commission addressing either experiences lived or a blueprint for what is to come in an examined life. It seems that at the first crack of heartbreak the algorithm of the universe signals the music of Mitchell to appear as an aching salve, or at least an explanation.
Growing up in suburban New Jersey, Lisicky was an aspiring singer-songwriter who became enchanted with the work of Mitchell. And while he would change lanes and pursue an author’s life, the music of Mitchell became tightly woven into his mind and spirit. In his engaging look at that experience, Song So Wild and Blue is part memoir, part biography, and a complete love letter to one of the greatest artists of our times.
“I never would have imagined when I was in high school that I would go on to write all these books,” says Lisicky. “In a way it feels like coming full circle.”
Song So Wild and Blue is Lisicky’s seventh book, with previous titles including The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship, Lawnboy, and Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, a book about his life in Provincetown, where he lived from 1991 to 2007, arriving as a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, where he still teaches summer workshops. This Friday Lisicky visits a different Provincetown cultural institution when he appears at the Hawthorne Barn at the invitation of Twenty Summers to be in conversation with performance artist John Kelly, who himself is widely known for performances where he channels Mitchell. While Lisicky was aware of Kelly and his work he hadn’t seen him perform until one night in Provincetown at the club Tropical Joe’s (where Dr. Allegretti’s Provincetown Dental Arts is now). While Mitchell is associated with the prairies of her native Canada and her longtime home of California, this conversation is perfect for Provincetown, not just because it’s where Lisicky saw one of Kelly’s mesmerizing performances, but also because Lisicky’s love for Provincetown is akin to his for Mitchell.
“She’s always been so inspired by landscape,” says Lisicky. “The songs often deal with space and place. There’s a rootedness to place in her work. There’s an emotional connection to location. Like me and Provincetown. It’s a place I keep returning to.”
Having moved away almost 20 years ago and now living in Brooklyn, Lisicky is forever caught in the artistic and emotional gravitational pull of Provincetown. Whenever he returns and walks down Commercial Street, he feels 1991 all over, feeling the presence of people and places that are no longer here, but which the town holds in the parallel universe of memory. As times has passed, Lisicky’s interest in the social scene of Provincetown has waned, not to the point of indifference, but just put in a different order of priorities. While it once seemed important to be out and about at this party or that show, now it’s much more about the part of Provincetown that is out of town. The wild ramble of the dunes, the wooded pathways, and the sweeping beaches; those landscapes make up much more of Provincetown land wise than the hustle and bustle of the developed town, which is completely surrounded by this natural beauty. Provincetown, and Mitchell, sing very much the same song.
“It feels different as you get older as you have different experiences,” says Lisicky about Mitchell’s work. “Provincetown has that quality, too.”
Twenty Summers presents Song So Wild and Blue: Paul Lisicky and John Kelly in Conversation on Friday, June 6 at 6 p.m. at the Hawthorne Barn, 29 Miller Hill Road. Tickets ($20 suggested donation) are available online at 20summers.org. For more information call 508.812.0278.
