Joni Mitchell’s Hejira – a track-by-track guide to the 1976 classic

Originally published in Uncut Take 327( July 2024 issue)…

In 1976, JONI MITCHELL left behind the wreckage of a failed relationship, a cancelled tour and heightened commercial expectations and disappeared into the American wilderness, seeking refuge on the road.

“I’m porous with travel fever”, she sang, “but you know I’m so glad to be on my own”. She returned, at last, with the songs that formed Hejira – a dazzling meditation on resilience and responsibility, love and independence.

Here, nine of her acolytes – including The Weather Station’s Tamara Lindeman, Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering, Allison Russell and Courtney Marie Andrews, pay homage to Mitchell’s true masterpiece…

1. COYOTE

Joni’s sexiest song: a road romance with Sam Shepard on the Rolling Thunder Revue caught with a cinematographer’s eye and a metaphysical poet’s wit.

KARA JACKSON: “I was maybe 12 or 13 when I first heard Hejira and I became obsessed with the whole album. As the first song you hear, ‘Coyote’ frames the soundscape of the record with Jaco’s bass and the way her guitar almost feels like it’s looping. It established the road trip quality of the song – the way the music meanders I think makes it apparent that she wrote it on the road. Yes, there’s a specificity in the lyric about a relationship and an experience she had, but it also feels like it’s an everyman story about this character we all know so well. The coyote becomes a symbol for all sleazy men. It’s an anthem and an ode and an anti-ode all at the same time. This coyote is stringing her along but he’s almost a hero as well. I love the different layers on which the lyric works. She’s hyper-aware that she’s being manipulated and the song establishes not only her vulnerability but also her own complicity and how she participates in being used. There’s no regrets and she’s being manipulated by the road as well, pulling her along into all these situations. The highway to me is a character in the song in parallel to the coyote.

“I love the way it’s a calling to chaos in general. That’s one of the reasons I’m such a fan – Joni doesn’t shy away from the chaos. She embraces it.

I think it’s probably one of the greatest songs ever written and I referenced it in ‘Dickhead Blues’, one of the songs on my debut album, which has a line about coyotes in coffee shops. I love the whole of Hejira but as the first track ‘Coyote’ is such a statement in the way it’s saying This is just the beginning…”

2. AMELIA

The desert heart of Hejira, with Mitchell calling upon Amelia Earhart, the patron saint of solo voyagers, for solace.

TAMARA LINEMAN, THE WEATHER STATION: “I don’t remember when I first heard Hejira but I feel like I can remember how I felt. I found it very visceral and quite upsetting. Maybe I was more of a folky purist and I got disoriented by the doubled guitars and the fretless bass – as well the emotion in the lyrics, which I still find very painful. These are the things I now most like about the record, as resonate quite strongly with the emotions she is describing.

“But ‘Amelia’ was my way in. It spoke to me immediately. I feel that Hejira is very circular and on Amelia’ she is looking for a way out of the circle but not finding it. The music is slightly more major-chord, a little lighter than the rest of the record. What jumps out is the despair. It’s so painful, so sad. She feels like she is in a trap and sees things that might create an escape route but they are ‘a false alarm’. She doesn’t find a state of peace until ‘Refuge Of The Roads’. The song feels ungrounded, like it’s not touching the earth, as if the production is moving at the speed of thought, mirroring the songs in just the right way.

“She identifies with Amelia Earhart, a woman who ascended as far as a woman could but there was still no actual escape – she wasn’t able to live life on her own terms. She talks about not being capable of love – and I have a piece of that darkness. When you are depressed you become detached. That’s the feeling I heard her describe on this record when you can’t connect.

“This record must have taken a lot of courage to put out. It was not at all what people would have thought of when they thought of Joni. It’s a record that feels as if it couldn’t exist in any other way and is such a strong statement of disconnection, darkness and movement.”

3. FURRY SINGS THE BLUES

Mitchell’s road trip stops off in Memphis, Tennessee, where she finds the ghosts of Beale Street outlasting the strip’s physical decay; Neil Young plays harmonica

MEG BAIRD: “I learned about Joni from my sister, Laura, who’s quite a bit older than I am. Because of that, I always approached the music with a certain amount of reverence, because it sounded unique. It created so much space in your listening environment. I got into Hejira later. It wasn’t a discovery by any means, but I did spend more time with it at a point when that production style was not what people wanted to hear. I enjoyed it because it was an outlier – a different kind of musical space — and I could hear her taking a leap into the future, especially with her guitar sound. Her electric guitar is so prevalent on ‘Furry Sings The Blues’, like it’s running the show under the vocals. The whole song seems to emanate from that one instrument, with these session assassins hanging on her every word. It’s also a break in travel, which you need on this record. These songs are all about being on the road, and they just chug along. She stops over on Beale Street, but she knows she’s not part of this world. So she goes into portrait painter mode. She becomes a journalist. She’s taking notes and studying things and observing everything, so maybe it’s not the cosiest, warmest feeling. Her guard is up, and there’s a certain fatigue to the song.

“I’ve been to Memphis and I get a magical feeling when I’m there. It feels very romantic to me, whereas this song is so consciously unromantic. This isn’t Mystery Train. It’s a very different picture of the place and it’s not flattering to anyone – even the listener. But there’s so much complexity to it. I love that she’s giving a lot of grace to everybody and trying to figure out what it means to leave in her fancy limo.”

4. A STRANGE BOY

Though supposedly inspired by a flight attendant Mitchell had a fling with, the song now feels like a premonition of Jaco Pastorius, who glides through Hejira with his own grace and havoc

KAYLA COHEN, ITASCA: “I was late to Joni. I didn’t listen to her when I was a kid because my mother was really into Blue and I was trying to be contrarian. I had my first really strong Joni phase maybe five or six years ago. I learned a bunch of her chords and chord progressions, which are all pretty weird. She has a unique way of playing and she definitely influenced the way I played guitar. Eventually, I tried to get away from that, just because those tunings sound so much like Joni. As a listener, I’m still stuck in her early phase, but I love Hejira because the sound of the chords on this song are really sad to me.

“I don’t actually listen to it very often because it’s almost too sad. It sounds like you’re on the road by yourself and you’ve left something painful behind and you’re ruminating on it. It’s very beautiful, but also very intense.

“Actually, the first time I heard “A Strange Boy’, I decided it was about the internal dialogue she was having with this part of herself – this character she made up that represented the wild and mischievous parts of herself that were unconcerned with danger. I read later that it was about somebody she had gotten involved with. Still, that’s what’s happening a lot on this record: she’s thinking about these various experiences and going over them in her head.

“I like how the accompaniment flows in and out on ‘A Strange Boy’, like you’re passing by them on the road. You have a piece of guitar here, a little pedal steel there, a little slide guitar, a little voice singing in the background. She’s discovering the sound of the song in real time.

“To me, the whole album is in that song. It’s this little piece that represents the rest of the record.”

5. HEJIRA

Mitchell plucked the title from a dictionary, looking for a word to describe her own internal defection, while her painterly eye relished the swoop of the ‘J’.

COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS: “I am such a word person and it is like poems over tones, so this record really was perfect for me. It’s like listening to poetry and that’s why I gravitated towards it. ‘Hejira’ doesn’t have a melody or a chorus, it has a feeling, a vibe. The music is tonal – everything is about the chords of Joni’s guitar, accentuating those chords. It’s minimalist, a bed of tones for the words to sit on, more like poetry than a classic songwriter record. You can tell she wrote it while travelling.

“When you travel long distance, you can go into that repetitive, meditative state and she did an incredible job of capturing that.

“This was the break-up song on the record but what is so beautiful is that it’s her going through a heartbreak as an older woman, who has been around a few heartbreaks before – the hope and the hopelessness – I’ve witnessed 30 years. There is longing and wisdom. It’s very bittersweet; she’s sad but she is accepting at the same time.

“She talks about being glad to be alone so she can fulfil her potential as an artist, but you aren’t sure she means it. I always felt Joni was married to her work – even when she was in love, she was making that sacrifice as an artist.

“She has a depth to her rawness. She wasn’t just saying, ‘I feel this way and the world owes me something’, she was explaining that world and its nuances. It’s not all a funnel for her pain, there is no self-pity or blame. She makes big statements and it’s like she has seen every way the world can go and is finding acceptance despite it being heartbreaking. Songs on Blue are for everybody to play, but ‘Hejira’ is one of those songs that doesn’t feel as if it belongs to everyone, it belongs to the writer alone.”

— SIDE 2 —

1. SONG FOR SHARON

An engrossing meditation on matrimony, addressed to a schoolfriend, encompassing teenage dreams and midlife suicides

NADIA REID: “I was given Hejira on my 23rd birthday by a significant boyfriend. When we broke up the following year it became my touchstone, especially ‘Song For Sharon’, which saw her examining that idea as a woman of ‘Can I have it all?’ .This is something I still think about every day. When I listen to ‘Song For Sharon’, the first thing that strikes me is how timeless it is for something made in the 1970s.

“The other thing I love, like all the songs on the record, is the way she defies the rulebook of songwriting with 10 verses and no chorus. Not many people could get away with that.

“It’s observational, as if she is looking down at herself and her experiences. Sharon was a friend from her hometown and there’s envy at the simpler life. She is grappling with the choices she made. We have Joni looking at wedding dresses with longing, which isn’t how we necessarily perceive her. Did she feel like an outcast for her desire to be an artist? Then at the end she notes that Sharon might not be on stage, but she still has her music, she still sings to friends and families.

“It feels as if these songs are originality at its finest. It’s pure poetry in song form. The thing I learnt the most, as a melancholic person, is that music is a useful thing to do with that sadness. She was one of the artists who made me feel it was something I could do with those feelings. But she is very generous, there is no self-pity, she is free from that. I am entirely self-taught and I learnt so much from people like Joni. She is the greatest teacher of song.”

2. BLACK CROW

Hejira’s wildest track, with Mitchell, Larry Carlton and Jaco Pastorius forming an unlikely power trio.

ALLISON RUSSELL: “I first heard Hejira after I ran away from home at 15. I moved into an apartment with three other teenage girls and we became obsessed with the record. It embodies the journey and I’ve returned to it over and over again as I’ve made a life on the road myself. Of all the songs, ‘Black Crow’ resonates so deeply with me on so many levels. It was inspired by leaving her home in British Columbia and I lived there for nine years so I’ve done that specific journey she describes. Then there’s the wider notion of the journey and the crow as a kind of spirit guide.

“Almost without me realising, the crow has found its way into many of my songs as well.

“The lyrics are not confessional. It’s precise and surgical self-analysis – and she’s not being gentle or trying to flatter herself. That last stanza is so brutally honest – “I looked at the morning after being up all night/I looked at my haggard face in the bathroom light”. Anyone who has found themselves in precarious circumstances as a traveller or an artist in this world has felt a version of that. Kris Kristofferson asked her once if she was sure she wanted to go that deep and show that much, but she was so brave and going far beyond what anyone else was writing. I’m not comparing myself to her as a songwriter, but I couldn’t have written anything I’ve written without her showing how it’s done. Nobody else could have written ‘Black Crow’ but I also don’t think anybody else could play like it like she did.

“There’s no drummer on the track but you don’t miss it because her rhythm guitar playing is so driving. She is the drums and the melody and the counterpoint all at the same time. It’s bonkers!”

3. BLUE MOTEL ROOM

In “Amelia”, Mitchell stops off at the Cactus Tree Motel; here she takes a break on the road home for a more conventional torch song.

ROSALI: “I love how this song starts. It’s so loose and open, swirling and circular – which is how our thoughts usually are, especially when we’re alone. It tells you that this is going to be a different kind of song, with a drifty, dreamy mood that sounds to me like a jazz standard. I love her wordless, layered vocal parts, which usually take the place of another instrument that might be soloing, like horns or a guitar. ‘Blue Hotel Room’ is a respite from the road. It’s a break from the searching and driving songs that came before and she’s letting herself relax, take a deep breath and think about home.

“Her mind wanders to the very basic human question of whether we’ll be loved. It’s a very specific story, but it’s also very relatable in the ways she’s licking her wounds and trying to soothe her bruised heart. She’s idealising a relationship and thinking about the concessions she’s willing to make, which she explains in the final verse. If he’ll stop sneaking around town, she’ll stop travelling. She fantasises that it’ll work, but in reality you know it’s not going to. I think she understands that on a certain level. But still, when you’re alone in a strange place, you want the comfort of home and a familiar love. Especially for a touring musician, there’s something very relatable about stopping for the night and finding yourself alone and depressed in a hotel room. It can just break you. You start thinking about all the things you miss, and you start wondering why you’re even there. It can be depressing and humbling, although as soon as you get back on the road, that disappears.”

4. REFUGE OF THE ROADS

Her Buddhist teacher preaches “heart and humour and humility”, and Mitchell finds it among the beachtown drifters she falls in with one Gulf Coast spring.

NATALIE MERING, WEYES BLOOD: “I was raised on Joni Mitchell. Since the womb, it was the most played music in my house and Hejira was the one that hit me the hardest. I love the way the guitar and fretless bass shaped around the folky songs. It’s the most ahead-of-its-time album of the 1970s and foreshadows whole genres. There is one chord change in Refuge Of The Roads’ that gets me every time, this perfect open fretless bass change.

“‘Refuge Of The Roads’ captures that feeling you get when you are on the road. As a musician you travel so much that when you get home, it’s a shitshow. The refuge of the road is a real thing. She is singing about having a weary, wandering soul and realising that when you are wandering you have your greatest sense of belonging. She would often do these big trips, which was so smart and probably a lot of fun in the late 196os and 1970S.

“That’s the concept of the album and it makes ‘Refuge..’ the centrepiece alongside ‘Amelia’, which is so much about travel as well, by this yearning, exploratory seeker. On ‘Refuge…’ it’s as if she has accepted her wandering spirit and let that be her strength and her home. It’s beautiful because she accepts her job was surfing the waves rather than standing on the seashore looking out.

“She was an indestructible tough gal. She could play like a man and had the confidence of a man in a way that is often difficult for a woman to manage. Any emotion combined with that level of ferocity is powerful. As time passes, it’s cool to see these sleeper albums blossom. That introspective quality of Joni was ahead of its time. She was the forerunner of that sort of vulnerability.”

By Stephen Deusner, Peter Watts and Nigel Williamson