How do you know if you’re a music legend? We’re not exactly sure, but being presented with a lifetime achievement award by the prime minister of your country is probably a pretty good indicator that you’ve done something right.
That was the honour afforded to Joni Mitchell at last night’s Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent of The Grammys, where it was Canadian PM Mark Carney who took to the stage to sing Mitchell’s praises.
After noting that Mitchell’s songs have been covered more than 8,000 times, he singled out her own ‘cover’ of one of her earlier songs, Both Sides Now, as one of his favourites.
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“Joni first recorded this masterpiece in 1969 and, in that version, we hear an emerging artist sing of moons and Junes and Ferris wheels; a young poet seemingly at peace with her new-found revelations about love,” said Carney.
“By 2000, when Joni revisited the song, that wistful levity of youth had been replaced by the raw vulnerability of a woman who has lived and, like so many of us, finds humility in the mystery of it all. The same words. The same words brilliantly imagined by the artist to reveal the song's enduring truth that something's lost but something's gained in living every day. Music [and] Canada has gained from Joni Mitchell living every one of her days.”
Carney closed by calling Mitchell “one of the greatest artists of all time.”
Mitchell then walked to the stage to receive her award, calling Carney “our wonderful prime minister” on two separate occasions. “I’m so glad to be back in Canada,” she said, before explaining how the brain aneurysm she suffered in 2015 “changed my life for the better”.
“I went into a coma which helped me to quit smoking,” Mitchell continued, to some amusement. “My house filled up with the most wonderful nurses. I was on the road with men for years and years and years and now I live with a house full of women and I have a fantastic therapist.”
Summing up, Mitchell said: “My life has changed for the better: out of a catastrophe, like a phoenix, you know, rose a better life.”
There was more, though. In honour of Mitchell, Canadian artists Sarah McLachlan and Allison Russell sang a medley of her songs, starting with A Case Of You and Both Sides Now. This was followed by Big Yellow Taxi, and who should emerge but Joni herself, to chip in with a line here and there. While she seemed hesitant at times – at one point wondering if her mic was on – her contributions drew rousing cheers.
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