(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / David Gans)
Thu 20 November 2025 19:39, UK
Break-ups are one of the most revisited topics in songwriting. Heartbreak has proven to be a limitless muse, inspiring some of the most emotional and esteemed songs of all time, but most musicians pen their sonic odes to separation after the deed has been done. For Joni Mitchell, that simply wouldn’t do.
Mitchell’s position as a so-called confessional songwriter has meant that much of her life events can be found in the liner notes of her albums. For better or worse, Mitchell’s abilities have meant that she has found expression and exorcism in her work, allowing her fans an insight into her life and a comforter for their own. But it also means some people are caught in the crossfire.
Over the years, Mitchell has written about many people in her life. Some who floated in and swept her away, like her ode to Leonard Cohen, and others who left her disgruntled with their willingness to blast away at her work, like her pointed attack of Bob Dylan. But it was some of her love interests who perhaps bore the brunt of her work, with one particular boyfriend suffering the prestigious honour of a song written simply to break up with him.
In the late 1960s, two musical giants collided when Mitchell embarked upon a romantic relationship with David Crosby of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash fame. Their lives would intertwine both professionally and personally as Crosby produced Mitchell’s debut record, Song to a Seagull, for release in 1968.
Despite an early honeymoon phase marked by romance and record production, their relationship would eventually come to an end in a particularly fitting manner. Rather than breaking up with Crosby in any of the usual ways – a tender conversation or even a casual phone call – Mitchell decided to do it via song.
She penned ‘That Song About the Midway’, a damning song containing all of Mitchell’s anger towards her soon-to-be ex. The song begins with the couple’s tender beginnings before plunging into Crosby’s transgressions. “You were betting on some lover, you were shaking up the dice, and I thought I saw you cheating once or twice,” Mitchell declares over glorious guitars.
The song is a savage enough statement in its own right, but the way Mitchell delivered it was all the more embarrassing. At a gathering, surrounded by their friends, the Canadian songwriter performed the track not once, but twice, directing it at Crosby.
“I remember we were at Pete Tork’s house and the whole gang was there,” Crosby recalled during a conversation with Uncut, “maybe 20 people. Joni comes storming in, plonks herself down and says, ‘I’ve got a new song to sing to you.’” At first, Crosby was excited by the prospect of hearing her latest creation, but he was quickly humbled.
“She sang ‘That Song About The Midway’, which was her goodbye song to me,” he continued, “A pretty forceful goodbye! She finished, looked up at me – everyone was sitting there aghast – and sang it again! Ha-ha! Just in case I didn’t get it the first time. Then she packed up her guitar and left. Falling for her was a little like falling into a cement mixer.”
It’s a formidable way to force a break-up, one only Mitchell could execute so masterfully, and the two would split not long after. Crosby retained a sonic souvenir of their relationship in ‘That Song About The Midway’ and, despite the clear tension between them at the time, the pair still remained close friends.
Listen to ‘That Song About The Midway’, the song Joni Mitchell wrote to break up with David Crosby, below.
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