![\"Joni](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Joni-Mitchell-Billy-Idol-Split-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Mon 8 December 2025 11:00, UK <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not used to singing for real,\u201d Billy Idol<\/a> confessed to the Sacramento Bee in 1987. \u201cI usually scream, make a noise.\u201d<\/p>\n Billy was selling himself a bit short there. By this point, the leather clad, bleach-blonde MTV mainstay had fully transformed from an actual punk (with the 1970s outfit Generation X) into a sort of delightful, late \u201880s cartoon characterisation of a punk, notching quite a few fun, sing-a-long hits along the way: \u2018White Wedding\u2019, \u2018Rebel Yell\u2019, \u2018Eyes Without a Face\u2019, etc.<\/p>\n Even so, the 32-year-old wasn\u2019t exactly sitting around expecting to get an invitation to collaborate from one of the greatest singer\/songwriters of all time \u2013 especially one who seemed to have settled into her later career happily making mellow jazz albums.<\/p>\n But, lo and behold, there she was \u2013 a 43-year-old Joni Mitchell<\/a> on the horn asking for Billy Idol by name, saying she was looking for \u201can aggressive singer\u201d for a specific new song she was working on called \u2018Dancin\u2019 Clown\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI laughed, and I was shocked,\u201d Idol said, apparently not offended at the notion of being aggressive nor potentially a clown. \u201cI wondered if it was right for me to do, but she read me the lyrics over the phone and the track was near to what I would sing about anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Idol\u2019s specific lines, as he would later perform them, do certainly sound more like something from his own back catalogue than anything one would generally expect from the writer of \u2018Both Sides Now\u2019: \u201cYou\u2019re a push button window \/ I can run you up and down \/ Anytime I can make you my dancin\u2019 clown\u201d.<\/p>\n \u2018Dancin\u2019 Clown\u2019, which was finally released on Joni\u2019s 1988 semi-return to pop, Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, was just one of the many high-profile collaborations on the album, which also included cameos from Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, and Don Henley. Weirdly, Tom Petty and Thomas \u2018She Blinded Me with Science\u2019 Dolby also have small guest spots on \u2018Dancin\u2019 Clown\u2019 \u2013 a very bizarre song that feels like a Frankenstein monster of 1987 elements that don\u2019t work together. <\/p>\n It has the immediate vibe of an over-produced, light-rock Stevie Winwood single with the contrasting, nutty inclusion of an occasional Def Leppard riff. Billy Idol\u2019s \u201ccome ons!\u201d and \u201cwoos!\u201d also feel like they\u2019ve been forced out of him by the use of an electric shock collar, and they very well might have been for all we know.<\/p>\n So, how did this get made? And why would Joni Mitchell have sought this out for herself? This was, after all, the woman who\u2019d played with the likes of Neil Young, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus! \u201cI cast voices the same way you\u2019d cast a face in a film,\u201d Mitchell explained in an interview with Knight-Ridder News shortly after the release of Chalk Mark. \u201cThis has happened all through my career. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young<\/a>, James Taylor \u2013 my generation was hippies back then, and we worked together. Nothing has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n In the case of \u2018Dancin\u2019 Clown\u2019, Mitchell\u2019s selection of Billy Idol\u2019s face\/voice didn\u2019t lead to an illustrious series of future collabs between the mismatched pair, but it didn\u2019t lead to any regrets either.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m an artist,\u201d Mitchell proclaimed at the time. \u201cWhat is an artist\u2019s pursuit? It\u2019s always been the same thing \u2013 truth and beauty. If you hit that truth, that\u2019s the stuff of art. Gossip [about collaborators, for example] is trivial next to the work, but that\u2019s what this society responds to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Mon 8 December 2025 11:00, UK \u201cI\u2019m not used to singing for real,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[29426,96,47936,128,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-305038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-billy-idol","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-joni-mitchell","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}