{"id":445653,"date":"2026-02-25T23:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T23:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/445653\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T23:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T23:47:11","slug":"the-one-cover-song-joni-mitchell-couldnt-stand-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/445653\/","title":{"rendered":"The one cover song Joni Mitchell couldn’t stand hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joni<\/p>\n

(Credits: Alamy)<\/p>\n

Wed 25 February 2026 20:00, UK <\/p>\n

Joni Mitchell<\/a> is one of those few artists that most bands should really leave alone. <\/p>\n

Most of her songs are already perfect just the way they are, and no matter how many times people have tried to take her tunes in different directions, she is one of the ultimate examples of the phrase \u2018no one sings a song better than its writer\u2019. There have certainly been some decent renditions of her tunes throughout the years, but there are many times when things can go awfully awry when someone doesn\u2019t have the right idea.<\/p>\n

Then again, the ones that truly understood what they were doing when covering Mitchell\u2019s material usually benefited from taking it in a different direction. The original version of the song \u2018Woodstock\u2019 is still one of the most beautiful sombre ballads of her career, but by putting an electrified guitar riff below everything, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were one of the few bands that truly understood what it meant. If Mitchell\u2019s version captured the melancholy of not being able to go to the festival, this version was from the perspective of those on the ground floor watching everyone tune in and drop out.<\/p>\n

Compare that with, let\u2019s say, Counting Crows doing their own version of \u2018Big Yellow Taxi<\/a>\u2019. Yes, the song is decently performed, and Adam Duritz is adding his own signature spice to the whole thing, but even with everything sounding perfect, it practically misses the point entirely. That tune is all about trying to find beauty in a world that embraces the natural side of life, so to have everything sequenced and giving it the same pop sheen that bands like Backstreet Boys were used to wasn\u2019t exactly what the song had in mind.<\/p>\n

But if there was any song that Mitchell felt needed to be given away to somebody else, it was \u2018Both Sides Now\u2019. She had written a song that could stand alongside some of the greatest standards of all time, but since the lyrics were being spoken by someone who had already seen everything that life has to offer, it wasn\u2019t exactly the best idea for her to be singing the tune while she was still in her 20s. Not everyone was going to believe that, but giving it away to Frank Sinatra wasn\u2019t the best idea, either.<\/p>\n

Sinatra never gave a bad performance of any of the songs he was given, but when listening to his version, Mitchell felt that the schlocky arrangement behind him made the whole thing virtually unlistenable, saying<\/a>, \u201c\u2018Both Sides Now\u2019 I think is better sung by someone in their 50\u2019s or 60\u2019s reflecting back on their life, speaking theatrically. But poor Frank, though. They gave him this terrible arrangement \u2013 it was all wrong for him. And on the album cover he has his hand over his face and he\u2019s sitting on the curb. And I felt for him. I thought I would love if we do a tribute album if they would get a really good arranger rather than trying to make a folk-rocker out of Frank.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not even the first time that someone messed up one of Sinatra\u2019s takes on a rock and roll star. \u2018Ol\u2019 Blue Eyes\u2019 didn\u2019t really have time for rock and roll during his prime, but his version of Paul Simon\u2019s tunes had the same kind of effect on Simon when he heard how the crooner had mutilated some of his classics.<\/p>\n

But maybe that\u2019s what drove Mitchell to eventually redo her tune years after the fact. Sinatra was still one of the greatest to ever sing in popular music, but when Mitchell tried her hand at \u2018Both Sides Now\u2019 well after the fact, it felt like she had finally matured into the kind of person who lived a full life and could speak some real truth when talking about looking at the world from every different angle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It may have taken a little while for \u2018Both Sides Now\u2019 to get its due, but it\u2019s not like any of the versions are necessarily bad by any stretch. Each of them is competently played and has at least something tasteful about them, but the final version that Mitchell has always been the most authentic version that you will ever hear.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Alamy) Wed 25 February 2026 20:00, UK Joni Mitchell is one of those few artists that most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,16087,47936,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-445653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-frank-sinatra","tag-joni-mitchell","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445653","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=445653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}