{"id":656819,"date":"2026-06-25T03:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T03:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/656819\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T03:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T03:20:14","slug":"joni-mitchells-favourite-steely-dan-song-of-all-time-is-a-1980-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/656819\/","title":{"rendered":"Joni Mitchell’s favourite Steely Dan song of all time is a 1980 classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joni<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

Wed 24 June 2026 17:46, UK <\/p>\n

As the progenitor of truly open-heart songwriting, Joni Mitchell<\/a> is one of the most revered artists of all time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Always faithful to her unwavering artistic convictions, Mitchell has enjoyed substantial commercial success alongside artistic enlightenment over the course of her long and oscillating career. She\u2019s been happy to forego commercial rewards to follow her path of experimentation, which saw her music become increasingly polarising and threaten to push her into total obscurity throughout the 1970s and \u201980s. <\/p>\n

In terms of artistic quality, Mitchell is cut from the same cloth as Bob Dylan<\/a> and Leonard Cohen. She\u2019s always led by example when it comes to music, showing us how to do it correctly and without selling out. Duly, there\u2019s also an argument that posits that Mitchell was one of the first true punks, as she defied established mores in every way imaginable, shunning the trappings of the industry and going about things in her own cult way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even upholding punk\u2019s snotty, asocial manner by slandering the scent of Dylan\u2019s breath in one of her more dubious critiques.<\/p>\n

One thing is very clear, though, Mitchell is an iconoclast. Everything she puts her mind to follows her own free will, owing to her understanding of the countercultural notion of liberty and a preference for Ayn Rand. Regardless of her politics, you cannot question that she \u2018s one of the most remarkable figures in music history and that she remains one of the most captivating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Steely<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Steely Dan \/ Shockwaves Records<\/p>\n

Aside from her music, Mitchell is also famous for her opinions, which, much like her art, tend to veer off the beaten path. Whether it be her comments on poetry<\/a> or her generation as a whole, the golden-haired songstress has delivered many surprising opinions over the years. <\/p>\n

In 2005, she dropped another one related to misanthropic music nerds, Steely Dan, but it\u2019s one we can all get behind. Picking a selection of \u2018Music That Matters to Her\u2019 as part of a feature published on her website<\/a>, Mitchell chose \u2018Third World Man\u2019 from 1980\u2019s Gaucho as her favourite by the band and offered up her take on the album. The ever-forthright Mitchell said, \u201cI never understood why Gaucho didn\u2019t receive the critical acclaim of Aja. I\u2019m convinced that if Gaucho had come first and then Aja, the same thing would have happened in reverse.\u201d <\/p>\n

She explained: \u201cTo maintain this high standard of musicality and storytelling through two projects is most praiseworthy \u2013 but there is something ignorant and arbitrary in rock journalism \u2013 editorial policy maybe \u2013 like \u2018We were kind last time, let\u2019s kill \u2019em this time!\u2019 Or maybe it was like second-date syndrome, where unrealistic expectations eclipse a plenty good reality. Of all the great songs on these two albums, the first to come to mind was \u2018Third World Man\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storytelling is the key to why she loves this particular track and Steely Dan, in general. She has always craved sincerity in her art. In fact, despite her poetic lyrics, she has even said that she isn\u2019t a fan of poetry, questioning how one person can continually write about love and break-ups and still mean it. Seemingly, we can infer that she might not be much of a fan of Adele.<\/p>\n

However, the quirks of Steely Dan and their deeply human tales of the absurd comedy we wrap ourselves up in is very much to her taste. Of course, Mitchell is correct in her judgment of their discography, too. Gaucho is an excellent album in its own right and was indeed overlooked because Aja preceded it, which is one of the great tragedies of Steely Dan\u2019s career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be honest, after releasing something as impeccable as Aja, it was always going to be difficult to replicate it, but thanks to a few thousand takes in the studio and their caustic wit, they just about did. Her old buddy David Crosby was in firm agreement as well.<\/p>\n

In many ways, \u2018Third World Man\u2019 is a fairly unusual choice, typical of Mitchell and her contrarian ways (perhaps that\u2019s why she likes the Dan). It lacks the immediate hooks of \u2018Hey Nineteen\u2019 or the immaculate Ray-Ban cool of \u2018Babylon Sisters\u2019. Instead, it closes Gaucho on an ambiguous note, sketching a fragmented portrait of a troubled outsider whose struggles are never fully explained, much like Steely Dan\u2019s very ethos. <\/p>\n

That ambiguity may be precisely why it appealed to Mitchell. Like many of her finest songs, \u2018Third World Man\u2019 resists easy interpretation, trusting listeners to inhabit the character with a degree of empathy rather than simply observe him. It is deeper and more textured than most pop, and Mitchell and Steely Dan both prided themselves on that very tenet.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy Wed 24 June 2026 17:46, UK As the progenitor of truly open-heart songwriting,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[220512,15737,96,47936,128,24070,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-656819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-aja","tag-bob-dylan","tag-entertainment","tag-joni-mitchell","tag-music","tag-steely-dan","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656819","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=656819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}