(Credits: Far Out / Anton_Corbijn)
Sun 12 October 2025 19:28, UK
While music is subjective, which means no artist is entirely universally loved, Joni Mitchell is as close to anyone to occupying that impossible position.
Finding detractors of the singer-songwriter is a tremendously challenging task, with admirers stretching far and wide across the musical spectrum from an abundance of genres. One figure who would happily lose his voice from shouting about his deep-rooted love of Mitchell is Pink Floyd supremo David Gilmour.
His love of folk music isn’t particularly discernable from his prog-rock output with and without Pink Floyd. However, the genre took a stranglehold on him during the 1960s, and its grip on his life remains heavy-handed.
Mitchell made her commercial breakthrough shortly after Gilmour joined Pink Floyd. While he wasn’t a founding member of the band, he was recruited due to Syd Barrett’s deteriorating mental health and heavy drug use, a situation that had left his bandmates with no choice but to recruit an additional member. Soon, though, his role in the band became more significant, and Gilmour eventually became an indispensable cog in the Pink Floyd machine. Before this point of joining the prog-rock pioneers, Gilmour thought his musical future lay in a very different territory.
He previously busked around Europe with his band, Jokers Wild, which was an expression of his love of folk. Yet, once he had one foot in the Pink Floyd machine, the trajectory of his career changed forever. Nevertheless, his love of folk remains strong, especially for Mitchell. The Canadian has been taking up space in Gilmour’s record collection for most of his life.
He also mentioned Mitchell during his appearance on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs when guests are elected to pick eight songs they’d take with them for company on a desert island. Gilmour listed her classic track, ‘For Free‘, as one of his favourite songs of all time, and one of the eight compositions he couldn’t live without. The guitarist said of his pick: “This is Joni Mitchell’s struggle with her wall, if you like. The struggle with her conscience, with being a rich person but still being an artist.”
‘For Free’ appeared on Mitchell’s classic album, Ladies of the Canyon, and is a perfect example of her masterful storytelling ability. She wrote it about a street musician in New York whom she’d regularly see performing for no money or fanfare despite his immense talent. This realisation gave Mitchell a moral quandary about her own career, which she dealt with on ‘For Free’
In addition to appreciating her lyricism, like on ‘For Free’, the former Pink Floyd member also gushes over her guitar playing, which he believes is underappreciated.
Many years ago, Gilmour took part in the largest auction of guitars in history, giving away the majority of his collection for a good cause. As part of the auction, he was asked a series of questions, including: “Who inspired you and how did you manage to grow out of their shadow to sound so original?”
Pausing for a moment, he then gave Mitchell the respect she deserves by replying: “So many players inspired me. I learned from Pete Seeger, Hank Marvin, Lead Belly, Joni Mitchell, John Fahey, Roy Buchanon, Jeff [Beck] and Eric [Clapton] and dozens more. I copied – don’t be afraid to copy – and eventually something that I suppose that I would call my own appeared.”
Additionally, during a discussion with NPR, Gilmour namechecked Mitchell once more and said: “There are a thousand other influences that have sort of gone together — folk music, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Big Bill Broonzy, John Fahey, Joni Mitchell — there are thousands of players and singers who have directly influenced the music that I make and who have sort of created the bedrock of what you might call my style”.
Gilmour views Mitchell as an all-time great, and it’s difficult to disagree with his assessment. Albums such as Blue and Ladies of the Canyon proved pivotal in establishing what a singer-songwriter should be, and more than 50 years later, many new talents are still attempting to copy her schtick. However, it was her originality which made her a star, and that can never be replicated.
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