“Once again I couldn’t walk. I had to learn how again. I couldn’t talk,” she said later. As a girl, she had survived polio. “The aneurysm took away a lot more, really. Took away my speech and my ability to walk.”
She got her speech back quickly. Walking took much longer. She even had to teach herself to play guitar again, watching videos online to see where to put her fingers.
“I’m a fighter,” she said. “I knew, ‘Here I go again, another battle.’”
Then, on July 24, 2022, something wonderful happened.
Singer Brandi Carlile was closing the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, billed only as “Brandi Carlile and Friends.” Then she introduced her special guest: Joni Mitchell, 78 years old, who took her seat on stage in a beret and glittering beads.
It was Joni’s first full-length concert since 2000, at the same festival where she had first appeared back in 1967.
Near the end of the night, she sang one of her best-loved songs, “Both Sides Now.” Her voice is deeper now, and you can hear what she has been through. But that only makes the words hit harder: “Something’s lost, but something’s gained in living every day.”
When she finishes, someone on stage asks, “Did the world just stop?”
Afterward, she admitted she had been nervous. “I wanted to be good and I wasn’t sure that I could be,” she said. “But I didn’t sound too bad tonight.”
No, Joni. Not too bad at all.
Which Joni Mitchell song takes you back? Share this with a friend who loves her music.
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