Iconic folk singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell boasts a catalog that seems to entirely consist of intergenerational anthems.
Her discography, revered for its heartfelt and candid storytelling, is timeless: Look no further than “Both Sides Now,” one of her best-known songs about the lessons of love and life, which she wrote when she was just 21 years old. Over the years, the one constant in all of her renditions of the song is that Mitchell still doesn’t have all the answers to the questions she sings about — and maybe never will. But there’s a kind of wisdom in that, and the song reveals new meanings each time she revisits it — most recently, when Mitchell, now 80 years old, performed it at the 2024
Grammys. As the song says, we really don’t know life at all — but it still comes full circle.
In a reflective mood at this stage in her introspective career, Mitchell will release The Asylum Albums (1976-1980) this summer, a five-disc box set of remastered albums from the Joni Mitchell Archives. So there’s no better time than now to listen to some of her greatest songs of the last 60 years — many of which have been used in shows and films to dramatize emotional moments and life transitions.
In the series finale of After Life, Ricky Gervais’ Tony looks at life from both sides. Throughout the show, he’s become numb to the world following the passing of his wife, Lisa (Kerry Godliman). As the series comes to a close, Tony recalls how Mitchell was his wife’s favorite artist — they danced to “Both Sides Now” at their wedding. A cover of the song plays at the very end of the episode as Tony finally begins to soften.
The holidays aren’t the same when the people you love are far away. That’s the premise of this episode, as Emma Green (Hilary Swank) is on a spacecraft en route to Mars and her husband, Matt (Josh Charles), and teenage daughter, Alexis (Talitha Bateman), are back home on Earth. Mitchell’s melancholy Christmas classic “River” provides the perfect backdrop — it’s a song about the pain of being apart from someone you love. This Christmas stings a little more for the family, after Emma and Matt have their last phone call before communication grows spotty in space. The sad sleigh bells of “River” play as Matt looks to the sky and Emma toward Earth, each longing for the other.
