Episode 53–Both Sides Now

Click here to view a transcript of this show. Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. They're still stunning to look at. The late 1960s was a great time for the fusion of folk and pop music, and a lot of singer-songwriters made their marks with recording their songs, and those of other performers, during that time. So it was when Judy Collins first heard Joni Mitchell singing "Both Sides Now" down a telephone line one late night in 1967. Collins met with Mitchell and Al Kooper that very night in the bar from which Kooper placed the phone call, and the song wound up as the opening track to Side Two of Collins' seventh album, Wildflowers. For whatever reason, though, the song wasn't released as a single for about a year, but releasing the song turned out to be a great idea, because it turned into Collins' first foray into Billboard's Top 40 and propelled Wildflowers to the Number 5 position on their albums chart. Joni Mitchell, in the meantime, managed to score a recording contract of her own and recorded it, along with several other songs that had already been cut by other artists (including "Chelsea Morning", which Collins had recorded and released as a single earlier that year) and a few new tracks. "Both Sides Now" became a stealth title track for her self-produced second album, Clouds, and finally propelled her into the public light. The song has been covered literally dozens of times from 1967 all the way up to this decade, and by artists of all ages and genres so clearly this is a song whose impact will be felt for many years to come. As usual, your podcast software should have this show by now, but if you dig listening to it from here (looking at you, Brother Of Mine), by all means have at it: And, of course, I'd be thrilled beyond measure if you were to leave a comment or a rating/review wherever you get your podcasts.