There was scarcely a dry eye in the house when Joni Mitchell took the stage at the Crypto.com Arena toward the middle of the Grammy Awards to sing “Both Sides Now.” Although written by Mitchell, Judy Collins recorded the song first and released it on her 1967 album, Wildflowers. Suffering a common dilemma among songwriters (save for Diane Warren) who allow their compositions to be sung by other people, Mitchell didn’t like Collins’ interpretation of the track and ended up recording it herself for 1969’s Clouds. Her sophomore album was quick to chart on the Billboard 200 (at its highest position, it went up to number thirty-one), with “Both Sides Now” becoming her signature song as much as “Like A Virgin” would become Madonna’s on her own sophomore album. It was for this reason that Mitchell chose to sing it to mark her first-ever performance at the Grammys in her fifty-six year career. That’s right, despite winning eleven Grammys (now twelve after Sunday), Mitchell had never previously taken the stage at the ceremony to remind people of why.
At age eighty, it seemed just as good a time as any to highlight to the audience watching the Grammys (whether in-person or at home) of how she is the progenitor of the confessional female singer-songwriter shtick (to use a somewhat jaded term). In other words, without Joni, there would be no Taylor, no Lana. And without them, there would be no Olivia, no Billie—and so the cycle continues. She was joined onstage for a rousing reminder of what she “hath wrought” by Brandi Carlile (as her number one fan, that was only natural), SistaStrings, Blake Mills, Lucius, Allison Russell and Jacob Collier, all of whom flanked her as she sat in a regal armchair at the center of the chandelier-bedecked stage while holding a cane. As the chair slowly turned around, one couldn’t help but flash to a similar moment at the Billboard Music Awards in 2016, when Madonna turned in a similar fashion in her own fancy chair with a cane to sing a tribute to Prince in the form of “Nothing Compares 2 U” (at the Grammy Awards this year, Annie Lennox would sing that as a means to pay homage to Sinead O’Connor, even though Prince was not a fan of her cover—which sounds slightly familiar in terms of Mitchell not being a fan of Collins’ interpretation of her work…except Collins’ version was considered the first instead of vice versa).
But Mitchell gets far more respect than Madonna, so no one would ever try to mock her for having a cane (something Madonna uses for style rather than function, at her own risk of more public mockery). Apparently, once you get legitimately old, people don’t try to give you as much shit for it (Joe Biden and other U.S. government officials being the exception to the rule). And with Mitchell being eighty, she’s more than earned her stripes, ergo her right not to be judged for how she looks. But then, unlike post-Madonna pop stars, Mitchell’s work was always about substance over style, whereas pop music doesn’t exist without the flourishes of spectacle. This extends not only to how women dress and look, but also what they incorporate into their performances.
Incidentally, the woman to bridge this gap between “thoughtful music” and spectacle before Madonna even broke onto the scene was Celine Dion, whose debut album, La voix du bon Dieu, came out in 1981. Her gradual veering toward becoming more pop than “choir girl” happened in 1983, with her first hit single, “D’amour et d’amitié.” By the time Dion transitioned to English-language music and, much later, her spectacle-laden Vegas residency, Madonna had already put up a decided partition between the categories of pop singer and “serious” singer (even though Like A Prayer allowed critics to see her as both). For years, Dion was most people’s answer to the latter, until Madonna finally started to be reconsidered for her vocal and songwriting talents with 1998’s Ray of Light. 1998 was also the year, as it happened, when VH1 Divas Live aired, a special honoring Aretha Franklin by flanking her with Gloria Estefan, Shania Twain, Mariah Carey and, that’s right, Celine Dion. The latter was shaded in Mariah’s 2020 autobiography (though not by name or as many times as Madonna) for not “understan[ing] the culture of the court, and tr[ying] to come for the Queen” during the closing performance. As if. Dion was simply putting back out the energy that Franklin was giving when no one else would, not even Mariah. So hopefully the two didn’t run into each other backstage at Crypto.com Arena, because the last thing Dion needs after being diagnosed with a highly rare neurological disorder called stiff-person syndrome and being totally ignored and disregarded by Taylor Swift onstage is Mariah’s kind of self-superior energy. Which was only fed into all the more when Miley Cyrus accepted the first award for the night and graciously bowed down to her (figuratively, not literally) in a way that Swift probably should have with Dion.
But clearly, she was too caught up in the moment. Not just of making Grammy history by winning Album of the Year four times—the only musician ever to do so—but also of paying more respect to Lana Del Rey than Celine. Who proved her resilience yet again not just by showing up in her current health condition to dole out this honor, but by taking Swift’s comportment with a grain of salt. Though surely Swift couldn’t have acted that way if Mitchell had presented her with the award, for she is thought to be among Swift’s biggest influences, blueprint-wise, in her later album years. The “confessional, no holds barred” songwriting tack and all that.
Then again, there was a time when Mitchell wasn’t really of the mind that Swift was anything like her, saying back in 2014, when it was still rumored that Swift might play Mitchell in a biopic, “I squelched that. I said to the producer, ‘All you’ve got is a girl with high cheekbones.’” Not exactly high praise for Swift for anything beyond her looks (which remain the Aryan wet dream). Though Swift has perhaps taken the shade-throwing in songs even farther than Mitchell, who told Elton John during their 2022 interview together, “People thought that [my songwriting] was too intimate. It was almost like Dylan going electric—I think it upset the male singer-songwriters. They go, ‘Oh no, do we have to bare our souls like this stuff, you know. I think it made people nervous, you know. More nervous than…it took to this generation, they seem to be able to face those emotions more easily than my generation.”
That it did and that they do. Though Dion, another emotional Canadian (must be something in the water there), has her fair share of soul-baring songs. The only “catch” is, she didn’t write most of them. And yet, like Whitney Houston, her emotional delivery could fool anyone into believing that she had lived these experiences. Which, perhaps she did in some way or another. For, like Beyoncé often being approached with material that “might work” for her specific personality, so, too, do icons in Dion’s echelon receive song submissions that are tailored to them. Written with them foremost in mind. Which is perhaps why Swift looked down her nose at Dion while onstage, instead focusing on a fellow singer-songwriter like Del Rey’s accomplishments.
Whatever the reason for Swift’s social faux pas, Dion’s presence in conjunction with Mitchell’s on this night of a thousand stars spoke to the unique ability that these women have to bounce back from even the greatest of falls. Both physical and emotional. And there’s no doubt that their love of and connection to music is part of what has kept them both enduring in a manner that is, alas, simply “expected” of women, whether they’re legendary sonic powerhouses or not. Thus, women’s resilience is often taken for granted. Sort of the way Madonna’s continued presence is on this Earth after her own near-death experience during the summer of 2023. And yet, one would never know it to see her on The Celebration Tour now. Mitchell, too, is planning to take the stage at the Hollywood Bowl in October for the Joni Jam. And, who knows, Dion might well find a way to tour again. If she can take the stage at the Grammys, then maybe at least one live performance isn’t far behind…
