Little Green (song)

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"Little Green"
Song by Joni Mitchell
from the album Blue
Released1971
GenreFolk rock
Length3:25
LabelReprise
Songwriter(s)Joni Mitchell
Producer(s)Joni Mitchell

"Little Green" is a song composed and performed by Joni Mitchell. It is the third track on her 1971 album Blue.

Background[]

Mitchell wrote "Little Green" in 1966, shortly after she had signed the papers to place her daughter for adoption the previous year, while she was a poor folk singer in Toronto.[1] The existence of her daughter, originally called Kelly Dale, was not publicly known until 1993, when a roommate from Mitchell's art-school days in the 1960s sold the story of the adoption to a tabloid magazine.[2][3][4] Mitchell commented on the situation in an interview quoted in a 1998 article: "I was dirt poor. An unhappy mother does not raise a happy child. It was difficult parting with the child, but I had to let her go."[5] Mitchell was reunited with her daughter, Kilauren Gibb, in 1997.[6]

The guitar tuning Mitchell uses on the song is Open G (low-to-high: D G D G B D).[7]

Critical reaction[]

Writing for Rolling Stone in 1971, Timothy Crouse, said:

Several of the lesser cuts on Blue give every indication of having sat in Joni's trunk for some time. The folkie melody of "Little Green" recalls "I Don't Know Where I Stand" from her second album. The pretty, "poetic" lyric is dressed up in such cryptic references that it passeth all understanding.[8]

Reflecting on the song for The Atlantic in 2013, Jack Hamilton noted that "Little Green", arguably the most personal song on Blue, was not written about a lover but rather about Mitchell's daughter, concluding that "Blue was Mitchell's way into music that transcended her life to become about yours and everyone else's."[9]

Bob Dylan played the song on the "Colors" episode of Season 1 of his Theme Time Radio Hour show in 2007.[10]

References[]

  1. ^ Dan Chiasson (October 2, 2017). "Joni Mitchell's Openhearted Heroism". The New Yorker.
  2. ^ Higgins, Bill (April 8, 1997). "Both sides at last". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 27, 2011.
  3. ^ Pertman, Adam (March 16, 2011). Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming Our Families -- and America. Harvard Common Press. pp. 289–. ISBN 978-1-55832-716-0. Retrieved November 27, 2011.
  4. ^ Dale Eisler. "Joni Mitchell's Secret". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 4, 2015.
  5. ^ Posner, Michael (April 11, 1998). "Little Green a Little Blue". Toronto Globe and Mail. Retrieved November 27, 2011.
  6. ^ Purvis, Andrew (April 21, 1997), "Joni, No Longer Blue", Time Magazine, retrieved June 29, 2021
  7. ^ "Joni Mitchell - Little Green - transcription". jonimitchell.com. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  8. ^ Crouse, Timothy (1971-08-05). "Joni Mitchell Blue Album Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 4, 2015.
  9. ^ Hamilton, Jack (2013-02-14). "Why Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' Is the Greatest Relationship Album Ever". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  10. ^ "Episode 43: Colors". Theme Time Radio Hour Archive. Retrieved 2021-04-10.


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