‘Song To A Seagull’: The Story Behind Joni Mitchell’s Debut Flight

The whole of the album’s first half, subtitled Part One: I Came To The City, was written in urban environments – Toronto and New York City. Night In The City, the most joyful song on the album, is specifically about Yorkville Avenue in Toronto, a vibrant district with music blaring out from different venues and “spilling out into the street”. On this song, Mitchell accompanies herself on piano. Though she hadn’t played much piano since childhood, she felt she had to “find the notes” herself. Her exuberant plonking resonates with the elation in the song.

More evidence that Song To A Seagull is far from a regular folk album is in Marcie, also among the “city” material. Mitchell is uniquely gifted at evoking synaesthesia (the psychological phenomena which causes sound to be “seen”, becoming colours in the brain), and Marcie invites you to listen for the reds and greens of the lyrics, hearing their shades and understanding their changing meanings. A painter and frequent sketcher, Mitchell has often commented that painting is more important to her than music. The artwork on Song To A Seagull is hers, and the painter’s eye infuses much more than the album’s cover.

The album’s second half, Part Two: Out Of The City And Down To The Seaside, comprised far more recent songs and experiences. Mitchell had met David Crosby – a founder member of The Byrds, then on his way to Crosby, Stills & Nash – the previous summer. The Dawntreader details the flush of their brief romance: “‘Leave behind your streets,’ he said, ‘and come to me,’” go the lyrics, and that is what Mitchell did. She departed New York and stayed with Crosby in Los Angeles. It was also during these months with Crosby that she signed with Reprise Records and began thinking about how her debut might shape up.

“I was trying to maintain the freedom to be myself”

Their romance didn’t last, but Crosby felt Mitchell’s music deeply, and continued to champion it, taking on the producer’s role for Song To A Seagull. This was the first time he’d produced another artist, and Mitchell herself was new to the studio environment. The two frequently clashed. For instance, Crosby wanted to get a “real piano player” for Night In The City, replacing Mitchell’s imperfect but vibrant playing. Mitchell, spine strong as ever, held out and got her way.

Song To A Seagull’s closer, Cactus Tree, feels infused with the tension between the two. Though it’s about a woman who is “so busy being free” while suitors pile up to pursue her, it’s easy to see how Mitchell could feel this power play in her creative relationships, too. “I was trying to maintain the freedom to be myself,” she has said of this period, “and men will always Svengali on you.”

Unfortunately, Crosby’s inexperience also hampered the sound of the album, something he himself acknowledged. His microphone set-up meant there was a lot of background noise and tape hiss; an attempt to fix this before release removed the high-end, flattening out the songs. Another blunder – this time the label’s error – came with the artwork. The cover of the original release was cropped poorly, meaning that Mitchell’s painting, where the seagulls spell the album’s title, was incomplete. Reprise didn’t notice at the time, so the album was known as “Joni Mitchell” for many years. A frustrated Mitchell described her debut album as “scratched, like an old silent movie negative”. Thankfully, as part of the Joni Mitchell Archives project, in 2021 the album was remixed and remastered, addressing these issues and revealing the record’s full personality for the first time.

Ten tracks, then, made up Song To A Seagull, but they barely scratched the surface of her songbook. Mitchell held back dozens of tunes, many of which would go on to be among her most famous: Morning Morgantown, The Circle Game, Tin Angel, I Don’t Know Where I Stand, Little Green, her own versions of Both Sides, Now and Urge For Going – an embarrassment of riches that the world would have to wait for.

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