{"id":379040,"date":"2025-08-28T01:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T01:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/379040\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T01:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T01:07:14","slug":"why-john-lennon-thought-joni-mitchell-couldnt-write-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/379040\/","title":{"rendered":"Why John Lennon thought Joni Mitchell couldn’t write hits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joni<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Wed 27 August 2025 20:45, UK <\/p>\n

Considering his track record with The Beatles and as a solo artist, you\u2019d think that John Lennon<\/a> would be a connoisseur of talent before his eyes, but evidently, his famed glasses would fail him now and then.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that Lennon wrote masterpieces, and his peers regularly praised him<\/a> for his efforts both on his own and with the group. He may have been something of a divisive figure, one whose outspoken nature often got in the way of his interpersonal relationships, and the baggage of his interpersonal relationships got in the way of his enduring fame, but at the same time, there\u2019s a good reason why people hailed him a genius of making timeless music.<\/p>\n

However, it was this disposition whereby he would speak his mind freely that created problems when he encountered Joni Mitchell<\/a> in 1973, and while you might think that he would have appreciated the Canadian folk legend for her artistry, his belief was that all of her flamboyance, jazzy intonations and perceived cleverness were what got in the way of her writing \u2018a hit\u2019.<\/p>\n

Now, not everyone is blessed with Lennon\u2019s levels of chart success, but that doesn\u2019t mean he ought to be seen as the authority on what constitutes a worthy hit song or album. Paul McCartney wrote just as many Beatles classics as Lennon did, and often, Lennon was the first to be critical of his bandmate\u2019s work. Given this, the feedback that he supposedly gave to Mitchell was just as harsh, and was certainly not reflective of her brilliance.<\/p>\n

While he was recording Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll in the studio next door to Mitchell who was working on her sixth studio album, Court and Spark, at A&M in Hollywood, Lennon chose to pay a visit to see how things were going. Of course, she was no novice at this point in her career and had had moderate success with previous albums such as Ladies of the Canyon and Blue, both of which are now regarded as masterpieces. For Lennon to weigh in with the comments he chose to make was not only misguided, but was also completely unnecessary when speaking to someone of Mitchell\u2019s ability, so it\u2019s understandable that she took umbrage with what he had to say.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Mojo, she revealed that she played him a song from the record, and that his immediate response was: \u201cOh, it\u2019s all a product of over-education. You want a hit, don\u2019t you? Put some fiddles on it!\u201d Mitchell took the comment with good grace and returned with snarky repartee in Lennon\u2019s direction as if to say he was unaware of what he was talking about. She later commented, \u201cThat\u2019s a class difficulty he had. He\u2019s a working-class lad. I\u2019m sure he had that same fight with George Martin because he was afraid that he was betraying his class. I know I\u2019m going to get into hot water if I get into this, but I have controversial opinions about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Court and Spark, of course, became Mitchell\u2019s best-selling album to date, while Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll was seen as a step back from the brilliance of Lennon\u2019s previous work. He couldn\u2019t have been more wrong about her ability and style, and he couldn\u2019t have made more of an ass of himself in the process, given the gulf in popularity between their respective records from this period.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still \/ Alamy) Wed 27 August 2025 20:45, UK Considering his track record…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,8345,4574,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-379040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-john-lennon","10":"tag-joni-mitchell","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115103717562468635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}