At 23, Joni’s debut album ‘Song to a Seagull’ is perhaps her most psychedelic and eccentric cover art, a stark contrast to the dark, intimate and stripped-back tones of her early songwriting (note ‘If Had a King’, which lays bare her then-broken relationship).  

With vibrant, 60s-inspired colours, paisley accents, bold florals, and swirling, wavy brushstrokes, it gently sets the scene for the trademarks dotted throughout Mitchell’s artworks and anticipates future releases.

‘Ladies of the Canyon’ depicts a simple line sketch of Joni’s distinctive features fused with a bold representation of her 1970 home, Laurel Canyon (in Los Angeles). The artwork echoes homespun freedom and creativity, with many of Michell’s contemporaries – such as Carole King and James Taylor - residing nearby.  

The record took on a complex, hopeful, and sophisticated approach with more sound textures, ‘Morning Morgantown’ is almost indecently pretty, a storybook portrait of idealised smalltown life – as it goes, “all bright smiles” "coloured rings" and "tea and lemonade" while half the tracks feature Mitchell’s stand-alone voice with her solo instrumentals as a form of deep-cut expression.  

Looking at Joni’s artworks, ‘Mingus’ is the one most deeply intertwined with the music created. Collaborating with Charles Mingus (shortly before he died in 1979), Mitchell’s songwriting conveyed the jazz legend’s avant-garde ideas, and she sought to understand the man himself, as told in the tracks ‘God Must Be A Boogie Man’ and the beautifully profound ‘A Chair in the Sky’. 

Abundant Decline, the cover’s abstract portrait of the bassist, took Mitchell four years to paint, from conception as a faded misogynistic male figure to the final haunted female dancer. When ‘Mingus’ was released in 1979, Joni reflected “I’ve always done much more commercial covers – by that, I mean to distinguish it from my very personal, private painting. It’s the first time I decided to put that out because it seemed to suit the music”.  

In Joni’s rare and intimate show Painting with Words and Music (available to stream On Air with unlimited replays, FYI), she fuses a gallery of her paintings and self-portraits with her performance. Songs such as ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, ‘Woodstock’, ‘Turbulent Indigo’, ‘Harry’s House’, and ‘The Magdalene Laundries’ tell a story packed with love, freedom, heartbreak, and the human experience.