The folk clubs of the mid-1960s were dark, smoky caverns built for confession. They were places where a single voice and a lone instrument could command absolute stillness, the silence punctuated only by the clinking of glasses or the faint scrape of a chair. It is in one of these unglamorous rooms—perhaps in Philadelphia’s The Second Fret, or a coffee house in Detroit—that we must place ourselves to fully grasp the fragile power of Joni Mitchell’s earliest documented performances of “Both Sides Now.” The piece of music that would become an industry standard, a defining statement on the distance between illusion and reality, was born not with the lush orchestral sweep of its later iterations, but in this singular, spare moment in 1966.
The context of this recording is crucial. This is not the version found on her 1969 album Clouds, nor the cinematic, devastating re-recording from 2000. This is the sound of a song still wet from the font, an artifact predating Mitchell’s major label signing to Reprise Records (thanks in part to David Crosby). It’s a demo, a live radio broadcast, or a bootleg capturing a preternaturally gifted twenty-three-year-old at the cusp of fame. The recording quality is often thin, carrying the distinctive hiss and flutter of analog tape that instantly transports the listener back to a time when sharing music meant a physical presence or a carefully preserved reel.
Her career arc, at this juncture, was purely grassroots. She was a songwriter, yes, but equally a performer whose signature open guitar tunings—here reportedly D-A-D-F#-A-D, capoed at the fourth fret—were already setting her apart from the standard folk revivalists. Her earliest pieces were traveling the circuit, finding their way into the repertoires of established stars like Judy Collins, who would make a commercial hit out of “Both Sides Now” before Mitchell herself committed it to a studio album. The 1966 version, therefore, is the Ur-text: raw, immediate, and utterly dependent on the strength of the melody and the devastating sophistication of its lyric.
The sound is unadorned. We hear the close-miked intimacy of the voice, bright and clear, its youthful vibrato still relatively unburdened by the gravel and wisdom that would deepen it decades later. The accompaniment is minimal: just her voice and the guitar. There is no rhythm section, no piano, no overdubbing. The guitar’s unique tuning creates a chiming, almost celestial texture, a soundboard that shimmers underneath the vocal line like a reflection in slightly disturbed water. The attack on the strings is clean and melodic; she’s not strumming for rhythm so much as she is plucking and sweeping arpeggios that fill the room with harmonic movement.
The arrangement here is not an afterthought; it is the foundation. It relies entirely on the dynamic control Mitchell has over her instrument and her phrasing. In later versions, the orchestral strings are the emotional anchor; here, that anchor is the sustained resonance of the guitar’s open strings, which create a mournful yet hopeful bed for the poetry. The dynamics are subtle, shifting not in volume but in the intensity of her delivery, the slightest hesitation before key phrases like, “And still somehow / It’s cloud illusions I recall.”
The emotional distance of the later version, sung with the weariness of hard-won experience, is replaced here by a kind of bewildered, precocious melancholy. The words—clouds, love, life—are being analyzed by an observer who has just learned the rules of the game but already recognizes their futility. It is the wisdom of the young, which is often the most painful kind. You can hear the ambition in the vocal, the desire to fully communicate a truth she has only recently discovered, a truth that will soon be sung by a thousand other voices.
Contrast this stark, elemental recording with the high-fidelity soundscapes of the contemporary era. We are accustomed to accessing almost any recording instantly via a music streaming subscription, but this 1966 version reminds us of a time when music was an event, a live broadcast or a reel-to-reel tape passed between friends. The intimacy of this raw audio allows us to perceive every breath, every minor imperfection in pitch—details that would be smoothed out in a modern mix.
The lyrical arc, famously structured around the progression from clouds to love to life, is what truly separates this work from the folk songs of the era. The lines are not just rhymes; they are carefully constructed philosophical meditations.
“Rows and floes of angel hair / And ice cream castles in the air”
This opening is visual, almost cinematic, capturing the romantic fantasy of childhood perspective. The transition is brutal:
“But now they only block the sun / They rain and snow on everyone.”
The disenchantment is total, yet delivered without bitterness, only with a clear-eyed resignation. This early performance is a crucial document for anyone who gives or receives piano lessons based on Mitchell’s complex harmonic structures; it shows where the core harmonic innovation—her signature sound—began before it was fully orchestrated or embellished by jazz players. It’s the skeleton of the masterwork, complete and perfectly formed.
“A song like this can only be fully appreciated when one hears it first, before the fame, before the mythology, in the humble sound of a young woman claiming her genius.”
Listening today, the track offers a profound connection, a micro-story played out in the mind of the listener. I recall a student, barely twenty, who came to me exasperated, struggling with a decision about dropping out of college. I played her this version, and as the last line hung in the air—“I really don’t know life at all”—a look of recognition, perhaps even relief, crossed her face. The song gave her permission to feel the complexity without needing the answer. It’s a piece of music that forgives the illusion while insisting on the reality.
This 1966 recording stands as a testament to the singular vision of Joni Mitchell. It is not just a historical curiosity but an essential listening experience—a moment of crystalline clarity before the noise of the world and the expectations of the music industry truly set in. It is a portrait of a genius in embryo, already possessing the profound self-awareness that would define her entire career. Return to it, and hear the story of an artist, and perhaps the story of your own life, being written in real-time.
Listening Recommendations
- Joni Mitchell – “The Circle Game” (1970): Shares the reflective, generational transition theme, using a circular structure to mirror the passage of time.
- Leonard Cohen – “Suzanne” (1967): An adjacent folk composition from the same era, showcasing poetic, imagistic lyrics and a sparse guitar arrangement.
- Nick Drake – “River Man” (1969): Features a similarly complex, melancholy folk sound elevated by an intricate, almost chamber-music arrangement.
- Carole King – “Tapestry” (1971): While more piano-driven, it captures the same intimate, confessional singer-songwriter mood of the early 70s.
- Judy Collins – “Both Sides Now” (1967): The version that made the song a hit, offering a key contrast to Mitchell’s interpretation with its baroque-pop strings and faster tempo.
- Sandy Denny – “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” (1969): A British folk equivalent, featuring a similar sense of existential inquiry and gentle, profound vocal delivery.