# Which Joni Mitchell song was about Stephen Stills? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 1, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781 "2003-04-01T20:34:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Anita\_Vacation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Anita\_Vacation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anita_Vacation)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/21 "2003-04-03T13:41:04Z")
Did anyone watch the PBS program about her last night? It was very well done, and it didn’t even bother me that they talked over her songs. The show gave me the impression that she wrote “My Old Man” about Nash. ---
**Author:** ![Michele\_in\_SoCal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Michele\_in\_SoCal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michele_in_SoCal)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2003, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/22 "2003-04-04T02:55:39Z")
I watched it. The show was called American Masters. Loved it. I discovered Joni in 1969 and have been a constant fan ever since. ---
**Author:** ![MisterThyristor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecccb3/32.png) [@MisterThyristor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MisterThyristor)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2003, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/23 "2003-04-04T07:42:23Z")
Then of course, there was Joan Baez who wrote the song “Diamonds and Rust” about her affair with Bob Dylan. Wasn’t there an article in _Rolling Stone_ a while back, about “who had done who” in folk music complete with diagrams with interconnecting lines for all the multiple relationships? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2003, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/24 "2003-04-04T07:48:57Z")
Yeah, I caught the American Masters show last night too. I was _born_ in 1969, so I can’t claim to be a fan from way back when, but I love Joni, and I thought the show was brilliant. Gave me goose bumps several times. Those were amazing times. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/25 "2003-04-04T16:10:04Z")
Michelle in SoCal: Constant in the darkness, where’s that at? If you want me I’ll be in the bar. It was an amazing, moving, inspiring American Masters on Wednesday, so much so that on Thursday, I had a class in Romanticism to teach, and I mostly talked about Whitman, with a riff on Wordsworth, and a long riff on Joni Mitchell, and their interconnectedness. “We are stardust, we are golden…” ---
**Author:** ![Michele\_in\_SoCal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Michele\_in\_SoCal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michele_in_SoCal)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2003, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/26 "2003-04-05T03:35:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pseudotriton ruber ruber \* > **Michele in SoCal: Constant in the darkness, where’s that at? If you want me I’ll be in the bar.** Good comeback, pseudotriton! A great book for Joni Mitchell fans is _Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now - The Biography_ by Brian Hinton. Very informative. Gives lots of background to the events and people who inspired her songs. And it has a discography and an index. I checked every reference to Stephen Stills in the book and it seems like her alliance with him was purely musical, not romantic. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/27 "2003-04-05T05:31:10Z")
Thought you’d like it, Michele. Your info about the Joni bio raises the question mentioned in the OP, though–what was Stills pointing out about being written up in a JM song? I don’t think he was whining about their musical alliance being brought up in public, do you? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/28 "2003-04-06T10:30:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Michele in SoCal \* > \*\*I checked every reference to Stephen Stills in the book and it seems like her alliance with him was purely musical, not romantic. \*\* Thanks for doing that! I might get the book, being a major fan of her early albums. So did she schtup David Crosby then? ---
**Author:** ![Michele\_in\_SoCal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Michele\_in\_SoCal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michele_in_SoCal)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/29 "2003-04-06T16:13:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jjimm \* > \*\* … So did she schtup David Crosby then? \*\* Absolutely! He started out as her mentor, then became her lover… until she met Graham Nash! I have no idea why Stephen Stills said what he was quoted as saying in the OP. Maybe he was speaking generally? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/30 "2003-04-06T16:21:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jjimm \* > \*\*Whoa - did she boff Crosby as well as Nash, then? \*\* Hey, it was the 70’s! It was a Rock 'N Roll Band! Everyone boffed everyone! Ahh…good times, before AIDS was invented. ---
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/31 "2003-04-06T23:35:26Z")
Don’t forget Judy Collins wrote “Both Sides Now.” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/32 "2003-04-07T01:25:52Z")
Please forget this, **essvee**. Judy Collins covered Joni Mitchell’s song. ---
**Author:** ![japatlgt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df705f/32.png) [@japatlgt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/japatlgt)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/33 "2003-04-07T02:11:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hermann \* > \*\*I thought the Carly Simon song was refering to james Taylor \*\* GASP! I’ve thought the same thing for the past 25 years. You mean I’ve been wrong?! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/34 "2003-04-07T03:33:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by japatlgt \* > \*\*GASP! I’ve thought the same thing for the past 25 years. You mean I’ve been wrong?! \*\* Carly won’t say. Evidently she agrees with Stephen Stills: > [@](#): > > Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781/35 "2003-04-07T08:09:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by essvee \* > \*\*Don’t forget Judy Collins wrote “Both Sides Now.” \*\* Wash your mouth out! Joni wrote it, and her performance of the song is better by an enormous amount (Collins got rid of all the broken chords). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-joni-mitchell-song-was-about-stephen-stills/165781.md?page=1)