It was 1967 when Joni Mitchell would put pen to paper and sign what would be her first contract with Reprise Records, a label she’d stay with until 1972. Photos have circulated of Joni sitting confidently, slightly slouching a little in a deluxe swivel chair, with three men circling around her. Those three men were Elliot Roberts, her manager, David Crosby, her then-boyfriend and Mo Ostin, a Reprise executive. The photo itself is striking and a foreshadowing of how Joni would wheel and deal for the rest of her career. She looks self-assured, she knows exactly what she’s doing and she also has the guys wrapped around her finger as they gaze lovingly with smiles on their faces toward Joni. If there’s anything Joni Mitchell was, it was in charge. Both with her business as well as her creativity.
Joni signing her contract with Reprise Records in 1967 with Elliot, David and Mo standing by.
Even on her debut album, there was a sense that she knew the direction she wanted to go into. A much better place than she was in just a few years prior when she could’ve easily been another Joan Baez or Judy Collins. By 1968, however, folk music had fell out of favor. Dylan was electric by then, Simon and Garfunkel also incorporated electric guitars and other instruments into their arsenal. Not only that but Judy and Joan, what some consider Joni’s contemporaries, had gone into a more art-pop direction (the former would have a major success with Joni’s own Both Sides Now). The raucous noise that would permeate a lot of 1970’s rock and roll was bubbling up to the surface. Janis Joplin was emerging as one of the greatest voices of rock. Jimi Hendrix took the electric guitar and its capabilities to the stratosphere. The Doors and The Beatles were getting weirder. And The Who and Black Sabbath were extra noisy, best heard at level 11. So, on paper, Joni Mitchell didn’t really fit in well with the zeitgeist. But somehow, she’d fall into place ever so neatly.
Song to a Seagull was her first outing as a serious musician. As ambitious as it was, it lacked in some respects. This wasn’t Joni’s fault as many of the chord structures (“Joni chords” as they’re often called) and poetic lyrics are immaculate as always. But the problem lain in the production, thanks in part to David Crosby, who would produce her first album. Crosby wanted a sound that was “pure and natural”, telling Joni to sing into a grand piano, of all things. The sound was meant to allow Joni’s voice to reverberate. But the set-up, as ingenious as it sounded, caused a lot of ambient noise to seep into the tape recordings, causing terrible tape hiss. Thus, post-production would remove some of that hiss and it caused the sound to fall flat. This incident would cause Joni to seek production on her own for the next decade or so, only getting assistance from Henry Lewy, her long-time engineer.
The first album has to have a striking album cover, this is a fact. It’s all part of the deal of having a commercial recording contract. But to Joni, this process was probably a breeze! The album cover was, as many album covers were for Joni, a painting by her. A vibrant album cover, its quintessentially late 60s with the color burst of yellows and oranges. Giving off the vibe of not only the king who was "dressed in drip-dry and paisley" but also Joni's quite imaginative mind which would seep into every medium of art she'd pursue in her career. The colors ooze and flow in an unnatural but fascinating fashion. Look closely and you’ll find flowers, plants, paisley designs, a duck, a schooner (perhaps the same schooner that the man who’s been sailing in a decade full of dreams had), and flying birds, presumably seagulls. Seagulls that would spell out the album title. But it went largely unnoticed by Reprise, who cut off a good chunk of the title when the album was released. Mistakenly, the album initially had the unofficial title of simply being a self-titled album. In later years, the original album cover, featuring the entire spelling of the album title from the seagulls would appear on CD and streaming covers.
Original album cover used for the vinyl, which cuts off a portion of the album title and was mistakenly thought to be a self-titled album.
In addition, lines are bursting to the right of the painting like a sunbeam. It’s a perfect representation of some of the themes Joni would convey on her first album. An album that was filled with mysterious lyrics about nature, hideaways, city life, and the ocean. This bright, vibrant world that Joni, the prairie girl from Saskatoon, was just walking into as she became a regular citizen of Greenwich Village in New York. But Joni’s love for nature and the sea never escaped her, even when she became a city girl. Out of the city and down to the seaside, indeed!
Look even closer and you’ll find a small circle, which features an actual photo (in a fish eye lens — a ubiquitous technique used for many album covers during this time period) featuring Joni standing in the middle of a street corner, presumably with an umbrella in hand on a cloudy, rainy day. The back cover reveals a much larger, more discernible photo of Joni, umbrella in tow and carrying a suitcase and guitar. Next to her is a large red van. Most likely, this photo was taken while she was on tour, and the van was her “tour bus” at the time. The photos were taken by Mark Roth, a photographer that Joni had met at an exhibit he was hosting. They would then hit it off at a nightclub called The Tin Angel (which Joni would write about on the opening track to her next album).
Mark described the photoshoot:
"There were pictures I had taken with the fish-eye process and I'd worked with other very experimental forms of photography that I was into at that time. Joni was intrigued, we started talking and we became pretty good friends. You know, we were in each other's company for awhile planning for a photo presentation for her, and also for me to learn a bit about her music and all.”
Mark Roth would also take the photos for the inside cover of Song to a Seagull, a much clearer shot of Joni’s wistful face with her hair blowing in the wind. She’s wearing what appears to be a fashionable coat. The photo is fascinating to look at. This young woman who seems on the outside to be the pixie dream of many a hippie guy. But on the inside, she had a darkness to her that would emerge ever so slowly, like layers on an onion, on each album. For her debut, that track might belong to I Had a King, a scornful track that’s obviously directed to Chuck Mitchell, her first husband. A man who “carried me off to his country for marriage too soon” and lived in a "tenement castle" who "painted the pastel walls brown". The hue of the image on the inside is, also, a yellowy brown color. Perhaps an indirect reference to that lyric. Nonetheless, it’s a beautiful photo of a young Joni Mitchell, only inches away from taking over the world.
Joni in 1968 taken by Mark Roth
The inside cover of 'Song to a Seagull'
Outtake from the inside cover photoshoot
While she would create even better masterpieces in her later years, this album stands as one of her best with a grower feel to it. Her voice was very girlish, very feminine and comparable to a songbird. It wouldn’t stay like that for long and neither would the slight tinge of innocence that appears on tracks like Sisotowbell Lane, a track that depicts an almost utopia, an abbreviation Joni invented that stood for “Somehow, in spite of troubles, ours will be ever lasting love”. Little did Joni know in 1968, that utopia of ever lasting love was few and far between and she’d learn the hard way that nothing lasts for long and that she’d be stuck again and again in the same situation.
Scroll down to find videos from YouTube of some songs from the album as well as a link to stream on Spotify!
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