That Eric Alper

She drove across America in a red wig and sunglasses, told strangers her name was Charlene Latimer or Joan Black, traveled without a driver’s licence, and stayed behind truckers so she’d know when the police were ahead. She was coming off a broken tour, a broken relationship, and a cocaine habit she’d picked up on Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue. What came out of all of it was ‘Hejira’ — released in November 1976, ranked number 133 on Rolling Stone’s 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and given a perfect 10 by Pitchfork nearly fifty years after it was made. Björk, St. Vincent, and Weyes Blood have all named it as a favourite. Here are five things you probably didn’t know about it.

Mitchell Found the Album’s Title in a Dictionary — and Chose It for Its Hanging Letter

The word “hejira” is an unusual transliteration of the Arabic term more commonly rendered as Hijrah, referring to the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622. Mitchell wasn’t looking for religious resonance — she was looking for a word that meant “running away with honour.” She found it while reading the dictionary and was drawn to it partly for a typographical reason: she loved the dangling j, the same quality she’d admired in the word “Aja.” As she put it herself: “it’s leaving the dream, no blame.”

The Bassist Had Never Played on a Major Album Before Mitchell Called Him

When Mitchell met Jaco Pastorius while recording the basic tracks for ‘Hejira’, he was largely unknown outside of jazz circles. She was immediately taken by his fretless bass playing — she had grown frustrated with what she called the “dead, distant bass sound” of the previous decade, and had started to question why bass always had to play the root of a chord. Pastorius overdubbed his parts on four of the album’s tracks. Within a year he would join Weather Report and become one of the most celebrated and influential bassists in jazz history. Mitchell heard him first.

“Coyote” Was Written About Sam Shepard — and Performed at Gordon Lightfoot’s House With Bob Dylan in the Room

The opening track on ‘Hejira’, widely considered one of Mitchell’s greatest songs, was inspired by a flirtation she had with playwright and actor Sam Shepard during Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in late 1975. One critic described it as “either the most flirtatious song about fucking or the most graphic song about flirting ever written.” Before Mitchell recorded it for the album, she performed it at Gordon Lightfoot’s house with Dylan and Roger McGuinn accompanying her on acoustic guitar. McGuinn introduced the performance by saying she “wrote this song about this tour and on this tour and for this tour.” Dylan later played the studio version on his Theme Time Radio Hour, introducing Mitchell as “a strong-willed woman, and I mean that in the best possible way.”

A Buddhist Meditation Master Cured Mitchell’s Cocaine Addiction Mid-Album

The closing track, “Refuge of the Roads”, documents one of the strangest detours in rock biography. On her way back to Los Angeles from the East Coast, Mitchell stopped in Colorado to visit the controversial Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa. According to Mitchell, the visit cured her cocaine addiction — a habit she had developed during the Rolling Thunder Revue — and left her in an “awakened state” for three days, which she described as “no sense of self, no self-consciousness; my mind was back in Eden.” She later named “Refuge of the Roads” as one of her favourite songs she had ever written, and eventually rerecorded it with a full orchestra for her 2002 album ‘Travelogue’.

The Furry Lewis Song Caused a Real Blues Legend to Call His Lawyer

“Furry Sings the Blues” is Mitchell’s account of visiting the elderly blues guitarist Furry Lewis on Beale Street in Memphis, at a time when the surrounding neighbourhood was being demolished. It is a song of genuine compassion and historical curiosity. Lewis himself was not charmed by it. Rolling Stone ran a piece headlined “Furry Lewis is Furious at Joni” shortly after the album came out, reporting that Lewis was displeased with Mitchell’s use of his name and likeness. The man whose memory she was attempting to honour spent some of his remaining years being very publicly annoyed about it. Mitchell continued performing the song live anyway, including at The Band’s farewell concert captured in ‘The Last Waltz’.