Temporary like Achilles: March 2024

‘Talk To Me’ is built out of the usual Mitchell components. Her wonderful vocal, uniquely shaped as it is, delivers heaps of scything lyrics while also suggesting a vulnerability that is rarely talked about. The requesting title suggests that Mitchell deeply wanted to be friends with Dylan but simply couldn’t connect. Of course, as the lyrics continue, the vehemence with which they’re delivered turns from pleading into punishment.

Mitchell would continue to remain quiet on her not-so-bright opinion of Dylan for many years, with ‘Talk To Me’ being the only exception. The song provided her side of the story. In 1979, even after the sleeping incident and during an interview with Cameron Crowe, Mitchell was full of praise for her contemporary. During the conversation, she revealed to the interviewer that she and Dylan had “a series of brief encounters” as well as “tests” over the years, but Mitchell made it clear in her own words that she “always had affection for him”. However, it would appear that this may have been a public-facing answer to a difficult question.

Contrarily, during an interview with the LA Times in 2010, the interviewer compared the two singers as similar artists, which, it turned out, was not a good move. The report claimed that Mitchell fiercely refuted this comparison and stated: “We are like night and day, [Dylan] and I,” she said. “Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.”

In the world of musical creation, to label an artist like Dylan a plagiarist is about as tough a remark as one can make. From this alone, we can be safe in the knowledge that no love is lost between the two singers.

Even though the two artists have never been close friends. One thing is for sure: Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan are comparable in one way only; they, like all true artists, put themselves in their own canvases with honesty and sincerity, even if it comes with repercussions.