Song of the Day 1/31: Joni Mitchell feat. Neil Young & The Stray Gators, “Turn Me On I’m a Radio”

Joni Mitchell is going to sing at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, the first time she’s ever performed at the ceremony, and I admit to mixed feelings. It’s great that Brandi Carlile has coaxed Mitchell into making her first public appearances in years, and I’m sure the fans will be thrilled to see her, just as they were at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival. On the other hand, it’s a little sad. Her voice is a shadow of what it once was, and I’d rather hear the classics from her prime.

Even better, here’s a performance from her prime you probably haven’t heard before. “I’m a Radio,” the title on Mitchell’s 1972 copyright, was her first Top 40 hit, written after her new label’s boss, David Geffen, told her she deserved to have a hit single. So she wrote a literal radio love song, using “you turn me on” to fuel an extended metaphor. In her early days she could do that, write lyrics that were simultaneously deep and breezy, with atmospheric melodies to match. They were a big reason she was considered among the best songwriters of the folkie generation.

Before she laid down the version that was included on 1972’s “For the Roses,” she recorded the tune with Neil Young and his backup band at the time, the Stray Gators. It has an unmistakable Neil Young flavor in its laconic opening rhythm, and the lack of production polish gives Mitchell’s voice more room to shine. This tape sat in the vaults until last fall, when it was released on “The Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975).”

The session that produced the finished track included David Crosby and Graham Nash as well as Young, but only Nash’s harmonica made the final cut. The single reached No. 25 on the Hot 100, the first of the four Top 40 hits she had in her career.