How a Joni Mitchell song became a Christmas classic
‘River’ is not a holiday tune, it’s about a broken romance and a woman’s heartbreak
Michael Ball, a British stage actor and singer, was watching a performance of traditional Christmas music at a London drama school several years ago when the students unwrapped Joni Mitchell’s “River.”
Ball said he was somewhat startled, given that the classic 1971 confessional isn’t really a Christmas song.
Never mind that its opening melody is “Jingle Bells” in a minor key and that the lyrics begin with a seasonal scene: “It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees/They’re putting up reindeer, singing songs of joy and peace.”
Ultimately, “River” is a bereft song about a broken romance and a woman who desperately wants to escape her heartbreak, saying repeatedly: “I wish I had a river I could skate away on.” The despairing drama just happens to be set around the holidays.
“There were all these 18- and 19year-olds doing traditional Christmas songs and then, bang, they start doing ‘River,’” Ball recalled in a subsequent interview. “I’m thinking: Where on earth did this come from?”
Of course, Ball might have asked himself that same question. In 2000, he recorded a version of “River” for his holiday album Christmas. At the time, he thought he was a maverick for placing the song alongside the likes of “Silent Night” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
As it turns out, plenty of artists have been dreaming of a very, very blue Christmas over the last two decades: “River” — originally featured on Mitchell’s melancholy 1971 masterwork Blue — has become a seasonal favourite, despite being “thoroughly depressing,” as Elbow frontman Guy Garvey noted at a 2009 Christmas concert.
Or perhaps it’s ascended to holidayhit status precisely because it’s an antidote to all those “songs of joy and peace.”
“We needed a sad Christmas song, didn’t we?” Mitchell said with a chuckle last year on NPR. “In the ‘bah humbug’ of it all.”
“River” has long been a popular cover among musicians, more than 400 of whom have recorded it for commercial release. Countless others have performed it in concert. But since smooth-jazz guitarist Peter White featured it on his 1997 set Songs of the Season, the song has been included on dozens of Christmas albums, from Sarah McLachlan’s Grammy-nominated Wintersong to Train’s new Christmas in Tahoe.
Last year, when Idina Menzel was promoting her Holiday Wishes album, the Frozen star said she recorded a version of “River” because “I needed to make sure that I included those people that are feeling some kind of loss or loneliness, because the holidays aren’t holly, jolly Christmas all the time, you know?”
“It is a song I’ve grieved to, cried along with, sung at the top of my voice too because it feels so good to do so,” British musician Beth Orton told the Wall Street Journal last year, when her “River” cover was included on Amazon.com’s misleadingly named holiday playlist, “All Is Bright.”
“I would dedicate this song to those who are grieving the loss of a sense of place, loved ones, family,” she said, adding: “I can’t imagine wanting to cover any other song related to Christmas (except ‘Little Drummer Boy,’ of course!).”
“Most Christmas songs are light and shallow, but ‘River’ is a sad song,” James Taylor said in 2006 interview. “It starts with a description of a commercially produced version of Christmas in Los Angeles . . . then juxtaposes it with this frozen river, which says, ‘Christmas here is bringing me down.’ It only mentions Christmas in the first verse. Then it’s, ‘Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on,’ wanting to fall into this landscape that she remembers.
“It’s such a beautiful thing, to turn away from the commercial mayhem that Christmas becomes and just breathe in some pine needles. It’s a really blue song.”
Which is exactly why Ball said he recorded it.
“I’m not a big fan of Christmas and I think there are a lot of people who feel a bit melancholy at the holiday,” he told the Post in 2006. “We’ve all sort of been there: it’s coming on Christmas, all that preparation is going on and you just want to escape. You don’t want to buy into it. It’s a time of year that brings up a lot of memories for people and if you’re missing somebody it’s hardest at this time of year.”
For her part, Mitchell told NPR last year that the song is about “taking personal responsibility for the failure of a relationship.
“My generation — you know, the ‘Me Generation’ — is known to be a Peter Pan, narcissistic generation, right? So it’s really, you know, it’s really that aspect of our inability, you know, ‘I’m selfish and I’m sad.’ Right?
“You know, people think that’s confessional, but I’d say, you know, in my generation, you think that that’s a unique personal statement? You know what I mean? It’s like, no wonder there’s so many covers of it.”
“It’s such a beautiful thing, to turn away from the commercial mayhem that Christmas becomes and just breathe in some pine needles. It’s a really blue song.” JAMES TAYLOR ON JONI MITCHELL’S SONG “RIVER”