For the love of rock
Vol III, Issue 12 – Help me (15 June 2018)
www.intheloveofrock.com
Name of song– Help me
Singer- Joni Mitchell
Album- Court and Spark
Writers– Joni Mitchell
Release year– 1974
Similar Artists- Laura Nyro, Carole King, James Taylor, Joan Baez, Carly Simon
Peak chart positions
# 7 – Billboard Hot 100
#1 – Easy Listening Chart
#1 – Billboard Adult Contemporary Charts
Special mention
#288 – Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
Help me
Reviewers- Bikash Shrestha/Nirab Kayastha
Joni Mitchell is known as one of the greatest songwriters ever. Born Roberta Joan “Joni” Mitchell in 1943 in Canada, she is a songwriter, composer, performer as well as a painter. Her songs are rooted in folk, rock, pop and jazz and convey feelings of joy, disillusionment, and romance as well as social and environmental issues. She typified the singer/songwriter movement of the 70’s and is perhaps one of the finest and most adventurous artists of her generation. Her songs of intense emotion, soft melody, with unique open tuned guitar, lovely piano and charismatic voice are just incredible. Her songs have been covered by numerous artists numerous times. “Woodstock”, “Big yellow taxi,” “Both sides now”, “Help me”, “Chinese café”, “River” are few of her songs which are history in themselves. She has been an inspiration for all the female artists. Many extraordinarily talented artists like Bob Dylan, Graham Nash, James Taylor, David Crosby etc quote her as inspiration. Many songs have been created around her and it is rumored that Led Zeppelin’s acoustic ballad “Going to California” is devoted to her as a result of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page’s infatuation with her. In Richard Cole’s book “Stairway to heaven”, it is mentioned that Jimmy Page’s one of the fantasies had been to listen to Joni Mitchell lying on his bed and strumming her guitar and singing to him! It is no wonder that many awards were bestowed upon her in Canada and she had received Grammy Awards nine times! She was nominated 72nd Rolling Stone’s “Greatest guitarists of all time”, 42nd on Rolling Stone’s “100 greatest singers” list and ninth on their list of “100 greatest songwriters of all time”.