Joni Mitchell expanded the horizons of folk music by creating two masterworks—the solitary and genius Blue and the jazzy explorations of Court and Spark.
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“Free Man in Paris,” from Court and Spark, is the fully realized expansion of an ensemble reinventing folk music’s capabilities. Even while exploring jazz, the album’s chordal structures and rhythms are pure Joni Mitchell—regardless of genre.
She is a force like no one else and famously demanded the seriousness given to jazz and classical musicians. Brandi Carlile—a Mitchell disciple and musical descendent—put it best when she said, “We live in the time of Joni Mitchell.”
Out of Office and Unable to Respond
Mitchell wrote “Free Man in Paris” about her close friend, David Geffen. She told the Los Angeles Times about a time in Paris with Geffen, The Band’s Robbie Robertson, and his then-wife, Dominique. Geffen lamented the stress of the music business and said he felt most “alive” in Paris, away from the office.
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one’s future to decide
You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star-maker machinery
Behind the popular song
Geffen began his career in the mailroom working for the William Morris Agency, and he rose quickly from sorting mail to becoming a talent agent. Eventually, he’d manage the careers of Laura Nyro, Jackson Browne, and Crosby, Stills & Nash with a rising career parallel to Mitchell’s.
While pitching Browne to Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic’s founder, told Geffen to start his own label. In 1971, he co-founded Asylum Records with Elliot Roberts, a friend from the William Morris mailroom. Browne and Mitchell signed with Asylum, and Mitchell released Court and Spark on the label in 1974, two years after For the Roses.
I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately, I wonder what I do it for
If I had my way
I’d just walk out those doors
And wander down the Champs-Élysées
Going café to cabaret
Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine
On Court and Spark, she moved beyond the limitations of southern California’s folk-rock musicians and connected with the L.A. Express, Tom Scott’s fusion group, who helped her find the sound she wanted. Musicians like Scott, alongside guitarists Larry Carlton and José Feliciano, formed a new and inspired ensemble Mitchell used like paints on a canvas.
Off with His Head!
In 2005, Starbucks released a compilation album called Joni Mitchell: Selected Songs. Artists from Bob Dylan, Prince, Elvis Costello, and Chaka Khan chose their favorite songs for the collection, and Dylan picked “Free Man in Paris.”
Regarding his selection, Dylan said, “I always liked this song because I’d been to Paris and understood what being a free man there was all about … I’m not so sure that the meaning I heard in the song was what Joni intended, but I couldn’t stop listening to it.” Dylan said, “Paris was where freedom and the guillotine live side by side.”
Thomas Paine famously argued against the execution of Louis XVI, though he supported the revolution and voted for the French Republic. The Rights of Man author opposed capital punishment on moral grounds. Although the American and French Revolutions birthed liberalism, Louis XVI still lost his head by guillotine in 1793.
Cover Versions
Neil Diamond covered “Free Man in Paris” on his 1977 album I’m Glad You’re Here with Me Tonight. Diamond’s version transforms Mitchell’s folk-jazz into ’70s pop rock.
Another outstanding cover came from Sufjan Stevens and his version of “Free Man in Paris” on Nonesuch Records’ 2007 A Tribute to Joni Mitchell. It is classic chamber pop that sounds like Stevens is directing a practiced high school band.
Free Jazz
Court and Spark is musically ambitious and reflects Mitchell’s growing interest in exploring jazz. When she played it for Dylan, he pretended to fall asleep, trying to be “cute” for David Geffen, she told Rolling Stone.
Like the rest of Mitchell’s catalog, her songs examine the relationship to her work. She had already made famous the kind of confessional songwriting now associated with Taylor Swift or Brandi Carlile. However, in “Free Man in Paris,” she focused on David Geffen’s life in the music business, though it’s really an examination of power.
“Free Man in Paris” humanizes Geffen’s power with something most people can relate to—the need to escape stressful work. She’s also making discoveries in the song. Jazz is known for improvisation, another type of composition, but one happening in real-time.
Mitchell’s curiosity is boundless. You can hear it in her guitar playing. Most folkies follow a well-worn path where much of the music comes from tradition, but “Free Man in Paris” pairs compositional structure with the freedom of improvisation. It’s bound by structure yet free to flourish like post-guillotine Paris.
(Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
