The Beatles Album Joni Mitchell Said Was the Fab Four “Discovering Bob Dylan”

While Joni Mitchell was carving out her place as one of the most iconic folk singers of all time, she was also bearing witness to the Beatles and Bob Dylan doing the same thing in their respective subgenres. As an industry icon in her own right, Mitchell got an up-close-and-personal look at each musician and band’s personal and musical evolutions. Perhaps even more interestingly, she got to witness one influence the other in real-time.

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From her unique vantage point, Mitchell hypothesized how Dylan’s influence leaked into the Fab Four’s sound (and how she seized on the opportunity to capitalize on this musical crossover).

Joni Mitchell Points Out The Beatles’ “Bob Dylan” Phase

Joni Mitchell was cutting her teeth as a non-union folk singer performing in scab clubs across the United States when the Beatles were at the height of their short-lived tenure together. Bob Dylan, too, was enjoying the successes of his mid-1960s transition to electric folk-rock. From either side of the pond, the Fab Four and Dylan’s musical influences became closer and closer until, Mitchell would later argue, they intertwined completely.

Speaking to Lava Magazine, Mitchell cited Rubber Soul as her favorite Beatles album and the one she “played over and over. I think they were discovering Dylan, and the songs often had an acoustic feel. I used to sing this one in my coffeehouse days in Detroit before I started writing for myself. The whole scenario has this whimsical, charmingly wry quality with a bit of a dark undertone. I’d sing it to put some levity in my set. I got a kick out of throwing it in there amongst all these tragic English folk ballads.”

“Besides,” Mitchell added, “I have Norwegian blood!” This last ancestral tidbit, of course, refers to the song she happily mixed in with traditional ballads of love and loss: “Norwegian Wood.” Interestingly, Mitchell wasn’t the only one who thought this particular track on Rubber Soul was especially Dylan-y. Dylan, arguably the best judge for the task, thought so, too.

The Bard Thought The Fab Four Was Ripping Him Off, Too

Joni Mitchell certainly wasn’t alone in her insights into the musical connection between Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Even Dylan noticed the similarities between his music and the Fab Four’s Rubber Soul track, “Norwegian Wood.” The Bard felt so strongly about these similarities, in fact, that he recorded a response of sorts, “Fourth Time Around,” which he released on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Upon first listen, the harmonic similarities between the two songs are readily apparent. But dive deeper into the lyrics, as one often needs to do with Dylan, and the sentiment becomes even clearer.

I never took much, Dylan sings in the last line. I never asked for your crutch. Now, don’t ask for mine. Many have speculated this line was a direct reference to John Lennon, implying that the Beatles had taken a little too much inspiration from Dylan’s musical style. “[John’s] doing me!” Dylan once said. “Even Sonny and Cher are doing me, but f***ing hell, I invented it.”

Luckily for musicians everywhere, including Joni Mitchell, this musical crossover—whether welcome or not—helped spur even more sonic evolutions and expansions throughout the 1970s and beyond.

Photo by Tom Copi/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images