Years before joining Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young first met Joni Mitchell in 1964 while both had started hitting the Canadian folk scene, and their paths continued to cross from then on. Two years later, Mitchell wrote “The Circle Game,” a partial response song to Young’s lament on the loss of innocence and one’s youth, “Sugar Mountain,” which he wrote on his 19th birthday.
“I was 20, she was about 22, maybe one year older than me,” recalled Young of their first meeting at the Fourth Dimension folk club at the University of Manitoba. “I got to know her and … I played ‘Sugar Mountain’ for her.”
Of Mitchell’s “The Circle Game,” her story of transitioning from childhood to adulthood, Young said, “It got to her and she felt it too. She felt it in her own unique way, as well, obviously.”
By 1968, Mitchell and Young both hit a stride. Young was playing in Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, while Mitchell was married, got divorced, and gained even more recognition after the release of her debut album, Song to the Seagull.
During this time, “The Circle Game” had also been recorded by several artists. Canadian duo Ian & Sylvia and Buffy Sainte-Marie were the first to record “The Circle Game” in 1967 before Mitchell eventually released her version on her 1970 album, Ladies Of The Canyon.
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“This is a song that’s been recorded by a couple of friends of mine, so maybe you know it a little better than the other ones,” said Mitchell, before performing “The Circle Game” at the Greenwich Village venue Gerdes Folk City in 1968.
“And if you do, if you know the chorus, wow, just sing along, cause it’s a chorus about people and growing old and growing young and carousels and painted ponies and the weather and the Buffalo Springfield,” Mitchell added. “I wrote it for a friend of mine named Neil Young who, at the time that I knew him, was a Canadian ex-rock and roll type turned folkie from Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is just about as bad as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, I guess.”
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“Only Love Can Break Your Heart”
Soon after her divorce, Mitchell connected with David Crosby, whom she briefly dated and who produced Song to a Seagull. Mitchell also helped introduce Crosby to his future CSN bandmate Young. After her short-lived union with Crosby, Mitchell began dating Graham Nash. When Mitchell called things off with Nash by 1970, Young’s bandmate was distraught, so he wrote a song to help ease the pain.
“Only Love Can Break Your Heart” appeared on Young’s 1970 album After the Gold Rush and was later covered by Stephen Stills in 1984.
“That song means a lot to me because Neil wrote it about me and Joni,” said Nash. “It’s such a beautiful song. I knew it was about me the day Neil played it for me at Stephen’s house in Laurel Canyon.”
Nash continued, “It’s a beautiful song, and it was incredibly important for me to hear what Neil had said because he was dead right, it is only love that can break your heart. We are strong, mankind, but these love things can really trip you up. He was only 24 when he wrote that.”
“Sweet Joni”
A few years after Nash and Mitchell split, Young wrote another song about his fellow Canadian friend: “Sweet Joni.” It wasn’t a love song, and Young’s lyrics weren’t as heavy as his Mitchell-inspired predecessor from a few years earlier.
Instead, he told a more fantastical tale of a sweet girl named Joni from Saskatoon who lives in an old hotel near the ancient ruins.
Sweet Joni from Saskatoon
There’s a ring for your finger
It looks like the sun
But it feels like the moon
Sweet Joni from Saskatoon
Don’t go, don’t go too soon
Who lives in an old hotel
Near the ancient ruins
Only time can tell
Time can tell
Go easy, the doorman said
The floor is slippery
So watch your head
This message read
Recorded at Bakersfield Civic Auditorium, Bakersfield, CA, on March 11, 1973, Young featured “Sweet Joni” on his 1973 album Time Fades Away and again decades later on his compilation Archives Volume II in 2020.
Photo: Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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