The blonde in the bleachers. A woman of heart and mind.

Golden. Stardust.

21st century lyricists stand on the shoulders of the words of Joni Mitchell. If you think today’s songwriters simply tear out pages from their diaries and put them to music, it’s because Joni said it was okay to open up, to share the personal and thereby connect and transform it into the universal.

Beginning with her childhood on the snow-covered prairies of Canada, Joni was a restless spirit, always looking to travel somewhere new, to escape the ordinary — to take flight from her traditional family life in a small home in a small town (as a teen she crossed to the wrong side of the tracks to dance to rock & roll in a jukebox dive, but eventually became older and bolder and crossed the border into the US), to be free from the trappings of traditional womanhood, traditional folk, traditional guitar tuning, traditional songwriting. Exploration and innovation always led her heart. For better and for worse.

Joni was married — but not for long — to her manager/duet partner when she wrote her first classic, “Both Sides Now,” in 1966, and she meant it when she sang, “I really don’t know love at all.” She had a deep well from which to draw, buckets full of hard times and hard emotions, even at 22.

Dylan inspired her to make her songs more personal and poetic (although they both still used a lot of allusions and storytelling from the folk tradition, keeping things oblique). But Joni was starting to let her guard down — and as the walls fell, brick by brick, she let the world pour in, even as her heart poured out.

Wish you had a river you could skate away on? Here’s the least you need to know:

Ladies Of The Canyon (1970) The culmination of the folk years, still not completely unbound, but occasionally flashing a new, more modern style of writing. Joni missed Woodstock but then wrote its defining song. Watching a big yellow taxi and trying to get her soul free.

Blue (1971) Songs are like tattoos. Ink on a pin. Underneath the skin. An empty space to fill in. The imprint of honesty for all to see, letting her joys and sorrows ring out. Singing and writing like people “talk,” not how they “sing.” The pinnacle of the confessional singer-songwriter era and the one album to own if there’s only room for one.

For The Roses (1972) Written during a year of depression and seclusion in the wilderness. Playing in the shadows and moving into the light. Why do we perform? Why do we open our hearts? Why do we fall in love again and again? For the roses.

Court And Spark (1973) Joni flirts with jazz, full band arrangements, and commercialism on her only #1 album featuring her only Top 10 Hit. Laughing it all away.

Hejira (1976) Full-speed ahead jazziness and the abandonment of standard verse/chorus/verse for an entirely new universe. Written on the road during a car journey from California to the east coast and back again. Restless songs, wide open, like the skies and the prairies and the miles of highway.

*For anyone who actually uses the Spotify album links, it should be noted that Joni, following the lead of fellow Canadian troubadour and close friend Neil Young (who we’ll get to next year), pulled all of her music from the streaming service. But it’s all on YouTube for further investigation — a sampling of which you’ll find below.