Today’s classic song of the day is Joni Mitchell’s ode to a morning in New York, “Chelsea Morning.” This track was included on her 1969 album, Clouds, and has become one of Ms. Mitchell’s most popular songs.
On the surface, “Chelsea Morning” is a simple song about youth and joy and the sheer romance of waking up with the right person in the right place at the right time. Here’s what Ms. Mitchell remembers about writing the song:
“I wrote it in Philadelphia after some girls who worked in this club where I was playing found all this colored slag glass in an alley, We collected a lot of it and built these glass mobiles with copper wire and coat hangers. I took mine back to New York and put them in my window on West 16th Street in the Chelsea District. The sun would hit the mobile and send these moving colors all around the room. As a young girl, I found that to be a thing of beauty. There’s even a reference to the mobile in the song. It was a very young and lovely time… before I had a record deal.”
Here’s that reference in the lyrics:
Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I saw
Was the sun through yellow curtains
And a rainbow on the wall
Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you
Crimson crystal beads to beckon
I love the lyrics of this song, especially the “live in present tenses” line after the third verse:
Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey
And a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch
And stuck to all my senses
Oh, won’t you stay
We’ll put on the day
And we’ll talk in present tenses
That bit about the sun pouring in “like butterscotch” and sticking to all her senses is also pretty good. Tough to beat Joni Mitchell’s lyrics—they paint a vivid picture in words.
While Joni Mitchell released “Chelsea Morning” as a single in 1969, it failed to chart. Judy Collins released a cover of “Chelsea Morning” later the say year, however, and her single peaked at #78 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #25 on the Easy Listening chart. The song has been recorded by dozens of artists over the years, including Dave Van Ronk, Jennifer Warnes, and Neil Diamond. I’m somewhat partial to the 1970 version by Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66, which reached #21 on the Easy Listening chart.
Interesting fact: Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of President Bill and Hillary Clinton, was named after “Chelsea Morning.” Apparently they heard Judy Collins’ version of the song while they were strolling through the Chelsea neighborhood in London when Bill said to Hillary, “If we ever have a daughter, we should name her Chelsea.” Well, they did—and they did.
And here’s your very, very special daily bonus video of the day, Joni Mitchell performing “Chelsea Morning” live on the August 19, 1969, episode of The Dick Cavett Show. That just a day after the Woodstock festival (which Mitchell did not attend), and Cavett’s other guests were David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and the Jefferson Airplane. Man, what a time!
