Joni Mitchell’s “River,” a 50-year-old Christmastime song of lost love, finally has an official video to go with it. (Watch it below.)
And the folk-pop legend sounds like she couldn’t be happier.
“River expresses regret at the end of a relationship... but it’s also about being lonely at Christmas time,” Mitchell said in a statement at the end of the animated work, which was posted to her YouTube channel on Thursday. “A Christmas song for people who are lonely at Christmas! We need a song like that.”
Mitchell sings plaintively of wanting a river she “could skate away on” ― reflected in Skazka Studios’ black-and-white animation of a solitary figure gliding across the frozen water.
The watercolor style captures “the song’s lonesome mood while paying tribute to Mitchell’s prolific creativity as a painter,” according to her website.
A portrait also forms of a younger Mitchell, now a 78-year-old Kennedy Center honoree who’s perhaps on the verge of winning another in an impressive series of Grammys next month. Her compilation “Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967)” has been nominated for best historical album.
“River” appeared on Mitchell’s 1971 album “Blue.”
The video is one melancholy ride, but worth it.