Joni Mitchell lights up

So, how did Joni Mitchell come to get her distinctive voice? Twenty a day, from middle school age, apparently:

"I have smoked since I was nine, so obviously it didn't affect my early work that much."

"I would grab my tobacco and get on my bike, looking for a beautiful place, a grove of trees or a field, and go amongst the bushes and smoke and that always gave me a sense of well being."

And now the government's taken away that innocent childhood pleasure, along with working up chimneys and heroin-filled chews in the pick'n'mix.

Still, Joni's still got her smoking, and she's still got fire in her belly:

"I was mad at America, mad at the government, mad at the people for not doing something about it. They were going to be so quick to impeach Clinton for kinky sex but slow to do something about Bush and his Nazi stormtroopers. All that loss of freedom and everybody just kind of oblivious. It's dumb and it's dangerous."

We're not sure that Clinton's sex was that kinky - maybe if he'd been wearing Lewinsky's dress, it'd have been heading in that direction, but otherwise it was as vanilla as it was illicit. And we're not sure that suggesting Bush has Nazi stormtroopers is entirely helpful, either - Bush is unpleasant enough in his own, untrammeled capitalism without having to throw Nazis into the mix. But we'd rather have Joni Mitchell being political than Duran self-censoring to avoid sounding "angry" any time. Especially in these times.