“I still believe in the power of the word, that words inspire.”
In her essay, Some Notes on Attunement, UK writer Zadie Smith chronicles her complicated relationship with Joni Mitchell’s music. While listening to Mitchell’s music now evokes a sense of “intolerable beauty” and joy, this was not always the case.
Trying to come to terms with her early (and harsh) rejection of Mitchell’s music, Smith has difficulty reconciling her younger self with who she is now. Her former self feels like a stranger as she cannot reconcile the “language of her former heart” with her current one.