Help Me (Joni Mitchell song)

"Help Me" is the title of a Joni Mitchell love song that she first recorded for the 1974 album Court and Spark. The song, a confession of love trouble, uses jazz band Tom Scott's L.A. Express. On the charts, "Help Me" was Mitchell's biggest hit single; in 1974, it became her only top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at #7, and also hit number one on the adult contemporary singles chart. The song is ranked #282 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The 2006 "365 Tunes Calendar" by Page-a-Day says the following about this song, which was the song of the day on Tuesday, November 7: "Sometimes high-flown romanticism simmers and sometimes it explodes. This tune does both. It simmers on the verses, and on the bridge-when Joni and her backing singers repeat "Didn't it feel good?"-it erupts into a convergence of guitars, woodwinds, and sax that hits your ear like Pop Rocks in your mouth, tangy bursts of tonal coor fizzing around everywhere. Like most of Mitchell's best work, there's a sense of abandon within strictly defined patterns."

Influences and covers

The influence of this song (which is rich in Mitchell's special mix of folk music and jazz) can be heard in Prince's song "Ballad of Dorothy Parker" (from his Sign 'O' the Times album). Multiple artists have covered this song such as: Wynonna (covered on the 2000 album: New Day Dawning); Mandy Moore (on her 2003 album Coverage); k.d. lang (covered on the 2004 album Hymns of the 49th Parallel as a bonus track); Nicola Kramer and Domu (Sonar Kollektiv, 2004); and Ryan Adams (covered the song during a solo show in 2005).

References