Here's the Joni Mitchell interview. Really interesting! The Buffy Sainte-Marie stuff mentioned above is untrue (quelle surprise):
Here's the transcript:
http://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=678
I love this part of the conversation:
Morrissey: If you sing sad songs and very strong songs and very powerful, meaningful songs, do you think your audience feel -- feel all the better if you -- if they get the sense that you walk off the stage and you take the sadness with you, rather than perhaps you walk off the stage, jump on a Harley, and fly down the highway -- the freeway? Sorry.
JM: Well, it depends on the individual. Like a case in point, this girl came up to me and said, "Hi, Joni" -- I was sitting in a sidewalk cafe smoking somewhere, and I'm kind of open to public encounter when I do that, especially alone, you know, -- "I'm a fan of your music, I love your music. I'm a manic depressive. I like your music but I hate pictures of you. Everytime I see you, you're smiling and it makes me so mad."
So there's a person who thinks, you know, like I'm suffering, she's suffering. If they see evidence otherwise, you know, then they feel that I'm unauthentic. Whereas I feel more ambidextrous, you know. I do -- I suffer, I enjoy; I suffer, I enjoy.
Morrissey: So you think there's a certain section of your audience who might feel cheated if they see you happy?
JM: I think there is that possibility. That's a shame but I think there are those out there, yeah.
Morrissey: Although your songs have never, to me, been depressing --
JM: No, I hope not.
Morrissey: -- because songs can't really be depressing because the actual act of writing a song is so positive, so how could it ever really be depressing -- but you have such an openness of heart that it can be construed as being sad --
JM: And what's wrong with being sad?
Morrissey: Nothing at all.
JM: That's what's wrong, I think, that's what we have to learn like that the Hungarians know and the Czechoslovakians know, people who live long under siege. The Irish, I suspect, know. They should know if they don't that the world is not a smile button and great art and literature has to embrace all kinds of things.