“Little Green” by Joni Mitchell

Cover art for Joni Mitchell’s Album “Blue”

Joni Mitchell, the accomplished artist, singer and songwriter, isn’t known for holding back when it comes to autobiographical work. Her album “Blue,” released in 1971, is a hauntingly beautiful example of the folk singer yearning to exorcize demons from a difficult period in her life. The song “Little Green,” in particular, is an ode to the infant daughter Mitchell gave up for adoption, in which she mourns for the child she’d never get to sing it to. 

The Inspiration Behind “Little Green”

At the age of 22, Joni Mitchell (née Joan Anderson) was an art school dropout, “dirt poor” and living in an attic room in Toronto with fellow artist, Brad McMath. When she discovered she was pregnant McMath left, and Mitchell was faced with some incredibly difficult decisions. It was still taboo to have a baby out of wedlock, so she kept her pregnancy a secret from her family back home in Saskatchewan. As she said in an interview with the L.A. Times in 1997, “The main thing at the time was to conceal it. The scandal was so intense. A daughter could do nothing more disgraceful. It ruined you in a social sense. You have no idea what the stigma was. It was like you murdered somebody.”

Mitchell gave birth to an infant girl on February 19, 1965. She named her Kelly, inspired by that verdant shade of green. Still largely undiscovered on the music scene, Mitchell’s career consisted of eking out a living playing in coffee houses, and she was unable to provide for her infant child. When the baby was only six months old, Mitchell made the heart-breaking decision to give her up for adoption. Mitchell wrote “Little Green” shortly after.

Born with the moon in Cancer

Choose her a name she will answer to

Call her Green, and the winters cannot fade her

Call her Green, for the children who’ve made her 

Little Green, be a gypsy dancer.

[…]

Child with a child pretending

Weary of lies you are sending home

So you sign all the papers in the family name

You’re sad and you’re sorry, but you’re not ashamed

Little Green, have a happy ending.

Joni Mitchell was reunited with her daughter, Kilauren Gibb, in 1997.
Credit: LA Times

Tearful Catharsis

The message of  “Little Green” manages to balance upon the very thin line that separates Mitchell’s pain and the hope she had for her daughter. In the song, she is grieving for the future she won’t have with the baby; she tenderly envisions those milestones every new mother eagerly anticipates. But at the same time, Mitchell is finding solace in the hope that Little Green’s adopted family would provide those memories, the “icicles and birthday clothes” that Mitchell herself couldn’t provide at the time. 

Anyone who has lost a child in any form will find this song unbearably touching. It unblinkingly evokes nostalgia and sorrow and regret, but it’s not wallowing in the sadness. Instead, it’s wavering on that line of hope, and ultimately, it leaves you perched on that yearning.