Exclusive Cover Reveal: “Song So Wild and Blue” by Paul Lisicky

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with Joni Mitchell , the new memoir by acclaimed writer Paul Lisicky, which will be published by HarperOne on February 4th, 2025. You can pre-order your copy here . From the moment Paul Lisicky heard Joni Mitchell while growing up in New Jersey, he recognized she was that rarity among musicians—a talent whose combination of introspection, liberation, and deep musicality set her apart from any other artist of the time. As a young man, Paul was a budding songwriter who took his cues from Mitchell’s mysteries and idiosyncrasies. But as he matured, he set his guitar aside and lost himself in prose, a practice that would eventually take him to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and into the professional world of letters. Here are his thoughts on Mitchell, his memoir, and its cover. My book’s title comes from a line in Joni Mitchell’s song “Amelia,” which thinks about what it means to make a life in art. It’s about the solitariness of that life, the precarity—how easy it is to disappear, which was the fate of the aviator Amelia Earhart, who attempted to be the first woman to circumnavigate the world on a solo flight in 1937. The song is addressed to her, not simply as an aviator, but as a woman who struggled between the twin poles of achievement and desire. The song never reconciles this struggle. Instead, it calls on its listener to make their own connections through a chain of images, from six vapor trails in the sky, to an ascending Icarus, to a motel flung out in the desert. Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven’t read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. Submit YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here. Song So Wild and Blue uses […]

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