The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [68]
Do you recall the specific moment—a spelling bee or a class recitation or a play or something—when you crossed over that barrier?
I think it was in a play. A Christmas play, as a matter of fact—Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. My classmate Dorothy Ward played the Ghost of Christmas Present. I played the little boy who went to fetch the turkey, and this man, Scrooge, gave me a shilling to do it. And I realized that I was the center of attention. I realized that people were saying, “Hey, look, he’s in a play.” That makes you different right off, you see. You’re stepping out of here, and you’re stepping into a make-believe world, and all of a sudden people are looking at you. You like that, but at the same time, you find that you have an ambivalent feeling.
So you had a shyness and an awkwardness that you had to conquer?
[Sheepish] Yeah, oh yeah. I just felt uncomfortable. I still feel uncomfortable in large groups of people. Not audiences, mind you. With audiences, I’m fine. I can go out in front of 20,000 people because I’m in charge. See, most entertainers feel that way. When you walk into a large group of people, you’re not in charge, and all of a sudden I sometimes feel uncomfortable.
It’s hard to find a focus.
That’s right. You see, when you’re on the stage all the focus comes here. They’re watching you and you’re in control. Now you walk into a reception or a cocktail party full of two hundred people, I find that unsettling. I know a lot of people who are entertainers, they, you know, get up against the wall at these times or sit in a corner. If they’re up in front, they’re fine. So there are two ambivalent things at work there. David Susskind’s favorite word, “dichotomy”; which he loves to use—there is that in performers.
I think people who are creative, in the arts, also seem to have larger appetites for life than most people, to excess usually. Whether it be drinking, whether it be sex, whether it be anything, the appetites seem to be larger. I don’t know why, but they seem to be that way. And with writers too—most of them don’t seem to be terribly happy people, whatever that means. Because I guess you are always in a way trying to prove yourself, and as an entertainer, you’re always in front of an audience. People say you’re only as good as your last performance.
JONI MITCHELL
by Cameron Crowe
July 26, 1979
Looking back, how well did you prepare for your own success?
I never thought that far ahead. I never expected to have this degree of success.
Never? Not even practicing in front of your mirror?
No. It was a hobby that mushroomed. I was grateful to make one record. All I knew was, whatever it was that I felt was the weak link in the previous project gave me my inspiration for the next one. I wrote poetry and I painted all my life. I always wanted to play music and dabbled with it, but I never thought of putting them all together. It never occurred to me. It wasn’t until Dylan began to write poetic songs that it occurred to me you could actually sing those poems.
Is that when you started to sing?
I guess I really started singing when I had polio. Neil [Young] and I both got polio in the same Canadian epidemic. I was nine, and they put me in a polio ward over Christmas. They said I might not walk again, and that I would not be able to go home for Christmas. I wouldn’t go for it. So I started to sing Christmas carols and I used to sing them real loud. When the nurse came into the room I would sing louder. The boy in the bed next to me, you know, used to complain. And I discovered I was a ham. That was the first time I started to sing for people.
Do you remember the first record you bought?
The first record I bought was a piece of classical music. I saw a movie called The Story of Three Loves, and the theme was [she hums the entire melody] by Rachmaninoff, I think. Every time it used to come onto the radio it would drive me crazy. It was a 78. I mean, I had Alice in Wonderland and Tubby the Tuba, but the first one that I loved and had to buy? “The Story of