Rhino Factoids: When Joni Met Morrissey

20 years ago today, Joni Mitchell and Morrissey had a nice sit-down together, one arranged by Rolling Stone so that the latter singer-songwriter could interview the former for the magazine. You can read the entire interview on Mitchell’s website by clicking right here, but here are our five favorite moments from the conversation:

1. In what can only be described as a moment of Morrissey being Morrissey, he kicked off the interview by pointedly bringing up a few past occasions when Rolling Stone wrote terrible things about Mitchell, including their less-than-positive treatment of THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS.

2. Mitchell’s reflections on her close encounter with John Lydon: “When I met Johnny Rotten, I liked him immediately. He was younger than I was, but he was a lot like I was in high school; fashion conscious ... kind of pale and pimply and avoiding the sun.”

3. Mitchell’s remark about how Rickie Lee Jones was unabashedly going for a Mitchell-esque look on her debut album: “I remember seeing that picture used with some ad campaign and thought, ‘Wait a minute. When did I take this picture?’" 

4. Morrissey was a Ross Perot supporter: “I find him a truly magnetic figure, and I can't come across anybody in this country who is really standing behind him. I find his speeches extraordinary and compulsive.”

5. If there’s any doubt as to why Morrissey has a soft spot for Mitchell, it’s probably answered by her answer to his question about the saddest song she’s ever heard: “Rachmaninov's ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’: sweet, sorrowful, sad, beautiful, longing, romantic stuff.”