"Little Green" is a song composed and performed by

Joni Mitchell Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...

. It is the third track on her 1971 album ''

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

''.

Background

Mitchell wrote "Little Green" in 1966, shortly after she had signed the papers to place her daughter for

adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...

the previous year, while she was a poor folk singer in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

. The existence of her daughter, originally called Kelly Dale, was not publicly known until 1993, when a roommate from Mitchell's art school days in the 1960s sold the story of the adoption to a tabloid magazine. However, in at least one early live performance, she mentioned her daughter’s given first name. At the Café Au Go Go in New York in 1967, there was (a reviewer later stated) "a raw, husky catch to her tender wishes for 'Kelly Green'" during the song. Mitchell commented on the situation in an interview quoted in a 1998 article: "I was dirt poor. An unhappy mother does not raise a happy child. It was difficult parting with the child, but I had to let her go." Mitchell was reunited with her daughter, Kilauren Gibb, in 1997. The

guitar tuning Guitar tunings are the assignment of pitches to the open strings of guitars, including acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and classical guitars. Tunings are described by the particular pitches that are made by notes in Western music. By ...

Mitchell uses on the song is

Open G Among alternative tunings for the guitar, an open G tuning is an open tuning that features the G-major chord; its open notes are selected from the notes of a G-major chord, such as the G-major triad (G,B,D). For example, a popular open-G tuning ...

(low-to-high: D G D G B D).

Critical reaction

Writing for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' in 1971,

Timothy Crouse Timothy Crouse (born 1947) is an American journalist and writer. Family Crouse is the son of Anna (née Erskine) and Russel Crouse. His maternal grandparents were Pauline (Ives) and author, educator, and former Columbia professor John Erskine. T ...

, said:

Several of the lesser cuts on ''Blue'' give every indication of having sat in Joni's trunk for some time. The folkie melody of "Little Green" recalls "I Don't Know Where I Stand" from her second album. The pretty, "poetic" lyric is dressed up in such cryptic references that it passeth all understanding.

Reflecting on the song for ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' in 2013, Jack Hamilton noted that "Little Green", arguably the most personal song on ''Blue'', was not written about a lover but rather about Mitchell's daughter, concluding that "''Blue'' was Mitchell's way into music that transcended her life to become about yours and everyone else's."

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

played the song on the "Colors" episode of Season 1 of his ''Theme Time Radio Hour'' show in 2007.

References

Joni Mitchell songs 1971 songs Works about adoption Songs written by Joni Mitchell Song recordings produced by Joni Mitchell {{1970s-song-stub