I was disappointed reading a Joni Mitchell interview recently. Forever she has been for me the queen of singer-songwriters. It's curious how a person so formidably intelligent in lyrics can be so lacking in insight when speaking. Maybe it’s an emotional problem. When you hear Joni these days she is usually bitching about the music biz and the world in general. It's a pity one so successful can't rise above such reflection.

She was moaning about humans being “out of whack” with nature, destroying fifty species a day apparently by their terribleness. This is a fallacious argument. Nature manages destruction well enough itself. Since Day One it has been in the business of creating and destroying. Humans beings are nature. Being natural they destroy things too and will themselves be destroyed eventually - by nature no less! There is no conflict here other than in the minds of people who have a confused world-view.

There is a premise that somehow humans are above nature, that they are different to it and even responsible for it like a parent to a child. This is arrogance and arises from a misunderstanding. Human beings and their position in the scheme of things won't make a blind bit of difference in respect of the future unrolling of the natural universe. The sun will still burn out and the earth will have melted down long before that, having already disposed of humanity, assuming of course that it hasn’t already disposed of itself which is also likely.

Joni Mitchell should enjoy the moment and be pleased for the success she has had and the riches that have flowed. From all that she might cultivate perspective. She was a central part of a unique moment in music history and was massively privileged to have been there. It could so easily have been otherwise with just a minor flip of fate. Joni should rejoice. Humanity should do the same.