Joni Mitchell: I had this realisation I was a folk singer!

"The words to the song are your script. You have to bring the correct emotion to every word. You know, if you sing it pretty – a lot of people that cover my songs will sing it pretty – it’s going to fall flat. You have to bring more to it than that" - Joni Mitchell told Cameron Crowe in an interview about a release of a box set of her earliest recordings. She also talked about her musical identity - "For so long I rebelled against the term: 'I was never a folk singer'. I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. I didn’t think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened, and – it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings. And I had this realisation… I was a folk singer!".