Trisha Shetty (Editor)

Help Me (Joni Mitchell song)

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B-side
  
"Just Like This Train"

Recorded
  
1973

Length
  
3:22

Released
  
March 1974

Genre
  
Folk jazz

Label
  
Asylum

"Help Me" is a love song written, produced, and performed by Joni Mitchell, from her 1974 album Court and Spark. The song was recorded with jazz band Tom Scott's L.A. Express as the backing band. "Help Me" was Mitchell's biggest hit single: it peaked at #7 in June 1974 on the Billboard Hot 100, her only top 10 hit; it hit #1 on the easy listening chart.

Contents

Critical reception

The song is ranked #288 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Covers

Artists who have recorded cover versions of the song include:

  • Wynonna (on the 2000 album New Day Dawning)
  • Mandy Moore (on her 2003 covers album Coverage)
  • k.d. lang (on the 2007 tribute album A Tribute to Joni Mitchell)
  • Katharine McPhee (on the iTunes deluxe edition of her 2010 album Unbroken)
  • Will Young (recorded live in London as the B-side to his 2009 single Let It Go)
  • Esperanza Spalding sang "Help Me" in her encores on the d plus evolution tour spring and summer 2015.

    • The Prince song "Ballad of Dorothy Parker" (from his 1987 album Sign o' the Times) mentions the song in the lyrics. A reference to "Help Me" - "Joni, help me; I think I'm falling" - can also be heard in "Looking Through Patient Eyes" by P.M. Dawn.

    In the show South Park, the character Butters briefly sings this song in episode 2 of season 11, "Cartman Sucks". In the sixth season of TV series Shameless main character Frank Gallagher and his lover Queenie sing during breakfast the first half of the song.

    References

    Help Me (Joni Mitchell song) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA