Joni Mitchell has discussed her ongoing recovery from a 2015 brain aneurysm in a rare new interview.
Mitchell was hospitalised in Los Angeles in March 2015, after being found unconscious at her home. Later that year she was said to be “making good progress”.
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Speaking to the Guardian in a new interview, Mitchell spoke of her ongoing recovery. “I haven’t been writing recently. I haven’t been playing my guitar or the piano or anything,” she said. Instead, she’s “just concentrating on getting my health back. You know what? I came back from polio, so here I am again, and struggling back.
She went on to describe the five years since the aneurysm as “inching my way along,” adding: “I’m showing slow improvement but moving forward.
“Once again I couldn’t walk. I had to learn how again. I couldn’t talk,” she added. “Polio didn’t grab me like that, but the aneurysm took away a lot more, really. Took away my speech and my ability to walk.
“And, you know, I got my speech back quickly, but the walking I’m still struggling with. But I mean, I’m a fighter. I’ve got Irish blood! So you know, I knew, ‘Here I go again, another battle.’”
Joni Mitchell is set to release a new archival album, ‘Joni Mitchell Archives Vol 1: The Early Years (1963-1967)’, on Friday (October 30).
Earlier this month, she shared a demo of ‘Day After Day’, considered to be her first ever original recording.
It followed the release of her earliest known recording, a cover of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ recorded in 1963 at the Saskatoon radio station CFQC AM.
