A Disappointing Vacation Inspired Joni Mitchell To Write Her First Hit Single

In 1970, Joni Mitchell had her first big hit with “Big Yellow Taxi”. On Ladies Of The Canyon, Mitchell’s third studio album, Mitchell wrote “Big Yellow Taxi” by herself.

“Big Yellow Taxi” begins with, “They paved paradise / Put up a parking lot / With a pink hotel, a boutique / And a swinging hot spot / Don’t it always seem to go / That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?/ They paved paradise / Put up a parking lot.”

The song’s inspiration came from a disappointing vacation Mitchell had on her first-ever trip to Hawaii.

“I took a taxi to the hotel,” Mitchell recalls to the Los Angeles Times. “And when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down, and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart…this blight on paradise.”

“Big Yellow Taxi”‘s inspiration was Mitchell seeing the parking lot. But she doesn’t actually mention a big yellow taxi until the latter part of the song. Mitchell sings, “Late last night I heard the screen door slam / And a big yellow taxi took away my old man.”

The Surprising Success of “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell

Mitchell immediately sat down and wrote “Big Yellow Taxi”, inspired by her disappointment over the jarring landscape. But she had no idea that the song would become one of her biggest hits.

“When it first came out, it was a regional hit in Hawaii because people there realized their paradise was being chewed up,” Mitchell says. “It took 20 years for that song to sink in to people most other places in the country. That is a powerful little song because there have been cases in a couple of cities of parking lots being torn up and turned into parks because of it.”

“Big Yellow Taxi” became a Top 30 single for Mitchell, her first. In 1995, Amy Grant had a Top 20 single with “Big Yellow Taxi.” And in 2002, Counting Crows released a version of “Big Yellow Taxi” with Vanessa Carlton. Their version appears in the Two Weeks Notice film, starring Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant.

After “Big Yellow Taxi”, Mitchell had another hit with “You Turn Me On, I’m A Radio” in 1972.  Mitchell’s first No. 1 came with her “Help Me” single in 1974. “Help Me” remains the most successful single of Mitchell’s career.

Photo by Tony Russell/Redferns

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