Joni Mitchell posted her citizenship ceremony to Instagram this week, captioning it "A journey that began 62 years ago." She is 82. The math tells you something: she has spent roughly three-quarters of her life in a country she wasn't a citizen of, releasing some of the most influential records in American music while technically remaining a guest. The backstory is unglamorous in the best way. She left Saskatoon for Toronto, met US folk singer Chuck Mitchell, married him in 1965, moved to the States, and divorced him two years later. The marriage didn't survive; the career did. She used royalties from her debut album to buy her way into Laurel Canyon, recorded Ladies of the Canyon, and the rest is well-documented. What isn't always noted is that she did all of this — Blue, Court and Spark, Hejira, the jazz pivot, the orchestral records, the entire arc — as a Canadian permanent resident. The citizenship question had become quietly political. At a 2024 concert she told the audience, "Fuck Donald Trump, I love that song" — referring to YG's 2016 rap track — then added, "I wish I could vote... I'm a Canadian. I'm one of those lousy immigrants." The self-deprecation had edge to it. She knew exactly what she was doing with that framing. She has been back in public life since 2022, when she appeared unannounced at the Newport Folk Festival, her first performance after a 2015 brain aneurysm that required years of recovery. Since then she's hosted a run of "Joni Jam" all-star concerts — loose, generous events that read less like comeback performances and more like a musician rediscovering that playing is worth doing. The citizenship ceremony feels continuous with that energy: loose ends being closed, deliberately and on her own schedule. The biographical machinery is also catching up. Director Cameron Crowe has been developing a Mitchell biopic since the early 2020s, and earlier this year record executive Clive Davis announced at a party — a party, the appropriate venue — that Meryl Streep would play her. Mitchell's last studio album was Shine in 2007. She is 82, a citizen at last, and there is apparently still a third act to document.
