Joni Mitchell’s “River,” a 50-year-old Christmastime song of lost love, finally has an official video to go with it. (Watch it below.)
And the folk-pop legend sounds like she couldn’t be happier.
“River expresses regret at the end of a relationship... But it’s also about being lonely at Christmas time,” Mitchell said in a statement at the end of the animated work, which was posted to her YouTube channel on Thursday. “A Christmas song for people who are lonely at Christmas! We need a song like that.”
Mitchell sings plaintively of wanting a river she “could skate away on” ― reflected in Skazka Studios’ black-and-white animation of a solitary figure gliding across the frozen water.
The watercolor style captures “the song’s lonesome mood while paying tribute to Mitchell’s prolific creativity as a painter,” according to her website.
“River” appeared on Mitchell’s 1971 album “Blue.”
