50 years ago I was at the Woodstock festival, in the mud and the mire and the morass. Joni wasn’t, but she got it right in the song. True Woodstock is in the mind.

50 years ago the Woodstock festival took place in upstate New York. I was there. I got wet and muddy and cranky and went back home after one night to listen to some of the same artists on my headphones.

The albatross of fame and fortune. Young Joni crafting her disillusion into a gem, 1970.

In which Jeff indulges in gooey nostalgia, imbibes a few underage beers, ponders his life, and swills the unadulterated, luscious gush of emotion that is Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ ‘Ooh Baby, Baby’.

Who would have thought that ‘feelings’, the notoriously amorphous and slippery quick of our inner lives, could be so precisely dissected, reconstructed, and formulated in a mere song? Paul Simon’s ‘Jonah’ will swallow you whole.

‘Surfer Girl’ is a schlocky, heartfelt ballad of unrequited teenage love, Brian Wilson clawing his way out of the gooey larva of his California pubescence. Paul Simon works his magic on it, tapping the genius that is Brian, elevating it to a work of great beauty.

This week we talk about the United States’ bar mitzvah, how we discovered Bach, the history of The Swingle Singers, the marvels of Scandinavian a cappella festivals, and older people falling in love.

Joni Mitchell’s songs can be deceptive, because they’re so darn attractive. But she is also a mistressful artisan who happens to possess a magnanimous soul. Her works aren’t merely moving – they’re also marvels of craft.