“Free Man in Paris” by Joni Mitchell

"Free Man in Paris" is Joni Mitchell's portrait of David Geffen, the agent and promoter who was a close friend in the early '70s, written after a Paris trip the two of them took with Robbie and Dominique Robertson. It appeared on Court and Spark in 1974 on Asylum. Geffen is never named, but there he is: the man who spends his days building hits and launching careers, finally able to breathe on a holiday where nobody wants anything from him.

Mitchell produced it with Henry Lewy, and it's her at her breeziest, jazz-kissed and light on its feet, with Larry Carlton and José Feliciano on electric guitars, Jim Hughart on bass, John Guerin on drums, and David Crosby and Graham Nash harmonizing behind her. It later turned up on her live album Shadows and Light, and Rolling Stone ranked it No. 470 among the greatest songs of all time.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.