Song · Joni Mitchell
“Help Me” by Joni Mitchell
From the album Court and Spark (1974)
“Help Me” by Joni Mitchell appears on 13 radio countdowns from 6 stations between 2001 and 2025. It was first released in 1974 on the album Court and Spark. Its best result is #112 on the WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #557 indie & aaa song of all time and #217 of the '70s.
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Joni Mitchell wrote, produced and sang "Help Me" herself for Court and Spark, her 1974 album on Asylum, and it's a love song that swings where it could have sighed. She cut it with Tom Scott's L.A. Express as her backing band, pulling her folk toward jazz, with Larry Carlton on electric guitar, John Guerin on drums and percussion, and Henry Lewy and Ellis Sorkin engineering. Billboard heard her voice jabbing at the words in step with the drummer's breaks.
It became her biggest hit single, the only one of hers to crack the top 10 of the Hot 100, and it topped the easy listening chart. Rolling Stone later ranked it No. 464 among the 500 greatest songs of all time, and Prince, a huge admirer, nodded to it in "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker".
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 112 | WFPK | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2000 |
| 2004 | 633 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2004) | 885 |
| 2009 | 437 | WYEP | WYEP 913 Essential Songs | 913 |
| 2014 | 435 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2014) | 885 |
| 2019 | 880 | WYEP | WYEP Big Spring Countdown 2019 | 1017 |
| 2019 | 880 | WYEP | WYEP Labor Day Weekend Countdown 2019 | 1099 |
| 2020 | 1631 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2022 | 218 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '70s | 908 |
| 2022 | 1262 | WYEP | WYEP Countdown to Fall 2022 | 603 |
| 2022 | 376 | KEXP | KEXP Top Songs of the Last 50 Years (1972-2022) | 491 |
| 2023 | 156 | WYEP | WYEP Countdown to Fall 2023 | 1229 |
| 2024 | 387 | WYEP | WYEP Best Songs of the Past 50 Years | 1049 |
| 2025 | 387 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 800 Mood Booster Songs | 800 |
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