Both Sides, Now

For other uses, see Both Sides Now (disambiguation).

"Both Sides, Now"
Single by Judy Collins
from the album Wildflowers
B-side	"Who Knows Where the Time Goes"
Released	1968
Format	7" single
Genre	Folk, pop
Label	Elektra EK-45639
Writer(s)	Joni Mitchell
Producer	Mark Abramson
Judy Collins singles chronology
"Hard Lovin' Loser" (1967) "Both Sides, Now" (1968) "Someday Soon" (1969)
Music sample "Both Sides Now"

"Both Sides, Now" is a single by Joni Mitchell. Her recording first appeared on the album Clouds, released in 1969. She re-recorded the song in a jazz style for the album of the same name, released in 2000.

It is one of Joni Mitchell's best-known songs (along with "Big Yellow Taxi," "Woodstock," and "A Case of You"). It was written in March 1967, inspired by a passage in Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow.

I was reading Saul Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King" on a plane and early in the book Henderson the Rain King is also up in a plane. He's on his way to Africa and he looks down and sees these clouds. I put down the book, looked out the window and saw clouds too, and I immediately started writing the song. I had no idea that the song would become as popular as it did.

Judy Collins made the first commercially released recording of the song in 1968, shortly after Mitchell wrote it, which reached #8 on the U.S. pop singles charts and won a 1968 Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance. The record peaked at #3 on Billboard's Easy Listening survey and has become one of Collins' signature songs.

Fairport Convention recorded the song as a demo in 1967. The band's recording did not become available until 2000, however, when it appeared on The Guv'nor Vol 4 by Ashley Hutchings. (A live recording featuring Judy Dyble from 1981 is included on Fairport's Moat on the Ledge album.)

Both Joni Mitchell's album Both Sides Now and a 2003 Mitchell re-recording of the song are featured in the 2003 movie Love Actually.

Rolling Stone ranked "Both Sides, Now" #170 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The song was published by Scholastic as a picture book, Both Sides Now, illustrated by Alan Baker, in 1992.

Cover versions

1960s

• Dave Van Ronk covered the song on his 1967 album Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters, titling the song "Clouds."
• Anne Murray included the song on her 1968 debut album What About Me.
• Bing Crosby sang two renditions of this song, one on the TV variety show The Hollywood Palace and the other on his 1968 album, Hey, Jude/Hey, Bing.
• Catherine McKinnon (1968)
• Claudine Longet released a French version of the song in September 1968 on her LP "Colours" for release in the United States.
• Frank Sinatra recorded the song under the title "From Both Sides, Now" on his 1968 album Cycles.
• Harpers Bizarre released a version in the fall of 1968 on its third album, Secret Life of Harpers Bizarre.
• Leonard Nimoy (1968)
• Marie Laforêt released a French version of the song with adapted lyrics by Eddy Marnay in 1968 under the title "Je n'ai rien appris."
• Robert Goulet (1968)
• Christine Charbonneau recorded her own version of the song under the title "Je n'avais pas compris" released in Quebec in 1969 on Gamma Records.
• Davy Graham recorded a version on his 1969 album, Large as Life But Twice as Natural. His version included a long Middle Eastern-style introduction.
• Dion recorded a version in 1969.
• Jimmie Rodgers (1969)
• Nana Mouskouri recorded "Je n'ai rien appris" on her album of 1969, Dans le soleil et dans le vent.
• Neil Diamond (1969)
• Oliver released a cover version on his 1969 album, Good Morning Starshine.
• Pete Seeger did a cover on his 1969 LP of songs for children and elderly called Young vs. Old. Seeger added a more optimistic fourth verse to the song. The new lyrics are in Seeger's book Where Have All the Flowers Gone in the chapter "New Words?"

1970s

• Andy Williams sings the song on his 1970 album, Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head.
• Engelbert Humperdinck (1970)
• Euson released the song as a single in 1970. His version made it to #7 on the Dutch Charts.^{[citation needed]}
• Glen Campbell (1970)
• Willie Nelson included this song on his 1970 album, Both sides now.
• Roger Whittaker recorded a version of the song for his 1971 album, New World in the Morning. He changed the title to "From Both Sides Now."
• The Tokens (1971)
• Randy Scruggs performed an instrumental version of the song on Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1972 album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken.
• Pat Martino released a version on his 1974 album, Consciousness.

1980s

• Paradox (夢劇院), a Hong Kong singing group, released a Cantonese cover version "The Color Theory of Relativity" (Chinese: 彩色相對論) in 1988 based on this song. They also recorded the same song in original lyrics. Both versions were released on their first two albums.

1990s

• Michael Feinstein released a version of the song on the 1990 compilation, Rubáiyát, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of Elektra Records.
• Clannad released a version as a duet with British singer Paul Young for the 1991 motion picture Switch. It was the only chart appearance for Clannad in the Canadian RPM 100 Singles Chart.
• Hole released a version of the song on their 1991 debut album, Pretty on the Inside, under the title "Clouds."
• b-flower released a version of the song on their 1994 album, Clover Chronicles l.
• Dianne Reeves released a version of the song on her 1994 album, Quiet After the Storm.
• Parasites released a version of the song on their 1994 album, Pair.
• The Boomtang Boys (1999)
• Sharon Cuneta released a version of the song on her 1999 album, When I Love, and it was released as the album's lead-off single. The song was subsequently used as the theme for her 2001 movie, Magkapatid (Siblings).

2000s

• Jason Falkner (2001)
• Dengue Fever released a version of the song in Khmer and it appeared on the soundtrack of the 2002 movie City of Ghosts.
• Dolly Parton released a version of the song on her 2005 album, Those Were the Days. Parton's version featured vocals by Judy Collins.
• Tori Amos (2005)
• Hayley Westenra released a version of the song on her 2005 album, Odyssey.
• In 2006, Cathrine Hickland Lindsay from One Life to Live recorded it for an album titled One Life, Many Voices, which featured many stars from the program to raise money for Hurricane Katrina.
• Doris Day originally recorded a version in a television special in 1971 and it was incorporated in the 2006 reissue of her album The Love Album.
• Håkan Hellström released a version of the song in Swedish in 2006. His version is called "Båda Sidor, Nu."
• Michael Lington released a version of the song on his 2006 album, A Song for You.
• In the 2006 musical stage adaptation of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the song is used in the Australian, New Zealand, and London productions, but was replaced in the Broadway production by Cyndi Lauper's True Colors.
• Herbie Hancock released a version of the song on his 2007 album, River: The Joni Letters. Hancock's version of the song was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Solo. The album won the 2008 Grammy for Album of the Year.
• Allison Moorer released a version of the song on her 2008 album, Mockingbird.
• John Barrowman released a version of the song for his 2008 album, Music Music Music.
• Linda Eder released a version of the song on her 2008 album The Other Side of Me.
• Rie fu released a version of the song on her 2008 UK album, Who is Rie fu?
• Tina Arena released a version of the song on her 2008 album, Songs of Love & Loss 2.
• Lara Fabian released a version of the song on her 2009 album, Every Woman In Me.
• Rachael Yamagata released a version of the song for her 2009 album, The Village, a tribute album honoring the folk music scene of New York's Greenwich Village in the 1960s.
• Ronan Keating released a version of the song on his 2009 tribute album to his late mother, Songs for My Mother.
• Clay Aiken performed this song at the National Inclusion Project Champions Gala 2010.^{[citation needed]}
• Yamori (Ryoko Moriyama and Akiko Yano) released a version of the song on their 2010 album, Anata To Utaou.
• The Idea of North (2011)
• Susan Boyle released a version of the song on her 2011 album, Someone To Watch Over Me.
• Carly Rae Jepsen released a version of the song on her 2012 EP, Curiosity.

Media appearances

• This song was featured in the film Life as a House in 2001.
• The song is being played on a CD player by a crying Karen (Emma Thompson) when she realizes that her husband Harry (Alan Rickman) is possibly having an affair with his administrative assistant in the film Love Actually.
• The opening ceremonies of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games featured "Both Sides, Now" as accompaniment to a dance depicting the vastness of the Canadian prairies.