For the past three years, with The Old Telephone Exchange barbershop quartet, I have been lucky enough to be part of ‘The Concert at Christmas’ at St Martin’s Church in Colchester, a charity gig in aid of Colchester Emergency Night Shelter and several other worthy causes. The church is always cold, but thanks to a lovely programme of festive music, sketches, storytelling and no small amount of mulled wine, one always leaves with the heart as warm as a winter’s hearth.

And it is thanks to this event that I have come to know Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’, beautifully realised at the Concert by Kirsten Filer.

Mitchell’s 1971 album Blue, from which the track is taken, is the very definition of a classic. One that, until recently, I am ashamed to say I was quite unfamiliar with beyond this song and ‘A Case Of You’. I implore you to pour yourself a glass of red, curl up in an armchair, shut off any possible distractions and listen to it end to end. Because it’s a stunner.

The sparse backing is warm, simple and acoustic, perfectly complimenting Mitchell’s understated yet effortlessly soaring voice. Each song captures a moment, a memory, a feeling belonging to a woman who has lived, loved and lost; ‘Songs are like tattoos’, says the title track.

Like several songs on the album, ‘River’ explores a recently ended relationship – speculation is that it was inspired by Mitchell’s break-up with singer Graham Nash. It expresses a yearning for ‘a river I could skate away on’, to flee from the memories of what was and the pain of its loss.

It is not about Christmas but the season’s use as a backdrop feels significant. It’s a time when being surrounded by people coming together with their loved ones can breed feelings of lonely isolation. The destructive imagery of ‘cutting down trees’ and violent act of ‘putting up’ reindeer, all amid the incessant singing of ‘songs of joy and peace’, heighten the sense of the narrator’s disdain, and her urge to just get the hell away.

There are few who match Mitchell’s genius for intricate melodic construction and poignant, truthful poetic imagery. My New Year’s Resolution: listen to more of her.

Tomorrow, meet my favourite musical satirist…

The Christmas Playlist