Joni Mitchell | Manuscript lyric sheet for Joni Mitchell’s “The Dawntreader” ca. 1968

Wirth, Jim. “Song to a Seagull: The Ultimate Music Guide – Joni Mitchell.” Uncut, December 2020,

https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=4573. 2025.

Brown, Les. “Joni Mitchell.” Rolling Stone, 6 July 1968, https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=286. 2025.

Eccleston, Danny. “When Joni Met Jimi.” MOJO, September 2021, https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=4968, 2025.

A manuscript page of complete lyrics to Joni Mitchell’s “The Dawntreader,” ca. 1968

First appearing on Joni Mitchell’s 1968 debut album, Song to a Seagull—“The Dawntreader” is an impressionistic fantasy that meanders across an ocean floor strewn with lost treasures, as Mitchell recounts the tale of a mermaid and a man finding each other “somewhere in the sea.” A clean, unblemished page written in Mitchell’s distinctive, informal script—the present lot is a rare artifact from archive of a folk icon.

Once described by Mitchell as her “one true love song,” “The Dawntreader” is Mitchell’s ode to her on-again-off-again relationship with David Crosby, ex-founding member of The Byrds (Wirth). Crosby and Mitchell first crossed paths when Crosby stumbled into the Gaslight Café in Coconut Grove, FL, during a lo-fi Mitchell performance in the fall of 1967. By the time Crosby arrived into her coffee shop audience, 23-year-old Mitchell was an art school dropout turned wife turned divorcee turned semi-successful songwriter still looking for her own big break. While Crosby thought he had moved to Florida to quit the music business for good, he instead linked up with Mitchell to co-produce the stripped-down impressionistic folk guitar project that would become Mitchell’s debut album, Song to a Seagull.

“City satins left at home I will not need them / I believe him when he tells of loving me / Something truthful in the sea your lies will find you / Leave behind your streets he said and come to me”

Released just one year after the pair initially met in Florida, Song to a Seagull tells of Mitchell’s turbulent journey to her career in California through a two-sided odyssey. Side One, “I came to city” focuses on the few months Mitchell spent in New York with her first husband and Side Two, “Out of the city and down to the seaside” tells how she escaped her life in New York for the rollicking freedom of the West Coast, settling in California with Crosby—albeit briefly—by her side. “Com[ing] down from the neon nights” and “tourist sights” of New York, “The Dawntreader” describes a “renew[al]” of her “pride in the sunlight”—basking in love, and committing to herself and her craft “like a promise to be free.” While Crosby and Mitchell’s relationship was already coming to a more permanent end by the time the album was released to the public, “The Dawntreader” remains a movingly esoteric ode to the power of discovering yourself.

“Run down till the rain delights you / You do not hide”

Over fifty years after the song’s original release, “The Dawntreader” was the site of its own rediscovery. On March 19, 1968, Jimi Hendrix set up his amateur recording rig in the audience of a show at Le Hibou coffeehouse in Ottawa, Canada after leaving his own show a couple of blocks away at the Capitol Theatre. Mitchell recalls Hendrix approaching her with the simple offer: “My name is Jimi Hendrix and I was just signed to Reprise, the same label that you're on. Could I tape your show” (Eccleston)? Mitchell agreed, and that night, in crystalline quality, Hendrix would record Mitchell performing “The Dawntreader” and a few other tracks just days before the release of Song to Seagull to the public. After a listening party later that night, the tape would go missing for the next 53 years until it was rediscovered in the basement of an ailing collector in 2021. Hendrix’s 1968 recording of “The Dawntreader” was remastered for Mitchell’s archival project Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971).

Song to a Seagull includes a dedicated to Mitchell’s seventh grade English teacher, Mr. Kratzman, on the album sleeve a man Mitchell credited as “[teaching her] to love words.” Reflecting on the mastery of language that defines Mitchell’s songwriting on “The Dawntreader” and beyond, it is immediately clear how this love for words is a foundational pillar of the folk legend’s career.