Desecration of life, the rule of Big Money that has become God, overpopulation, destruction of the planet, killing spree of men, programmed self-destruction of Mankind !... In this regard, I have often wondered whether Joni Mitchell did not point with the line : "We've set our lovely sky on fire" (Shine - 2007), to the madness of men at work in the Gakona area of Alaska, close to the land of Canada so dear to her heart…

No matter what specific monstrosity some of the Shine tracks are all about, the album unquestionably does point to human folly through the majority of its compositions.

So, is Shine definitely bitter and hopeless? That would be foreign to its author.  Although totally pessimistic about our societies' future, and about that which mankind’s innate selfishness, greed and blindness holds for the planet, Joni Mitchell surely still intends to shine a little light in her own dark ocean of lucidity. Notably with If, last track on the album.

Along with Shine’s development and after its release, Joni Mitchell starts a fruitful and inspired collaboration with the Canadian choreographer Jean Grand-Maître, the Director of the Alberta Ballet Company. Grand-Maître was submitted to Joni Mitchell’s international Art exhibition Green Flag Songs, whose thematic breadcrumb was war. For the record, this exhibition's high lights are : Lev Moross Gallery, Los Angeles / Galway, Ireland / Violet Ray, New-York / CTV Building, Luminato Festival, Toronto. Grand-Maître then offers the artist a musical and dancing collaboration, based on the same theme.

In 2007, the ballet The Fiddle and the Drum is born from this artistic association.

The ballet premieres on October 22, 2007 at the Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary. It features fourteen compositions selected by the musician out of her repertoire. Recorded (and broadcast on DVD thereafter), the ballet experienced many subsequent performances elsewhere in Canada, including a renewal in 2010.

Passionate about this dancing experience with Grand-Maître, Joni Michell then delves into her entire catalogue on the choreographer's proposal, this time in a research articulated on the theme of love.

The musician thus revisits her entire repertoire, creating a scriptwriting link between compositions from different albums and different eras that were not previously linked theme-wise. Shedding thus a totally new light on a series of older and more recent works, within a creative and innovative momentum and alchemy. Unfortunately, following editorial difficulties which delay the launch of the project, the latter must be postponed, and finally not reconducted -at least to this day. The fruit of this thematic exploration and of the research it generates becomes Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting To Be Danced. A corpus that brings together the titles selected by the artist under the theme of love, thus explaining the title of this original and so far “never danced” selection. The latter fully reflects Joni Mitchell's state of mind in relation to the selected theme. But mainly, the creation of this Quartet clearly expresses her hopes and expectations of what it must be : a set of four ballets, dedicated to the theme of love in its different phases. Thus a scripted and chronical conceptual approach. In that perspective, it is interesting to note that the album Both Sides Now was, in some ways, a draft of Love Has Many Faces.