Who released it first
Both Sides, Now
Not a Joni Mitchell original — but who got there first is genuinely contested
Joni Mitchell wrote “Both Sides, Now” in 1966, and almost everyone assumes hers was the first record of it. It was not: her own version did not appear until Clouds, released by Reprise on 1 May 1969. The earliest version known to have been committed to tape was never even released at the time — Fairport Convention, with Judy Dyble singing, cut a demo in 1967 that stayed unissued until 1996. Among records the public could actually buy, two beat her to it: Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters, who cut it for Verve Forecast under the retitled “Clouds (From Both Sides Now),” and Judy Collins, whose reading opened side two of her Elektra album Wildflowers in October 1967. Which of those two reached shops first is where the sources stop agreeing, so we do not assert a winner.
The record
Who released it first
Released Issued as an album track, not a single — Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters cut it for their sole Verve Forecast LP (FT/FTS-3041), retitled “Clouds (From Both Sides Now)” at Mitchell’s insistence that the real title travel with it. Sources split on the release year: Wikipedia’s song article says June 1967, while the Verve Forecast catalogue index and MusicBrainz both date the album to 1968. A 7-inch was also issued on Verve Forecast (KF 5080), backed with “Romping Through The Swamp”; none of the sources we could reach dates it, so whether it preceded or followed the LP is undocumented here.
Charted No chart entry found. We have located no Billboard listing for either the album or the Van Ronk single, and no source we consulted records a placing — which is a large part of why the record vanished from the story.
How we checked it
Wikipedia’s article on the song ↗ states that the earliest commercial release was by Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters, under the title “Clouds,” in June 1967 — but the claim carries no citation, and the same article’s section on Judy Collins says she recorded the first commercially released version.
The Verve Folkways / Verve Forecast catalogue index ↗ lists FT/FTS-3041 as a 1968 release, as it does every catalogue number from 3038 to 3045. MusicBrainz likewise dates the album to April 1968.
The album’s own article ↗ quotes Van Ronk’s liner notes on the retitling: Mitchell insisted the original title be included, which is how the track ended up double-named.
Release order is not the same as recording order. The Wikipedia article on The Guv’nor vol 4 ↗ says that album “has the distinction of having the earliest recorded version of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’” — a 1967 Fairport Convention demo sung by Judy Dyble, made after producer Joe Boyd, who knew both parties, passed Mitchell’s early material to the band. It sat unreleased until 1996, and the same source notes the Collins version was the first to become commercially available.
45cat’s entry for Verve Forecast KF 5080 ↗ documents the US 7-inch, “Clouds (From Both Sides Now)” backed with “Romping Through The Swamp.” The site blocked our fetcher, so we take the pressing as attested but carry no release date for it.
What is not in doubt is the part that matters: Mitchell’s own recording ↗ did not appear until Clouds on 1 May 1969, after both the Van Ronk and Collins releases.
Wikipedia: “Both Sides, Now” — recordings and cover versionsKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
What’s actually on the record
The popular belief is that “Both Sides, Now” began as a Joni Mitchell recording. It began as a Joni Mitchell song — other people got it onto tape and onto shop shelves first, and the order of those early releases is not settled.
Joni Mitchell, 1969
Her own version appeared on Clouds (Reprise), released 1 May 1969 — at least a year and a half after the song was already circulating on other people’s records.
Fairport Convention (Judy Dyble, vocal)
Cut as a studio demo in 1967 after Joe Boyd — a friend of both Mitchell and the band — passed them her early material. Wikipedia calls it the earliest recorded version of the song; it stayed unreleased until The Guv’nor vol 4 in 1996, so it plays no part in the release-order dispute below.
Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters
Recorded for Verve Forecast as “Clouds (From Both Sides Now).” Wikipedia dates its release to June 1967 without a citation; the Verve Forecast catalogue index and MusicBrainz both place the album in 1968.
Judy Collins, Wildflowers
Released by Elektra in October 1967, at the head of side two, and described in Wikipedia’s own account as the first version to become commercially available. If the Van Ronk album is a 1968 release, Collins was first.
Joni Mitchell
Sole composer and lyricist — confirmed at MusicBrainz and Wikidata. Nothing about the recording chronology touches her authorship.
Mitchell wrote it in 1966 and released her own version third. The earliest known tape is a 1967 Fairport Convention demo nobody could buy until 1996; whether Dave Van Ronk or Judy Collins got a record out first is a question the sources have not answered consistently, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Context
Why the writer’s own version came third
Mitchell wrote the song at a point in her career when she was better known to other performers than to the public — a working songwriter on the folk circuit whose material was being picked up by friends faster than she could record it herself. Dave Van Ronk was a friend and got the song directly from her. Judy Collins, already an established Elektra artist with a national audience, put it on her October 1967 album Wildflowers ↗, which went on to become her highest-charting record at number 5 on the Billboard 200.
The eclipse happened in two stages. Collins’ version, pulled as a single in October 1968, reached number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won a Grammy — so for the roughly seven months between that single and Mitchell’s album, the song was a hit that belonged, in the public ear, to somebody else entirely. Then Mitchell’s own reading appeared on her 1969 album Clouds ↗ and, being the author’s, gradually became the definitive one. What got flattened in between was the Van Ronk record, which never charted and which most listeners have never heard.
The chronology, and where it goes fuzzy
- 1966 — Mitchell writes the song and shows it to friends on the folk circuit before she has released a record of her own.
- 17 November 1966 — the earliest documented public airing: Mitchell performs it at the Second Fret in Philadelphia, broadcast by Temple University’s WRTI and issued in 2014 as Joni Mitchell: Live at the Second Fret 1966. Wikipedia cites this as proof the song predates the 1967 composition date given elsewhere.
- 1967 — Fairport Convention, with Judy Dyble singing, tape a studio demo — the earliest recorded version known, and one nobody could buy until it surfaced on The Guv’nor vol 4 in 1996.
- 1967 — Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters record it for Verve Forecast, retitled “Clouds (From Both Sides Now).” The album is catalogued as FT/FTS-3041.
- October 1967 — Judy Collins’ version is released on Wildflowers (Elektra), produced by Mark Abramson, running 3:14 and opening side two.
- Here the record forks: Wikipedia’s song article ↗ states the Van Ronk release came in June 1967, which would make it the earliest commercial release — but it carries no citation, and the same article’s Judy Collins section calls hers the first commercially released version.
- Discographies disagree with the June 1967 date: the Verve Forecast catalogue index ↗ dates FT/FTS-3041 to 1968, as do the surrounding catalogue numbers, and MusicBrainz dates the album to April 1968.
- October 1968 — Collins’ version is issued as a single, reaching number 8 in the US and number 6 in Canada; it wins the Grammy for Best Folk Performance in early 1969.
- 1 May 1969 — Mitchell’s own recording finally appears, on Clouds (Reprise).
Written first, released third, remembered as the original.