Hejira

The songs came out of three journeys in late 1975 and early 1976: Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, a February 1976 tour cut short, and a drive across America from Los Angeles to Maine and back through Florida. On the way home she met the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa in Colorado. She took the title from the Arabic word for departure, and said she wanted a word meaning running away with honor.

Once the basic tracks were cut, the bassist Jaco Pastorius overdubbed his fretless bass on four of them. Larry Carlton played guitar, John Guerin drums, and Neil Young harmonica on Furry Sings the Blues. Henry Lewy is credited with production and recording. Coyote, the opener, was the single, and Mitchell sang it with The Band at their 1976 farewell concert. Amelia was inspired by her breakup with Guerin and by Amelia Earhart, and Song for Sharon is named for her childhood friend Sharon Bell. Refuge of the Roads, about the visit to Trungpa, was re-recorded for Travelogue in 2002.

The album reached 13 in the United States, where it went gold, and 11 in Britain. Ariel Swartley in Rolling Stone praised its seductive new rhythms, while Pitchfork's Jenn Pelly called it in 2022 a masterpiece in her catalog and across all of music. Mitchell said the songs could only have come from her. Bjork, Danielle Haim, Weyes Blood and St. Vincent have named it a favorite.