Joni Mitchell wasn’t happy Judy Collins got to her song first

Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins gave each other’s careers a significant boost in 1967 with the song “Both Sides, Now.” But in a new interview with The Guardian, Collins says Mitchell, the song’s writer, wasn’t happy that she scored a major hit with it before Mitchell had a chance to record it herself.

Collins says she first heard the song — and met its writer — thanks to an early-morning phone call from Al Kooper, the musician and producer who played the signature organ lines on Bob Dylan‘s ”Like a Rolling Stone” and founded Blood, Sweat & Tears.

“I’m 48 years sober, but in the old days I drank,” Collins says. “One night in 1967, I was passed out and the phone rang at about 3 a.m. It was my friend Al Kooper. He said he’d been at a club and had run into this woman, Joni, who wrote songs. He put her on the phone and she sang ‘Both Sides, Now’ over the phone. It was brilliant. I said: ‘I’ll be right over.’ I recorded it the next day and it became a huge hit.”

Collins included her recording on her 1967 album Wildflowers. Released as a single in October 1968, it climbed to number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 by December and reached number six in Canada. The following year, it won a Grammy for Best Folk Performance. The recording also peaked at number three on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart and has since become one of Collins’ signature songs.