Coyote – A Muse Over Sam Shepard
“No regrets, coyote
We just come from such different sets of circumstance.”
The opening track of her 1976 album, Hejira, is Coyote, a song that chronicles Mitchell’s brief love affair with the playwright Sam Shepard, which took place in 1975. The pair made an appearance on Bob Dylan’s all-star Rolling Thunder tour that year. (Dylan hired Shepard to write the script for the movie based on his tour).
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In essence, Shepard is the womanizer to Mitchell’s one-man band (so to speak). Their affair was short-lived yet long enough to inspire her to write a song about the guy. The song mourns their “different sets of circumstances” and how hard it was for her to maintain a fruitful relationship.