In Search of Joni Mitchell in Matala

And the inspiration for her song, 'Carey'

Crete and Joni Mitchell go together. I find myself singing her songs all around the island - ‘Ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere’ in cloudy Elounda¹ -  ‘I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet’² as the dawn breaks spectacularly over the balcony of our house in Kritsa...

Perhaps that’s why I missed the turn-off on my road trip to the ancient city of Gortyn this morning – and found myself heading towards Matala instead. But it’s still an odd thing when your subconscious takes you somewhere you didn’t even know you wanted to go.

    When Canadian singer, Joni Mitchell came to Matala, Crete, in the summer of 1969 – already famous, her Appalachian Dulcimer on her back - it wasn’t where she was originally headed either. It was the street sellers in Athens who decided she was a hippy, with her blonde hair and her Californian boots, that first alerted her to Matala's existence.

This was the beginning of a love affair with the place that she says began with “a huge explosion”. Freshly arrived from Heraklion in a rented VW Beetle, she was listening to her friend, Penelope, tell a tale from the Odyssey, when the taverna behind them suddenly blew up!

“ We were standing at the ocean’s edge, when suddenly – ka-boom…. I turned around and I saw this red-headed character all in white – a white turban with red hair sticking out – blow out of the restaurant. He was the cook there. He lit the stove, and it blew up – and that’s how I met Cary Raditz” she told Elton John in an interview in 2022.

Matala was best known for the Neolithic caves that pockmarked its crumbling cliffs - used by the Romans as graves, before the hippies who drifted to this Southern Cretan town at the end of the 1960s spotted the caves’ potential as free housing. After Joni Mitchell released her album Blue, Matala became even better known as the backdrop for her hit song Carey³, written as a birthday present for the ‘red devil’ cook she met in that ‘seaside town’.  

   When I arrive, it feels the hottest it’s been all of this extended, blazing summer – like all the air has been sucked out of the place. The deep sand burns and sticks to my feet as I lurch across the bowl-like beach to the kiosk entrance for the caves. Yet, even though I’m breathless and my throat is scratchy with dust, I find myself singing the opening lines from Carey - ‘The wind is in from Africa, Last night I couldn’t sleep’ – and thinking about Mitchell waking in a cave after a night of too much raki, her hair matted with seawater and a broken heel on her boot…

   The caves are really not that easy to explore – and I quickly have sympathy with Mitchell’s broken heel. This is where you need a partner or a friend to pull you ever higher – where the scuff of centuries of feet have rounded the cliffs into crumbling tiers of dust – and where all climbing is done (- as the prominent notices remind you) at your own risk!  I pause in my clambering to watch one woman execute a perfect ‘Insta’-yoga pose right at the lip of one of the higher caves, before I decide I can’t watch any longer and duck out of the sun…

  Exploring inside some of these cave tombs with their impressive rock ledges and niches, it easy to see why Mitchell hankers after ‘French cologne’ and ‘white linen sheets’ in her song. It must have been an uncomfortable place to sleep with ghosts.

Staring down at the packed beach, where hefty prices are being charged for umbrellas and sunbeds, and where the bodies aren’t just sweating, but sweltering, I wonder how long I could stand it here too. Would it be my choice for a holiday? Could I stay here, like Mitchell for a couple of months?

  I have as much dirt under my fingernails as Mitchell does in Carey when I slither back down the cliff face, and make my way across the duck boards on the beach in search of a cool drink. Amongst the tavernas and smart cocktail bars on the opposite side of the bay, there are clues to a quieter, more authentically Greek side of Μatala. There are a few old fisherman’s shacks clinging to the hollows of the cliff, alongside narrow cottages that have somehow failed to become chi-chi in their transformation to simple holiday rentals. The azure water is dreamily clear, and the sign painted on the sea wall proclaims ‘Today is life, tomorrow never comes’.

     A scruffy dog with a bandana around his neck follows me from a leather stall to the terrace of a café - quickly spotting an easy mark. He rolls over for a belly scratch, his tongue lolling in the heat, until I feed him crumbs from my late lunch.

His stupid, laid-back grin eases me further into the calm this side of the bay, and now I start to notice the artwork too - the chalked pictures on the quayside, the murals, the bright colours of the posters left over from this year’s annual music festival – but still, despite its cool charm, like Mitchell, I decide “It’s really not my home.”

      The song that was Mitchell’s birthday present to Cary Raditz became a leaving present for him too. When her hankering for white linen sheets and a grand piano became too strong, she simply moved on, writing her way around Europe - breaking hearts, even as she tried to put her own back together - before going to California to record her fourth album Blue.  

   When I move on in the car later – quickly lost again on the region’s backroads - feeling my way across the island through mountains sculpted in shadows - I’m still singing ‘The wind is in from Africa, Last night I couldn’t sleep….’  

As 60s anthem’s go, it’s the best Cretan one I know – and Crete and Joni Mitchell really do go well together.

Unless otherwise noted, all photographs used in Claire In Crete are copyright of the author

1. Both Sides Now - Perhaps best known to later generations of fans because of this version of the song, which Emma Thompson listens to as her heart breaks in Love Actually

2. A Case of You

3. Carey