For a special Valentine’s Day morning show, Harry Styles and his band covered Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” in the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast studio.
Styles performed a faithful rendition of Mitchell’s classic environmental anthem, right down to the “ooh-bap-bap-bap” backup singers and the California singer’s hearty laughter at the end of the song.
In Styles’ Rolling Stone cover story this past August, he described Mitchell as one of his two favorite musicians along with Van Morrison, going so far as to go on a “quest” after hearing her quintessential album Blue. “I was in a big Joni hole,” he says. “I kept hearing the dulcimer all over Blue. So I tracked down the lady who built Joni’s dulcimers in the Sixties.”
This week Styles appeared on a segment of The Late Late Show, salsa dancing with host James Corden’s parents in Miami during the Super Bowl. Styles was originally scheduled to perform in Miami that weekend in conjunction with the game, but his set was canceled due to severe thunderstorms. He did get to perform with Lizzo during her set at Pandora and SiriusXM’s show, dueting on her song “Juice.”
Styles released his latest album, Fine Line, this past December, including the singles “Fine Line,” “Watermelon Sugar” and “Adore You.”