Watch Brandi Carlile Cover Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ on ‘Colbert’

Brandi Carlile appeared on The Late Show to perform two songs, a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” and her own “This Time Tomorrow.”

“This Time Tomorrow,” which Carlile performed alongside two musicians, comes off the singer’s new album In These Silent Days, which dropped last month. In These Silent Days marks Carlile’s seventh album and the highly anticipated follow-up to her 2018 album, By the Way, I Forgive You, which was produced by David Cobb and Shooter Jennings, and earned a bevy of Grammy nods.

Carlile also sat down with host Stephen Colbert to discuss her love of Mitchell’s work, detailing her recent performance at Carnegie Hall, where she performed Mitchell’s album Blue from front to back.

“It’s deeply emotional for me, because I feel like that’s maybe the most important venue in the country,” Carlile recounted of walking onto the Carnegie Hall stage. “I was just a little girl who’s grown up fascinated with the concept of entertaining people with live music. You get to Carnegie Hall and you’ve done it.”

Carlile recently spoke up about her album’s lead single “Right on Time” being considered in the pop categories at the Grammys instead of Americana, despite the singer winning three Grammy Awards in 2019 on the strength of By the Way, I Forgive You.

“While I’m incredibly flattered to be considered ‘pop’ as a 40-year-old crooning lesbian mother, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit surprised and disappointed to learn the recording Academy decided to move ‘Right on Time’ out of the American Roots genre and into the pop category,” Carlile wrote on Instagram.

She added, “The importance of staying and working within Americana is greater than just me. There is not a moment where I don’t view my role as something larger. I feel great responsibility in representing marginalized queer people in rural America who are raised on country and roots music but are repeatedly and systematically rejected by the correlating culture.”