Little Green is a song by Joni Mitchell, the third track on her 1971 album Blue. Mitchell wrote it in 1966 after placing her infant daughter for adoption while she was living in Toronto with very little money. The lyric mingles personal heartbreak with hopeful imagery, addressing a daughter she calls Little Green and the possibility of a brighter future, ending with a note of eventual happiness. The real-life story behind the song centers on Mitchell’s daughter Kelly Dale Anderson, who would later be known as Kilauren Gibb, and their reunion in 1997. Musically, it sits in the folk rock tradition, written and produced by Mitchell, and she uses Open G tuning for the guitar on this intimate, highly personal ballad.
