Wild Things Run Fast is the 11th studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Her first of four releases for Geffen Records, it was released in 1982 and represents her move to a more 1980s pop sound. This was her first album to work with bassist Larry Klein, whom she married in 1982. Klein would play bass on and co-produce her next four albums.
Mitchell claimed that her inspiration for the album came from hearing the music of popular bands such as Steely Dan, Talking Heads and The Police at a discothèque during a trip to the Caribbean in 1981. She said that hearing The Police, especially, affected her sound, saying, "their rhythmic hybrids, and the positioning of the drums, and the sound of the drums, was one of the main calls out to me to make a more rhythmic album".[5]
The resulting world tour took Mitchell through the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. A video of the tour was released in 1983, entitled Refuge of the Roads. The recorded performances were not performed in front of a live audience, but rather recorded live in a studio once the tour had been completed, with applause dubbed-in during post-production. There was also some Super 8 footage taken by Mitchell on the road. It has since been released on DVD.
In The Boston Phoenix, Ken Emerson said that "Mitchell’s belated rediscovery of 'heart. and humor and humility' makes Wild Things Run Fast (Geffen) her finest album since Hejira and her most commercial since Court and Spark (1974). ... The album is by no means a regression, but it is a rejection of the false sophistication that made Don Juan and Mingus so off-putting. Now, once again, like a child but also like a true artist, Joni Mitchell is confronting life and herself 'face to face.'"[6]
^Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992: 23 years of hit singles & albums from the top 100 charts. St Ives, N.S.W, Australia: Australian Chart Book. ISBN0-646-11917-6.
