Joni Mitchell’s “River,” a 50-year-old Christmastime song of lost love, finally has an official video to go with it.

And the folk-pop legend sounds like she couldn’t be happier.

“River expresses regret at the end of a relationship… but it’s also about being lonely at Christmas time,” Mitchell said in a statement at the end of the animated work, which was posted to her YouTube channel on Thursday. “A Christmas song for people who are lonely at Christmas! We need a song like that.”

Mitchell sings plaintively of wanting a river she “could skate away on” ― reflected in Skazka Studios’ black-and-white animation of a solitary figure gliding across the frozen water.

The watercolor style captures “the song’s lonesome mood while paying tribute to Mitchell’s prolific creativity as a painter,” according to her website. Continue Reading