After releasing her debut album, Song to a Seagull (1968), to considerable exposure, Mitchell recorded Clouds at A&M Studios in Hollywood.

[4] Two songs, "Chelsea Morning" and "Both Sides, Now", had already been recorded by other singers by the time Mitchell started work on the album.

[8] For the 1969 film Alice's Restaurant by Arthur Penn, Arlo Guthrie, and Venable Herndon, "Songs to Aging Children Come" was re-recorded and performed by Tigger Outlaw in an arrangement for solo vocals and guitar as diegetic music during a funeral service.

[9] Mitchell was originally cast to perform the song herself, but declined after unsuccessful royalties negotiations with the film's producers.

[7] Clouds was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on August 28, 2001, having shipped 500,000 copies in the United States.

[15] In a retrospective review, AllMusic editor David Cleary called Clouds an "essential release" and "a stark stunner, a great leap forward for Joni Mitchell", commenting that her vocals "are more forthright and assured than on her debut and exhibit a remarkable level of subtle expressiveness.

[14] David Cleary comments that songs such as "Tin Angel", "That Song About the Midway", and "The Gallery" present sketches of lovers,[4] that "I Don't Know Where I Stand" is about the uncertainty of new love, that "The Fiddle and the Drum" likens a warmongering U.S. government during the Vietnam War to a bitter friend, that "Roses Blue" discusses the misuse of the occult, and that "I Think I Understand" deals with mental illness.

[4] Jessica Hopper from Pitchfork feels that, "lyrically, [Mitchell] was transitioning from the era's de facto hippie sensualism (colors!