Songfacts®:

• "I Don't Know Where I Stand" is a Joni Mitchell composition about the anxious moment of early infatuation, when you're falling for someone without knowing if they feel the same way. Fairport Convention recorded the song for their self-titled debut album, sung by original vocalist Judy Dyble, releasing it on vinyl a full year before Mitchell included her own version on her May 1969 album, Clouds.
  
• Fairport's version was produced by Joe Boyd and Tod Lloyd, recorded at London's Sound Techniques studio in November 1967.
  
  The band stumbled onto Mitchell's music early, back when few people in Britain had ever heard of her. Fairport Convention had only been together for about two months when Boyd suggested they record her work. Boyd knew Mitchell and arranged to get demo acetates directly from her publisher.
  
  "It was immediately obvious that she was an interesting writer, quirky, individualistic, an original voice, and influenced by things other than folk music," guitarist Richard Thompson told Mojo magazine. "Her song structures were unusual. Her guitar playing was unusual, her guitar tunings were unusual."
  
  "I Don't Know Where I Stand" is "a song with unusual harmonies," he continued. "The tonal center shifts quite drastically in a way you wouldn't hear in a folk song, you knew this wasn't Kumbaya! And lyrically it's mature, completely inside the insecurity of a relationship."
• Fairport viewed Mitchell as belonging in the same league as their favorite songwriters of the era, including Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, long before the rest of the world caught on. Drawn to the room her unusual arrangements gave them to experiment, the band also recorded "Chelsea Morning" for their self-titled debut album and later covered "Eastern Rain."
  
  "We thought, 'This is someone who will become better known but right now we can cover her songs and still seem hip and obscure!' Thompson told Tidal.
• While the debut album didn't make the charts or yield hit singles, "I Don't Know Where I Stand" stayed in Fairport's live set. On May 28, 1968, the band recorded it again for John Peel's BBC radio show Top Gear, with Sandy Denny on lead vocals, backed by Iain Matthews on harmonies. This version was later included on the 2007 box set Live at the BBC.