JONI MITCHELL
from CLOUDS (1969)
Tin AngelVarnished weeds in window jars
Tarnished beads on tapestries
Kept in satin boxes are
Reflections of love's memories
Letters from across the seas
Roses dipped in sealing wax
Valentines and maple leaves
Tucked into a paperback
Guess I'll throw them all away
I found someone to love today
Dark with darker moods is he
Not a golden Prince who's come
Through columbines and wizardry
To talk of castles in the sun
Still I'll take a chance and see
I found someone to love today
There's a sorrow in his eyes
Like the angel made of tin
What will happen if I try
To place another heart in him
In a Bleeker Street cafe
I found someone to love today
Both Sides Now
Rows and floes of angel hair,
And ice cream castles in the air,
And feather canyons everywhere.
I've looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun.
They rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done,
But clouds got in my way.
I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels,
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real.
I've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show.
You leave 'em laughing when you go.
And if you care, don't let them know;
Don't give yourself away.
I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall.
I really don't know love at all.
Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud.
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds—
I've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange.
They shake their heads, they say I've changed.
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day.
I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose and still somehow,
It's life's illusions I recall.
I really don't know life at all.
Woman of Heart and Mind
I am a woman of heart and mind
With time on her hands.
No child to raise.
You come to me like a little boy
And I give you my scorn and my praise.
You think I'm like your mother
Or another lover or your sister
Or the queen of your dreams
Or just another silly girl
When love makes a fool of me.
After the rush when you come back down
You're always disappointed.
Nothing seems to keep you high.
Drive your bargains, push your papers,
Win your medals, fuck your strangers.
Don't it leave you on the empty side.
I'm looking for affection and respect.
A little passion.
And you want stimulation-nothing more.
That's what I think.
But you know I'll try to be there for you
When your spirits start to sink.
All this talk about holiness now,
It must be the start of the latest style.
Is it all books and words,
Or do you really feel it?
Do you really laugh?
Do you really care?
Do you really smile
When you smile?
You criticize and you flatter,
You imitate the best,
And the rest you memorize.
You know the times you impress me most
Are the times when you don't try.
When you don't even try.
This Flight Tonight
Look out the left the captain said.
The lights down there, that's where we'll land.
I saw a falling star burn up
Above the Las Vegas sands.
It wasn't the one that you gave to me
That night down south between the trailers.
Not the early one
That you can wish upon;
Not the northern one
That guides in the sailors.
Oh starbright, starbright
You've got the lovin' that I like, all right.
Turn this crazy bird around.
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight.
You got the touch so gentle and sweet,
But you've got that look so critical.
Now I can't talk to you baby.
I get so weak.
Sometimes I think love is just mythical.
Up there's a heaven,
Down there's a town,
Blackness everywhere and little lights shine.
Oh, blackness, blackness dragging me down.
Come on light the candle in this poor heart of mine.
I'm drinking sweet champagne,
Got the headphones up high.
Can't numb you out, can't drum you out of my mind.
They're playing "Goodbye baby, Baby Goodbye,
Ooh, ooh, love is blind."
Up go the flaps, down go the wheels.
I hope you got your heat turned on baby.
I hope they finally fixed your automobile.
I hope it's better when we meet again baby.
Starbright, starbright
You got the lovin' that I like, all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight
A Case of You
Just before our love got lost you said,
"I am as constant as a northern star."
And I said, "Constantly in the darkness;
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar."
On the back of a cartoon coaster,
In the blue TV screen light,
I drew a map of Canada. Oh Canada,
With your face sketched on it twice.
Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine.
You taste so bitter and so sweet.
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet.
Oh I am a lonely painter. I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil,
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid.
I remember that time you told me, you said,
"Love is touching souls."
Surely you touched mine,
'Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time.
Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine.
You taste so bitter and so sweet.
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
Still, I'd be on my feet.
I would still be on my feet.
I met a woman; she had a mouth like yours.
She knew your life. She knew your devils and your deeds.
And she said, "Go to him, stay with him if you can.
But be prepared to bleed."
Oh but you are in my blood;
You're my holy wine.
You're so bitter, bitter and so sweet.
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling,
Still I'd be on my feet.
I would still be on my feet.
Bar and Grill
Three waitresses all wearing
Black diamond earrings
Talking about zombies
And Singapore slings
No trouble in their faces
Not one anxious voice
None of the crazy you get
From too much choice
The thumb and the satchel
Or the rented Rolls-Royce
And you think she knows something
By the second refill
You think she's enlightened
As she totals your bill
You say "Show me the way
To Barangrill"
Well some say it's in service
They say "Humble Makes Pure"
You're hoping it's near Folly
'Cause you're headed that way for sure
And you just have to laugh
'Cause it's all so crazy
Ah, her mind's on her boyfriend
And eggs over easy
It's just a trick on you
Her mirrors and your will
So you ask the truck driver
On the way to the till
But he's just a slave
To Barangrill
The guy at the gaspumps
He's got a lot of soul
He sings Merry Christmas for you
Just like Nat King Cole
And he makes up his own tune
Right on the spot
About whitewalls and windshields
And this job he's got
And you want to get moving
And you want to stay still
But lost in the moment
Some longing gets filled
And you even forget to ask
"Hey, Where's Barangrill?"
from COURT AND SPARK (1974)
Court and Spark
Love came to my door with a sleeping roll
And a madman's soul.
He thought for sure I'd seen him
Dancing up a river in the dark
Looking for a woman to court and spark.
He was playing on the sidewalk for passing change
When something strange happened.
Glory train passed through him
So he buried the coins he made In People's Park
And went looking for a woman
To court and spark.
It seemed like he read my mind.
He saw me mistrusting him, and still acting kind.
He saw how I worried sometimes.
I worry sometimes.
"All the guilty people," he said, "They've all seen the stain
On their daily bread, on their christian names.
I cleared myself. I sacrificed my blues.
And you could complete me; I'd complete you."
His eyes were the color of the sand and the sea.
And the more he talked to me, the more he reached me.
But I couldn't let go of L.A.—
City of the fallen angels.
Free Man in Paris
"The way I see it," he said, "You just can't win it.
Everybody's in it for their own gain. You can't please 'em all.
There's always somebody calling you down.
I do my best, and I do good business.
There's a lot of people asking for my time
They're trying to get ahead.
They're trying to be a good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris, I felt unfettered and alive.
There was nobody calling me up for favors,
And no one's future to decide.
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on,
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song.
I deal in dreamers and telephone screamers.
Lately I wonder what I do it for.
If l had my way, I'd just walk through those doors
And wander down the Champs Elysees
Going cafe to cabaret,
Thinking how I'll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine.
I was a free man in Paris, I felt unfettered and alive.
Nobody was calling me up for favors,
No one's future to decide.
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song."
The Same Situation
Again and again the same situation
For so many years.
Tethered to a ringing telephone
In a room full ot mirrors.
A pretty girl in your bathroom
Checking out her sex appeal.
I asked myself when you said you loved me,
"Do you think this can be real?"
Still I sent up my prayer,
Wondering where it had to go,
With heaven full of astronauts
And the Lord on death row,
While the millions of his lost and lonely ones
CalI out and clamour to be found,
Caught in their struggle for higher positions
And their search for love that sticks around.
You've had lots of lovely women,
Now you turn your gaze to me,
Weighing the beauty and the imperfection
To see if I'm worthy.
Like the church, like a cop, like a mother,
You want me to be truthful.
Sometimes you turn it on me like a weapon, though,
And I need your approval.
Still I sent up my prayer
Wondering who was there to hear.
I said, "Send me somebody
Who's strong, and somewhat sincere."
With the millions of the lost and lonely ones
I called out to be released,
Caught in my struggle for higher achievements
And my search for love
That don't seem to cease.
fromTHE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS (1975)
Shades of Scarlet Conquering
Out of the fire like Catholic saints
Comes Scarlett and her deep complaint,
Mimicking tenderness she sees
In sentimental movies,
A celluloid rider comes to town,
Cinematic lovers sway,
Plantations and sweeping ballroom gowns
Take her breath away.
Out in the wind in crinolines,
Chasing the ghosts of Gable and Flynn,
Through stand-in boys and extra players,
Magnolias hopeful in her auburn hair.
She comes from a school of southern charm.
She likes to have things her way.
Any man in the world holding out his arm
Would soon be made to pay.
Friends have told her not so proud
Neighbors trying to sleep and yelling "not so loud."
Lovers in anger "Block of Ice,"
Harder and harder just to be nice.
Given in the night to dark dreams,
From the dark things she feels,
She covers her eyes in the X-rated scenes,
Running from the reels.
Beauty and madness to be praised
'Cause it is not easy to be brave
To walk around in so much need
To carry the weight of all that greed
Dressed in stolen clothes she stands
Cast iron and frail
With her impossibly gentle hands
And her blood-red fingernails
Out of the fire and still smoldering
She says "A woman must have everything"
Shades of Scarlett Conquering
She says "A woman must have everything"
from HEJIRA (1976)
Amelia
I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain.
It was the hexagram of the heavens.
It was the strings of my guitar.
Amelia, it was just a false alarm.
The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue.
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you.
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture-post-card-charms.
Amelia, it was just a false alarm.
People will tell you where they've gone.
They'll tell you where to go.
But till you get there yourself you never really know.
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm.
Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm.
I wish that he was here tonight.
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away.
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed.
I tell Amelia, it was just a false alarm.
A ghost of aviation,
She was swallowed by the sky.
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms.
Amelia, it was just a false alarm.
Maybe I've never really loved.
I guess that is the truth.
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything.
I crashed into his arms.
Amelia, it was just a false alarm.
I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust,
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust.
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms.
Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms.
Son for Sharon
I went to Staten Island, Sharon
To buy myself a mandolin.
And I saw the long white dress of love
On a storefront mannequin.
Big boat chuggin' back with a belly full of cars...
All for something lacy.
Some girl's going to see that dress
And crave that day like crazy.
Little Indian kids on a bridge up in Canada;
They can balance and they can climb
Like their fathers before them.
They'll walk the girders of the Manhattan skyline.
Shine your light on me Miss Liberty,
Because as soon as this ferry boat docks,
I'm headed to the church to play Bingo.
Fleece me with the gamblers' flocks.
I can keep my cool at poker
But I'm a fool when love's at stake,
Because I can't conceal emotion.
What I'm feeling's always written on my face.
There's a gypsy down on Bleecker Street
I went in to see her as a kind of joke.
And she lit a candle for my love luck
And eighteen bucks went up in smoke.
Sharon, I left my man
At a North Dakota junction.
And I came out to the "Big Apple" here
To face the dream's malfunction.
Love's a repetitious danger
You'd think I'd be accustomed to.
Well, I do accept the changes
At least better than I used to do.
A woman I knew just drowned herself.
The well was deep and muddy.
She was just shaking off futility
Or punishing somebody.
My friends were calling up all day yesterday,
All emotions and abstractions.
It seems we all live so close to that line
And so far from satisfaction.
Dora says, "Have children!"
Mama and Betsy say, "Find yourself a charity.
Help the needy and the crippled or put some time into Ecology."
Well, there's a wide wide world of noble causes
And lovely landscapes to discover.
But all I really want right now
Is find another lover.
When we were kids in Maidstone, Sharon,
I went to every wedding in that little town
To see the tears and the kisses,
And the pretty lady in the white lace wedding gown.
And walking home on the railroad tracks
Or swinging on the playground swing,
Love stimulated my illusions
More than anything.
And when I went skating after Golden Reggie
You know it was white lace I was chasing,
Chasing dreams.
Mama's nylons underneath my cowgirl jeans.
He showed me first you get the kisses
And then you get the tears.
But the ceremony of the bells and lace
Still veils this reckless fool here.
Now there are 29 skaters on Wolmann rink
Circling in singles and in pairs.
In this vigorous anonymity
A blank face at the window stares and stares and stares and stares.
And the power of reason
And the flowers of deep feeling
Seem to serve me
Only to deceive me.
Sharon you've got a husband
And a family and a farm.
I've got the apple of temptation
And a diamond snake around my arm.
But you still have your music
And I've still got my eyes on the land and the sky.
You sing for your friends and your family,
I'll walk green pastures by and by.
Refuge of the Roads