Joni Mitchell
Canadian singer-songwriter and painter.
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.
You go down to the pick up station
Craving warmth and beauty
You settle for less than fascination
A few drinks later you're not so choosy
When the closing lights strip off the shadows
On this strange new flesh you've found
Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf
You hurry
To the blackness
And the blankets
To lay down an impression
And your loneliness.
I came upon a child of god,
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me:
"I’m going on down to Yasgur’s farm
I’m going to join in a rock ’n’ roll band
I’m going to camp out on the land,
I’m going to try an’ get my soul free.
I don't know who I am / but you know, life is for learning.
Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone.
They paved paradise,
And put up a parking lot.
Some are friendly
Some are cutting
Some are watching it from the wings
Some are standing in the centre giving to get something.
I need to explore and discover and so that has given me, really, to some what seems like courage, but really it's just in my stars, there's nothing I can do about it . . . . I guess I'll just take my award and run now.
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 ev’ry day.
That's the music that I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell. Court and Spark I love because I'd always hoped that she'd work with a band. But the main thing with Joni is that she's able to look at something that's happened to her, draw back and crystallize the whole situation, then write about it. She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. "Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed".
And the seasons they go round and round,
And the painted ponies go up and down,
We’re all captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go 'round and 'round and 'round
In the circle game.
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
I would still be on my feet.
I wanna be strong,
I wanna laugh along,
I wanna belong to the living.
Alive, alive, I wanna get up and jive,
Wanna wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive.
She is of course well past the stage of having to prove herself artistically. She is in possession of one of the most extraordinary song catalogs of the past half-century. Her chords break harmonic rules, have no technical names and defy Western musical theory. Her voice is an instrument that has grown sublimely heavier and huskier over the decades. . . .Once you get past the security gates, Ms. Mitchell's house feels like a pocket of middle-class comfort in the midst of zillionaire Beverly Hills. In some ways life is still as it was in 1974, when she bought the house: She has no computer, no voice mail, no cellphone and no e-mail. At one point, when we tried to remember one of her lyrics, we scrolled through my iPod. She said it was the first time she had listened to one.
It's coming on Christmas,
They're cutting down trees.
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace.
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I don't like being too looked up at or too looked down on. I prefer meeting in the middle to being worshipped or spat out.
I was demanding of myself a deeper and greater honesty, more and more revelation in my work in order to give it back to the people where it goes into their lives and nourishes them and changes their direction and makes light bulbs go off in their head and makes them feel. And it isn't vague, it strikes against the very nerves of their life and in order to do that you have to strike against the very nerves of your own.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
and a swinging hot spot.
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.
There's been a tremendous amount of growth. An actress is not expected to continue to play her ingenue roles, you know, I've written myself roles to grow into gracefully, but there is no growing into gracefully in the pop world. Basically the reason I'm so unruly in this business is because I never wanted to be a human jukebox.