Joni Mitchell Never Lies — Page 3

SHINE is nice!
Fun new (3rd?) version of BIG YELLOW TAXI.

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It's great that this thread just keeps bobbing up over and over. I heard the new album in Starbucks and have to pick it up.

Then watch this: Joni, 30 years later, singing the same song. She's weary and battered and her voice is all but gone. Even though she wrote the song so very long ago, she finally understands it fully now and it's so gut wrenchingly beautiful it makes me cry.

"So many things I would have done, but clouds got in the way...."
Joni 2000

As soon as this thread title I came into to talk about the early career and late career "Both Sides Now"s. I hated that movie "Love, Actually" but the scene where Emma listend to deep Joni and cry made me cry. The original is one of my favorite songs of all time.

HEY! Yesterday was Joni's 69th Birthday! Happy Birthday, Joni! Thanks for the music!

Yeah there were lots of old names on this thread that made me smile.

I've looked at Joni Mitchell threads from both sides now....

Updated On: 11/9/12 at 12:22 PM

OH PJ -u just made me tear up!

I'd forgotten about this thread.

I saw Glebb and Iflit on the first page and had a good cry.
Actually, it was a really sad cry.

I listen to Joni alot lately.
I always have.
I always will.
But, lately, quite alot.

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I ran across the CD Travelogue today- it's an odd duck, two CDs of Joni's songs re-recorded with lugubrious orchestral accompaniment. Some songs I had glossed right over in their more cheerful incarnations lept out at me:

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
Amelia (not the Travelogue version, but nice)

In high school (which was really not that long ago) I would lay in my dark room with "Blue" playing. I have a lot of her albums on vinyl and play them often.

For Christmas two years ago someone gave me the Amchitka album (Joni, James Taylor, Phil Ochs; released in 2009). It was the 1970 concert that launched GREENPEACE. She duets with James Taylor on "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "The Circle Game" and it is divine. I misplaced it when I moved and I certainly miss it.

Here's a video of her performing "Woodstock", and given the year it can't be too long after Woodstock actually happened. This is also my favorite Joni song; "And I feel to be a cog in something turning..." http://youtu.be/IBqodL2OJ1A

Sigh...

I love her music. I love the memories of listening to her music over the years.
I loved sharing her music with Glebb and iflit.

Thanks for bringing this thread back.

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For the Roses is my favorite album. In 2007 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry. Below is my favorite Joni Mitchell song from the album:

Judgment of the Moon and Stars

No tongue in the bell
And the fishwives yell
But they might as well be mute
So you get to keep the pictures
That don't seem like much
Cold white keys under your fingers
Now you're thinking
"That's no substitute
It just don't do it
Like the song of a warm warm body
Loving your touch"

In the court they carve your legend
With an apple in its jaw
And the women that you wanted
They get their laughs
Long silk stockings
On the bedposts of refinement
You're too raw
They think you're too raw
It's the judgment of the moon and stars
Your solitary path
Draw yourself a bath
Think what you'd like to have
For supper
Or take a walk
A park
A bridge
A tree
A river
Revoked but not yet cancelled
The gift goes on
In silence
In a bell jar
Still a song

You've got to shake your fists at lightning now
You've got to roar like forest fire
You've got to spread your light like blazes
All across the sky
They're going to aim the hoses on you
Show 'em you won't expire
Not till you burn up every passion
Not even when you die
Come on now
You've got to try
If you're feeling contempt
Well then you tell it
If you're tired of the silent night
Jesus well then you yell it
Condemned to wires and hammers
Strike every chord that you feel
That broken trees
And elephant ivories conceal