Joni

Have been enjoying the gift of slowly experiencing Joni Mitchell's music... Her lyrics are a rich tapestry & I'm stunned by the depth of her storytelling.... & yeah, I could gush for a while, but all my spewing won't do her work justice, so here's some samples, just to show you what I mean:

The Magdeline Laundries - by Joni Mitchell

"I was an unmarried girl / I'd just turned twenty-seven / When they sent me to the sisters / For the way men looked at me / Branded as a jezebel / I knew I was not bound for Heaven / I'd be cast in shame / Into the Magdalene laundries

Most girls come here pregnant / Some by their own fathers / Bridget got that belly / By her parish priest / We're trying to get things white as snow / All of us woe-begotten-daughters / In the steaming stains / Of the Magdalene laundries

Prostitutes and destitutes / And temptresses like me / Fallen women / Sentenced into / dreamless drudgery / Why do they call this heartless place / Our Lady of Charity? / Oh charity!

These bloodless brides of Jesus / If they had just once glimpsed their groom / Then they'd know and they'd drop the stones / Concealed behind their rosaries / They wilt the grass they walk upon / They leech the light out of a room / They'd like to drive us down the drain / At the Magdalene laundries

Peg O'Connell died today / She was a cheeky girl / A flirt / They just stuffed her in a hole! / Surely to God you'd think at least some bells should ring! / One day I'm going to die here too / And they'll plant me in the dirt / Like some lame bulb / That never blooms / come any spring / Not any spring / No, not any spring / Not any spring"

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter - by Joni Mitchell

"I'm Don Juan's reckless daughter / I came out two days on your tail / Those two bald-headed days in November / Before the first snowflakes sail / Out on the vast and subtle plains of mystery / A split tongue spirit talks / Noble as a nickel chief / Striking up an old juke box / And he says: / "Snakes along the railroad tracks" / He says, "Eagles in jet trails" / He says, "Coils around feathers and talons on scales / Gravel under the belly plates" / He says, "Wind in the Wings" / He says, "Big bird dragging its tail in the dust / Snake kite flying on a string"

I come from open prairie / Given some wisdom and a lot of jive / Last night the ghosts of my old ideas / Reran on channel five / And it howled so spooky for its eagle soul / I nearly broke down and cried / But the split tongue spirit laughed at me / He says, "Your serpent cannot be denied" / Our serpents love the whisky bars / They love the romance of the crime / But didn't I see a neon sign / Fester on your hotel blind / And a country road come off the wall / And swoop down at the crowd at the bar / And put me at the top of your danger list / Just for being so much like you are

You're a coward against the altitude / You're a coward against the flesh / Coward caught between yes and no / Reckless this time on the line for yes, yes, yes! / Reckless brazen in the play / Of your changing traffic lights / Coward slinking down the hall / To another restless night / As we center behind the eight ball / As we rock between the sheets / As we siphon the colored language / Off the farms and the streets / Here in Good-Old-God-Save-America / the home of the brave and the free / We are all hopelessly oppressed cowards / Of some duality / Of restless multiplicity / (Oh say can you see)

Restless for streets and honky tonks / Restless for home and routine / Restless for country safety and her / Restless for the likes of reckless me / Restless sweeps like fire and rain / Over virgin wilderness / It prowls like hookers and thieves / Through bolt locked tenements / Behind my bolt locked door / The eagle and the serpent are at war in me / The serpent fighting for blind desire / The eagle for clarity / What strange prizes these battles bring / These hectic joys these weary blues / Puffed up and strutting when I think I win / Down and shaken when I think I lose

There are rivets up here in this eagle / There are box cars down there on your snake / And we are twins of spirit / No matter which route home we take / Or what we forsake / We're going to come up to the eyes of clarity / And we'll go down to the beads of guile / There is danger and education / In living out such a reckless life style / I touched you on the central plains / It was plane to train my twin / It was just plane shadow to train shadow

But to me it was skin to skin / The spirit talks in spectrums / He talks to mother earth to father sky / Self indulgence to self denial / Man to woman / Scales to feathers / You and I

Eagles in the sky / You and I / Snakes in the grass / You and I / Crawl and fly / You and I"