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Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi / California

May 31, 2018 Peter Kimpton
Joni Mitchell in the early 1970s

Joni Mitchell in the early 1970s

After two previous colourful entries, let's enter the vividly depicted world of the Canadian singer-songwriter, here taking us from Los Angeles to Paris and back on a journey of street and field scenes that capture big issues old and new. Colours also feature heavily in Mitchell's songs. Big Yellow Taxi from the album Ladies of the Canyon (1970), in reference to the mountainous west Hollywood Laurel Canyon, we travel on the classic American vehicle, but the images reference farm DDT spraying and the building of parking lots, as well as other environmental issues. 

California, meanwhile, from the 1971 album, Blue, details Mitchell's various travels to France, Spain and Greece, and grave concerns about world peace around the Vietnam War, her loneliness and homesickness for the freedom of her home. Alongside those snapshot images in lyrics, both songs show Mitchell at her performing best – the agile guitar playing, her soaring voice, and melodies that variously linger, leap, glide and skip like a fish in a river. She suffered from depression throughout this very potent part of her early writing career, but there's always a quality to her work that jumps between laughing joviality and beautiful melancholy.

[Verse 1]
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot

[Hook]
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
(Shooo bop bop bop bop
Shooo bop bop bop bop)

[Verse 2]
They took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum
And then they charged the people a dollar-and-a-half just to see 'em

[Hook]
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
(Shooo bop bop bop bop
Shooo bop bop bop bop)

[Verse 3]
Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT now
Give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees
Please!

[Hook]
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
(Shooo bop bop bop bop
Shooo bop bop bop bop)

[Verse 4]
Late last night I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi took away my old man.

[Hook]
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shooo bop bop bop bop)
I said, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shooo bop bop bop bop)
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shooo bop bop bop bop)
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot

[Verse 1]
Sitting in a park in Paris, France
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had
Still a lot of land to see
But I wouldn't stay here
It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here

[Chorus]
Oh, but California
California, I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a sunset pig
California, I'm coming home

[Verse 2]
I met a redneck on a Grecian isle
Who did the goat dance very well
He gave me back my smile
But he kept my camera to sell
Oh the rogue, the red red rogue
He cooked good omelets and stews
And I might have stayed on with him there

[Chorus]
But my heart cried out for you, California
Oh California, I'm coming home
Oh make me feel good rock'n roll band
I'm your biggest fan
California, I'm coming home

[Bridge]
Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
Just gives you the blues
Just gives you the blues

[Verse 3]
So I bought me a ticket
I got on a plane to Spain
Went to a party down a red dirt road
There were lots of pretty people there
Reading Rolling Stone, reading Vogue
They said, "How long can you hang around?"
I said a week, maybe two
Just until my skin turns brown

Then I'm going home to California
California, I'm coming home
Oh will you take me as I am
Strung out on another man
California, I'm coming home

Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
More about the war
And the bloody changes
Oh will you take me as I am?
Will you take me as I am?
Will you?
Will you take me as I am?
Hmmm mmmmm
Take me as I am

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In 1970, 1971, folk, country Tags songs, song of the day, Joni Mitchell, folk, Vietnam War, environment, Paris, Los Angeles, California
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