Joni Mitchell

[fox69]

"Otis And Marlena"

"Otis And Marlena"



Marlena under Foster Grants
She's undercover from the dawns advance
That girl is travel-drained
And the neon mercury vapor stained
Miami sky
It's red as meat
It's a cheap pink rose
Otis in the driver's seat
Watches the street lights fade away
On louvered blocks in green sea air
In fluorescent fossil yards
Slippers are shuffling into folding chairs
Freckled hands are shuffling cards

They've come for fun and sun
While Muslims stick up Washington ...

Otis empties out the trunk
On the steps of that celebrated dump
Sleazing by the sea
Bow down to her royal travesty--
In her ballrooms heads of state--
In her bedrooms rented girls--
Always the grand parades of cellulite
Jiggling to her golden pools
Through flock and cupid colonnades
They jiggle into surgery
Hopefully beneath the blade
They dream of golden beauty ...

They've come for fun and sun
While Muslims stick up Washington ...

Marlena, white as stretcher sheet
Watches it all from her 10th floor balcony
Like it's her opera box
All those Pagliacci summer frocks
Otis is fiddling with the TV dial
All he gets are cartoons and reruns
She taps her glass with an emery file
Watching three rings in the sun
The golden dive, the fatted flake
And sizzle in the mink oil
It's all a dream
She has awake
Checked into Miami Royal
Where they've come for fun and sun
While Muslims hold up Washington ...
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on

 

[fox69]

"Overture - Cotton Avenue"

"Overture - Cotton Avenue"



A red sun came rolling down a grey sky
And the frogs and dogs and night birds then
Started up singing sweet country lullaby
You see that patch of city lights-
Somewhere in there's Cotton Avenue-
That's where I'm going to take myself tonight
With a spit shine on my dancing shoes
If you got a place like that to go
You just have to go there
If you got no place special
Well then, you just go no place special
I guess it's just the summer in the young blood
Ripe and juicy in the young blood
Teasing to go down to ...
Cotton Avenue
To hear the shiny shiny music
See all the shiny people dancing to it
Anytime you go to ...
Cotton Avenue
If you got a place like that to go
You know you got to go there
If you got no place special
Well then, you just go no place special
You see that summer storm brewing in the southern sky
By the time it hits here I'll be dancing high and dry
To rhythm and blues
On Cotton Avenue
Poor boys'll be hanging around outside in the street
They got all the latest words
They're dancing to the latest beat
While they're hustling and sizing you
On Cotton Avenue
If you got a place like that to go
You just have to go there
If you've got no place special
Well my dear
You just so no place ... special

 

[fox69]

"Paprika Plains"

"Paprika Plains"



It fell from midnight skies
It drummed on the galvanized
In the washroom, women tracked the rain
Up to the make-up mirror
Liquid soap and grass
And Jungle Gardenia crash
On Pine-Sol and beer ...
It's stifling in here ...
I've got to get some air ...
I'm going outside to get some air

Back in my hometown
They would have cleared the floor
Just to watch the rain come down!
They're such sky oriented people--
Geared to changing weather ...
I'm floating off in time
I'm floating off
I'm floating off in time

When I was three feet tall
And wide eyed open to it all
With their tasseled teams they came
To McGee's General Store
All in their beaded leathers
I would tie on colored feathers
And I'd beat the drum like war ...
I would beat the drum like war
I'd beat the drum
I'd beat the drum like war

But when the church got through
They traded their beads for bottles
Smashed--on Railway Avenue
And they cut off their braids
And lost some link with nature
I'm floating into dreams
I'm floating off
I'm floating into my dreams

I dream paprika plains
Vast and bleak and God forsaken
Paprika plains
And a turquoise river snaking

(Where crows gaze--vigilant on wires
Where cattle graze the grasses
Far from the digits of business hours
The moon clock wanes and waxes--
But here all time is stripped away
Nowhere on these plains
Is a sprout or an egg in evidence
To measure loss or gain ...
Only a little Indian band
Come down from some windy mesa
No women to make them food and child
No expressions on their faces
I'm low in a helicopter
And the wind from whirling blades
Flaps their woven blankets
And flags their raven braids
How came they to this emptiness?
How came they to this dream?
How came I to this view
From a flying machine
Of earth and air and water
And a band of Indian men
Without herds or flocks or crops
Or families or fires to tend?
Like a phoenix up from ashes now
A blanket figure springs
With a fist raised up to turquoise skies
Like liberty
And at the point of vanishing
Where the sky and the earth meet
A bomb blooms
Deadly mushroom
White
Gold
Heat
Like a phoenix up from ashes
Up from violent mysteries
And growing 'till the giant blast
Is to it like a golfer's tee
there comes a child's beach ball
And memory takes me back
to the beach to toss it up
to the garage to get it patched
A pink and yellow beach ball
Rolling
Grand
Detached
Turning the blues and greens of earth
From space probe photographs
I float out of the hovercraft
Naked as infancy
And weightless
And drifting
Horizontally
Like a filing to a magnet
Like the long descent of rain
I am drawn
I fall against the ball
And lose paprika plains
I suckle at my mother's breast
I embrace my mother earth
I remember perforated blinds
Over the crib of my birth
And just as Eve succumbed
To reckless curiosity
I take my sharpest fingernail
And slash the globe to see
Below me--
Vast Paprika plains
And the snake the river traces
And a little band of Indian men
With no expressions on their faces.)

The rain retreats
Like troops to fall on other fields and streets
Meanwhile they're sweet talking and name calling
And brawling on the fringes of the floor
I spot you through the smoke
With your eyes on fire
From J&B and coke
As I'm coming through the door
I'm coming back
I'm coming back for more!
The band plugs in again
You see that mirrored ball begin to sputter lights
And spin
Dizzy on the dancers
Geared to changing rhythms
No matter what you do
I'm floating back
I'm floating back to you!

 

[fox69]

"Passion Play (The Story Of Jesus And Zachius...The Little Tax Collector)"

"Passion Play (The Story Of Jesus And Zachius...The Little Tax Collector)"



Magdalene is trembling
Like a washing on a line
Trembling and gleaming
Never before was a man so kind
Never so redeeming

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Ecstasy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

I am up a sycamore
Looking through the leaves
A sinner of some position
Who in the world can this heart healer be
This magical physician

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Misery
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done

Oh climb down climb down he says to me
From the middle of unrest
They think his light is squandered
But he sees a stray in the wilderness
And I see how far I've wandered

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Apathy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done

Oh all around the marketplace
The buzzing of the flies
The buzzing and the stinging
Divinely barren
And wickedly wise
The killer nails are ringing

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Tragedy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

 

[fox69]

"Passion Play (When All The Slaves Are Free)"

"Passion Play (When All The Slaves Are Free)"



Magdalene is trembling
Like a washing on a line
Trembling and gleaming
Never before was a man so kind
Never so redeeming

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Ecstasy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

I am up a sycamore
Looking through the leaves
A sinner of some position
Who in the world can this heart healer be
This magical physician

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Misery
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done

Oh, climb down, climb down he says to me
From the middle of unrest
They think is light is squandered
But he sees a stray in the wilderness
And I see how far I've wandered

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Apathy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done

Oh, all around the marketplace
The buzzing of the flies
The buzzing and the stinging
Divinely barren
And wickedly wise
The killer nails are ringing

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Tragedy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

 

[fox69]

"Pat's Solo"

"Pat's Solo"



This is my solo...
Excuse me Sir...would you please take your seat,
I'm playing my solo... no I'm serious can't you see I'm playing a solo here?...
Hey buddy sit down so I can concentrate on my solo....
Ok that's it, you would think that an artist could play a solo once in a while without any interuptions. Here...you take my guitar and show us what is so important...
What? You work here, you're the usher?
Oooook, sorry, soooo I'll just play my solo then.

 

[fox69]

"People's Parties"

"People's Parties"



All the people at this party
They've got a lot of style
They've got stamps of many countries
They've got passport smiles
Some are friendly
Some are cutting
Some are watching it from the wings
Some are standing in the center
Giving to get something

Photo beauty gets attention
Then her eye paint's running down
She's got a rose in her teeth
And a lampshade crown
One minute she's so happy
Then she's crying on someone's knee
Saying laughing and crying
You know it's the same release

I told you when I met you
I was crazy
Cry for us all, beauty
Cry for Eddie in the corner
Thinking he's nobody
And Jack behind his joker
And stonecold Grace behind her fan
And me in my frightened silence
Thinking I don't understand

I feel like I'm sleeping
Can you wake me
You seem to have a broader sensibility
I'm just living on nerves and feelings
With a weak and a lazy mind
And coming to peoples parties
Fumbling deaf dumb & blind

I wish I had more sense of humour
Keeping the sadness at bay
Throwing the lightness on these things

Laughing it all away x 4

 

[fox69]

"Rainy Night House"

"Rainy Night House"



It was a rainy night
We took a taxi to your mothers' home
She went to Florida and left you
With you father's gun, alone
Upon her small white bed
I fell into a dream
You sat up all the night and watched me
To see, who in the world I might be

I am from the Sunday school
I sing soprano in the upstairs choir
You are a holy man
ON the FM radio
I sat up all the night and watched thee
To see, who in the world you might be

You called me beautiful
You called your mother - she was very tanned
So you packed your tent and went
To live out in the Arizona sand
You are a refugee
From a wealthy family
You gave up all the golden factories
To see, who in the world you might be

 

[fox69]

"Raised On Robbery"

"Raised On Robbery"



He was sitting in the lounge of the Empire Hotel
He was drinking for diversion, he was thinking for himself
A little money riding on the Maple Leafs
Along comes a lady in lacy sleeves
She says, let me sit down, you know drinking alone's a shame, it's a shame, it's a crying shame
Look at those jokers glued to that damn hockey game
Hey honey, you've got lots of cash
Bring us down a bottle and we'll have some laughs
Gin's what I'm drinking, I was raised on robbery

I'm a pretty good cook, sitting on my groceries
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipe
I try and I try but I can't save a cent
I'm up after midnight cooking, trying to make my rent
I'm rough but I'm pleasing, I was raised on robbery

We had a little money once, they were pushing through a four lane highway
Government gave us three thousand dollars, you should have seen it fly away
First he bought a '57 Biscayne, he put it in the ditch
He drunk up all the rest, that son of a bitch
His blood's bad whiskey, I was raised on robbery

You know you ain't bad looking, I like the way you hold your drinks
Come home with me honey, I ain't asking for no full-length mink
Hey, where you going, don't go yet
Your glass ain't empty and we just met
You're mean when you're loaded, I was raised on robbery

 

[fox69]

"Ray's Dad's Cadillac"

"Ray's Dad's Cadillac"



Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Rollin' past the rink
Past the record shack
Pink fins in the falling rain
Rollin'
To the blue lights past the water mains

Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Weekends we'd get
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Rock 'n roll in the dashboard
Romance in the back of
Ray's Dad's Cadillac

Ray's dad teaches math
Zero
I'm a dunce
I'm a decimal in his class
Last night's kisses won't erase
Zero
I just can't keep the numbers in their place

Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Last night we had
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Rock 'n roll in the dashboard
Romance in the back of
Ray's Dad's Cadillac

When it comes to mathematics
I got static in the attic
"No sir, nothin's clear!"
I'll be blackboard blind on Monday
Dreamin' of blue runways
On the edge of here
A little atmosphere

Blue lights out on airport road
Motown, in a field in a farmer's grove
Big planes comin' overhead
Lowdown
You can see the bolts
You can see the tire treads

Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Weekends we'd get
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Oh, little darlin'
Rock 'n roll in the dashboard
Romance in the back of
Ray's Dad's Cadillac

Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Ray's Dad's Cadillac