Thursday, November 7, 2013

Happy Birthday Joni

Joni Mitchell was my hero when I was fifteen.
I've been influenced and inspired by her all my life.
She's a prairie girl and looks for all the world like a Raven or a Crow.
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There's a crow flying

Black & ragged

Tree to tree

He's black as the highway that's leading me

Now he's diving down

To pick up on something shiny

I feel like that black crow

Flying

In a blue sky

====>Black Crow from the 1976 album Hejira

She's a poet.


A musical genius.

 

A painter.
Her paintings adorn many of her album covers.
She loves cats.
 
Here are some of my favorite quotes and verse from this lady of the canyon.
====>>

“people will tell you where they've gone, they'll tell you where to go, but until you get there yourself you'll never really know.”

====>>

"There's a man who's climbed a mountain And he's calling out her name

And he hopes her heart can hear three thousand miles He calls again

He can think her there beside him He can miss her just the same

He has missed her in the forest While he showed her all the flowers

And the branches sang the chorus As he climbed the scaley towers

Of a forest tree

While she was somewhere being free."

====>>

"I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel

To shower off the dust

And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust."

====>>

"He bought her a diamond for her throat

He put her in a ranch house on a hill

She could see the valley barbecues

From her window sill

See the blue pools in the squinting sun

Hear the hissing of summer lawns."

====>>

"but i know my needs

my sweet tumbleweed

i need more quiet times

by a river flowing

you and me

deep kisses

and the sun going down."

====>>

"i will always love you

hands alike

magnet and iron

the souls."

====>>

"Marcie leaves and doesn't tell us

Where or why she moved away

Red is angry green is jealous

That was all she had to say

Someone thought they saw her Sunday

Window shopping in the rain

Someone heard she bought a one-way ticket

And went west again."

====>> Joni Mitchell is 70 years young today.

 

 


 

16 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday to Joni...always loved her but did not know so much about her..thank you prairiegirl xoxo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello friend. There are so many interesting (and sometimes shocking) things about her. I almost made a list of those, but changed my mind.
      To read about them, go to Thestar, an online newspaper out of Toronto. There's an article listing "16 amazing things about her." It really is kind of shocking.
      xoxo

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  2. i KNOW. i've loved joni since i first heard her in the 70s….and i used to sing her songs in college-days coffee houses. i still belt-out a joni song or two when i'm outdoors, which is where i most feel like i relate to her lyrics and melodies.

    thank you for reminding me, red dirt prairie girl….

    LOVE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha! I can just imagine you singing away in the woods there!
      What song do you like to belt out? "You turn me on, I'm a radio?" Heehee.
      Tell me, do you have any of her CD's ?
      See ya, Bernard
      xo

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  3. Love love love Joni....listened to Hejira in high school! Thanks for this post, it brought it all back home to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad I could take you back to good ol' high school days!
      Julie, do you not listen to her still?
      x

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  4. Happy birthday to Joni!! My mom loves her :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, well THAT makes me feel good, Keith!
      Haha. Just joking. ;)
      Thanks for being here.
      And ya know...if you like jazz at all, her later music, like Mingus, is awesome.

      Delete
  5. Oh I love Joni! And I can thank my dad for that...
    I hope your days have been warm and wonderful!
    xo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your dad must have been a "real groovy cat" back then, in the beatnic days!
      I knew you were a flower child. xx

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  6. Yet ANOTHER thing we have in common, my sweet.

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    Replies
    1. Oh yes! What an honor, too.
      I bet you have more Joni albums (vinyl) than me. ;)
      I had an apple crate full of her records and a "friend" lost them when I went to Alaska to deckhand one summer. Grrr..
      xx

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  7. you two seem cut from the same beautiful cloth!
    such a beautiful birthday tribute from you. thank you for sharing. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. so special
    just like you.....♥

    love and light

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