Friday Muse

FRIDAY MUSE - JONI MITCHELL

Because
Her lyrics. She shared her inner life with poetic integrity and honesty. Her songs are like short stories, taking us to the 1970's and into other peoples' parties, to broken love affairs with rock and rollers, to travelling the great expanse of Americas inland, to being in Paris during the Vietnam war, and always with self reference to the experience of being a woman in constant search of love.
That mix of vulnerability and soaring talent.
Her cheekbones and cornsilk hair.
She soundtracked emotional arcs and falls with such accuracy - through her personal revelations she spoke to all women.
She wore clothes with bohemian flair and panache - her influence is still being referenced today.
Painter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, singer and activist - Joni produced all her albums in the 1970's and painted most of the albumn covers - we love a well-rounded woman as icon!

Hejira

I'm traveling in some vehicle

I'm sitting in some cafe

A defector from the petty wars

That shell shocked love away

There's comfort in melancholy

When there's no need to explain

It's just as natural as the weather

In this moody sky today

In our possessive coupling

So much could not be expressed

So now I'm returning to myself

These things that you and I suppressed

I see something of myself in everyone

Just at this moment of the world

As snow gathers like bolts of lace

Waltzing on a ballroom girl

You know it never has been easy

Whether you do or you do not resign

Whether you travel the breadth of extremities

Or stick to some straighter line

Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock

They're either going to thaw out or freeze

Listen...strains of Benny Goodman

Coming through' the snow and the pinewood trees

I'm porous with travel fever

But you know I'm so glad to be on my own

Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger

Can set up trembling in my bones

I know, no one's going to show me everything

We all come and go unknown

Each so deep and superficial

Between the forceps and the stone

Well I looked at the granite markers

Those tribute to finality, to eternity

And then I looked at myself here

Chicken scratching for my immortality

In the church they light the candles

And the wax rolls down like tears

There's the hope and the hopelessness

I've witnessed thirty years

We're only particles of change I know, I know

Orbiting around the sun

But how can I have that point of view

When I'm always bound and tied to someone

White flags of winter chimneys

Waving truce against the moon

In the mirrors of a modern bank

From the window of a hotel room

I'm traveling in some vehicle

I'm sitting in some cafe

A defector from the petty wars

Until love sucks me back that way

Hejira by Joni Mitchell

Image credits: Pinterest