A Voice from the Past

Hejira - Joni Mitchell

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

To listen to her sing it live in 1980, forward to the 42 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1XFbhSMxIM

Anyone who knows me understands that I love music, lyrics and the written word, and seeing new places. In 1990, I went to Jamaica to build houses. I was able to take about 30 cassettes (twas a different era, younglings) with me. One of them was Joni Mitchell's, Shadows and Light. It features an all-star lineup with Pat Metheny on lead guitar and Jaco Pastorius on bass. 

These lyrics have always spoken to me. Years ago, when was I truly on my own for the first time, the lyrics helped me to sort through a wide range of emotions. I was meeting new people in a different culture. I was in the developing world. I was a world away from friends and family, as well as the woman I loved. 

It spoke to me when I was in NOVA, working in DC. It spoke to me during the Spanish Exile, and now in Denver.

Music really is an amazing thing. And Joni's lyrics are some of the best.

- - - 

I have been remembering David Bowie the past six weeks. Will we ever see the likes of him again? I truly doubt it. He was so original. He was brilliant. Imagine that night in '72 when Bowie first introduced his Ziggy Stardust persona on the BBC's Top of the Pops. People were baffled. Brilliant!

Bowie: Starman 1972