Joni+Mitchell


 * Joni Mitchell**
 * By: Daja Walker**



Roberta Joan “Joni” Mitchell is a Canadian singer- songwriter. She was born November 7, 1943 in Fort Macleod, Canada. She started out singing in small night clubs in Canada. In 1965, she moved to the United States, and it was here where she began touring. She went on to have a successful career with seventeen albums. She is considered to be one of the most influential artist of all time.
 * Biography**

I think I'm falling In love again When I get that crazy feeling, I know I'm in trouble again I'm in trouble 'Cause you're a rambler and a gambler And a sweet-taIking-ladies man And you love your lovin' But not like you love your freedom Help me I think I'm falling In love too fast It's got me hoping for the future And worrying about the past' Cause I've seen some hot hot blazes Come down to smoke and as We love our lovin' But not like we love our freedom Didn't it feel good We were sitting there talking Or lying there not talking Didn't it feel good You dance with the lady With the hole in her stocking Didn't it feel good Didn't it feel good Help meI think I'm falling In love with you Are you going to let me go there by myself That's such a lonely thing to do Both of us flirting around Flirting and flirting Hurting too We love our lovin' But not like we love our freedom
 * Help me** By: **Joni Mitchell**

In the above song, Joni Mitchell is singing about a guy that she is falling in love with. The song is kind of ironic because even though she is supposed to be falling in love, the first words in the song are “help me”. You would think that a person would be overjoyed to be falling in love, but she said that she was trouble. This was a sign that the relationship was probably more detrimental than beneficial. In the next verse, Mitchell mentions that the guy is basically a player. He’s a smooth talker who loves love, but he loves the ability to be free and have his choice of women more. In the next two verses, she uses repetition to repeat that she loves love just as he do, but they both love their ability to be open and free from each other’s webs. This gives her hope that maybe they could be something in the future as well as reservations because she knows how quickly previous relationships turned left. In the end, Mitchell gives her finally plea for help. She knows that loving him is not good, but she cannot help herself. I believe that she really does not have a problem with loving him. Instead, she is fearful of rejection. She does not want to be the only one in this “relationship” who is in love. Mitchell’s ability to use repetition throughout her song compels the audience to feel the emotions that she was feeling at that time. This song evokes the feeling of a breaking heart. I believe that this is one of Joni Mitchell’s strongest songs. media type="youtube" key="2a63A0fxQ5w" width="560" height="315"
 * Analysis**

Everybody looks so ill at ease So distrustful, so displeased Running down the table I see a borderline Like a barbed wire fence Strung tight, strung tense Prickling with pretense A borderline Why are you smirking at your friend? Is this to be the night When all well-wishing ends? All credibility revoked? Thin skin, thick jokes Can we blame it on the smoke This borderline? Every bristling shaft of pride Church or nation Team or tribe Every notion we subscribe to Is just a borderline Good or bad, we think we know As if thinking makes things so All convictions grow along a borderline Smug in your jaded expertise You scathe the wonder world And you praise barbarity in this illusionary place This scared, hard-edged rat race All liberty is laced with Borderlines
 * Borderline**

Every income, every age Every fashion-plated rage Every measure, every gauge Creates a borderline Every stone thrown through glass Every mean-streets kickass Every swan caught on the grass Will draw a borderline You snipe so steady You snub so snide So ripe and ready To diminish and deride You're so quick to condescend My opinionated friend All you deface, all you defendIs just a borderline Just a borderline Another borderline Just a borderline


 * Analysis**

Borderline is one of Joni Mitchell’s more serious pieces. This song is basically about there being borderlines in everything in life. In the first verse, Mitchell voices that these borderlines are like barbed wire fence. This use of similes and imagery makes me immediately think of a prison. This makes me think of a prison because the only thing that keeps an inmate from the outside world is the barbed wire. In this context, the barbed wire represents that borderline. She uses repetition throughout the verse to instill the fact that everything you do, everything that makes you the incredible person you are, consists of borderlines. These borderlines are so hard to grasp sometimes due to how easy they are to see. The door is the borderline between you and the space on the other side. Opinion is the borderline between your truth and theirs. I really believe that Mitchell was trying to enhance the listeners’ minds by making them dig deep to figure out what their personal borderlines are.




 * Not To Blame**

The story hit the news From coast to coast They said you beat the girl You loved the most Your charitable acts Seemed out of place With the beauty With your fist marks on her face Your buddies all stood by They bet their Fortunes and their fame That she was out of line And you were not to blame Six hundred thousand doctors Are putting on rubber gloves And they're poking At the miseries made of love They say they're learning How to spot The battered wives Among all the women They see bleeding through their lives I bleed For your perversity These red words that make a stain On your white-washed claim that She was out of line And you were not to blame I heard your baby say When he was only three"Daddy, let's get some girls One for you and one for me"His mother had the frailty You despise And the looks you love To drive to suicide Not one wet eye around her Lonely little grave Said "He was out of line, girlYou were not to blame"

This is one of Mitchell’s darker pieces. In this song, or lyric poem, Mitchell is addressing abuse. There are some individuals who believe that this song was about an old lover whose wife actually committed suicide due to his abuse. It has not been confirmed whether or not this is true, but the allusion to it holds a deeper connotation. In the song, she uses repetition of the line “She was out of line/ And you were not to blame”. This signifies that the male in this situation was not wrong for abusing his significant other because she was not acting accordingly in his eyes. The tone of this line is almost sarcastic because the listener knows that it is in fact his fault. The mood is dark and sad. Mitchell uses this to showcase how important abuse can be. In this song, the female is blamed for being abused because the male’s friends, which represents society, said that it was her fault for being out of line. I also found it profound how Mitchell includes that even at the female’s funeral, no one had the decency to even shed a remorseful tear to signify that she was not to blame for the way he was treated. It was indeed the male’s fault. This problem of abuse is still prevalent today, and even though the song is about a man abusing a woman to the point that she committed suicide, it can be the other way around. Women, men, children, etc. can all be in this very same situation. I chose a visual with a hand that says "it wasn't me". I chose this visual because it represents the woman in the song who didn't have the voice to say that it was not her fault. Mitchell makes it clear that it is not the woman's fault, but it is the man's fault as well all of the friends and family who took his side instead of hers.


 * The Circle Game**

Yesterday a child came out to wonder Caught a dragonfly inside a jar Fearful when the sky was full of thunder And tearful at the falling of a star And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We're captive on the carousel of time We can't return we can only look behind From where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game Then the child moved ten times round the seasons Skated over ten clear frozen streams Words like, when you're older, must appease him And promises of someday make his dreams And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We're captive on the carousel of time We can't return we can only look behind From where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town And they tell him, Take your time, it won't be long now Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We're captive on the carousel of time We can't return we can only look behind From where we came And go round and round and round In the circle gameSo the years spin by and now the boy is twenty Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty Before the last revolving year is through And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We're captive on the carousel of time We can't return, we can only look behind From where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game And go round and round and round In the circle game media type="youtube" key="tGr_cyThHkc" width="420" height="315"

This is one of my favorite pieces rom Joni Mitchell. In this lyrical piece she tells the story of a child’s journey from childhood to adult hood. She uses various poetic devices to capture the growth of the child. For example, the first two verses have a simple rhyme pattern that would appeal to a younger child. It was this portion of the song when the individual was a small child. As the song progresses, the remaining verses do not have a set persistent rhyme pattern. This signifies that the child has grown into a teen, and then an adult, which means they can comprehend better. They don’t need the simple rhyme pattern to help them understand. One of themes that she presents in the song is that this individual continuously has hope for the future. Even though the dreams and hopes were tampered a bit along the way, which never deterred them. The entire song is a metaphor in a sense. She uses the carousel as a metaphor for the years that go by. It suggest that the years will continue to go by, and we can always reflect on the past, but we can never return. The carousel is like the circle of life. You will also notice that the child ages with the seasons. I believe that anyone can connect with this song because everyone has their own personal carousel. We all have to go through this circle of life, and although we have had some trying time in the past, we are able to move forward with hope because we have learned our lessons from previous experiences. For my last visual, I decided to add a video of a song from the group X Ambassadors. I chose to include them because they were inspired by Joni Mitchell. They really like her style and the realness of her lyrics, and they have somewhat captured her style and twisted it a little into their very own. Their songs are about real life trials and tribulations that they have experienced either individually or as a group.
 * __Analysis__**

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 * Sources**