"It's comin' on Christmas. They're cutting down trees. They're putting up reindeer and singin' songs of joy and peace. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on."
I love Joni Mitchell. It's funny actually, because I couldn't stand her music for most of my life. In fact, it wasn't until I heard the song "Case of You" a couple of years ago that I really started to love her music. The quote above is from "River," which is not really a holiday song at all, but a song about pain and regret. Something about the way she places her emotion behind the lyrics, though... that's what really makes her music great.
The two videos that I've posted are of the same song, "Both Sides Now." What is interesting about this song is that she wrote and recorded it for one of her first albums, and then re-recorded it for her album in 2000. When you listen to the two versions, notice the differences in her emotion, tone, tempo, and key. Although the lyrics are the same, the mood of the song is almost 'wiser' in the later version, for lack of a better way of putting it. I think this comparison is a nice example of the differences between what we "know" at different points in our life, and how that affects us as people.
Ummm I LOVE "Both Sides Now" - I first heard it when I saw "Love Actually" and there's a scene in the movie where they use it and it is just perfect and heartbreaking and fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI love how you compare the song form the first recording to the second. I think you're completely right - there's a different amount of emotion in the second. There's been a change.
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