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In A Pure Anonymous Encounter You Find A World Alive And Full Of Character. In New York, The Street Adventures Are Incredible. There Are A Thousand Stories In A Single Block. You See The Stories In People's Faces. You Hear The Songs Immediately. Here, In Los Angeles, There Are Fewer Characters Because They Are All Inside Automobiles.

-Joni Mitchell

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In A Pure Anonymous

Joni Mitchell

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In A Pure Anonymous Encounter You Find A World Alive And Full Of Character. In New York, The Street Adventures Are Incredible. There Are A Thousand Stories In A Single Block. You See The Stories In People's Faces. You Hear The Songs Immediately. Here, In Los Angeles, There Are Fewer Characters Because They Are All Inside Automobiles.

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More From Joni Mitchell

Don't It Always Seem To Go, That You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone.

Human Condition

I Couldn't See Passion As A Bad Thing.

I'm A Little Young For Retirement.

But You Know It's Hard To Tell When You're In The Spell If It's Wrong Or If It's Real But You're Bound To Lose If You Let The Blues Get You Scared To Feel

I Wish I Had A River I Could Skate Away On?

I Have An Aversion To Being Mislabeled. Here's A Label I'd Accept: I'm An 'individual.' I'm Someone Who Can't Follow, And Doesn't Want To Lead.

I Get The Urge For Going/but I Never Seem To Go.

Ira Gershwin, Shame On Him. I Mean, Some Of The Writing.

I Came Through Folk Music Simply Because It Was Easy To Get Into It.

You Know That It Never Has Been Easy Whether You Do Or Do Not Resign Whether You Travel The Breadth Of The Extremities Or Stick To Some Straighter Line.

The Songwriting Was Almost Like Something I Did While I Was Waiting For My Daughter To Come Back.

I Find A Lot Of Poetry To Be Narcissistic.

I Used To Be Monastic, Almost. Now I'm Like A Tibetan That Has Discovered Hamburgers And Television. I'm Catching Up On Americana.

Daydreamin' Drugs The Pain Of Living.

When I Think Of Your Kisses My Mind See-saws.

A Few Drinks Later You're Not So Choosy When The Closing Lights Strip Off The Shadows On This Strange New Flesh You've Found.

Musically, I Would Never Run Dry. Any Time I Sit Down To An Instrument, I Could Write A Song.

Whatever It Was That I Felt Was The Weak Link In My Previous Project Gave Me Inspiration For The Next One.

I Like My Freedom. I Like To Do My Own Grocery Shopping.

Grocery Shopping

I Wanna Be Strong, I Wanna Laugh Along, I Wanna Belong To The Living. Alive, Alive, I Wanna Get Up And Jive, Wanna Wreck My Stockings In Some Jukebox Dive.

My Style Of Songwriting Is Influenced By Cinema. I'm A Frustrated Filmmaker. A Fan Once Said To Me, 'girl, You Make Me See Pictures In My Head!' And I Took That As A Great Compliment. That's Exactly My Intention.

I've Got 50 Different Tunings In The Guitar.

The Blue Album, There’s Hardly A Dishonest Note In The Vocals. At That Period Of My Life, I Had No Personal Defenses. I Felt Like A Cellophane Wrapper On A Pack Of Cigarettes. I Felt Like I Had Absolutely No Secrets From The World And I Couldn’t Pretend In My Life To Be Strong. Or To Be Happy. But The Advantage Of It In The Music Was That There Were No Defenses There, Either.

There Was This Mountain Village In Russia Where My Music Was Getting In On Some German Radio Station. I Remember This Because Music Used To Get Up To Saskatchewan From Texas. Late At Night After The Local Station Closed Down.

Freedom To Me Is A Luxury Of Being Able To Follow The Path Of The Heart, To Keep The Magic In Your Life. Freedom Is Necessary For Me In Order To Create, And If I Cannot Create I Don’t Feel Alive.

I'm A Method Actress In My Songs, Which Is Why It's Hard To Sing Them.

Morgellons Is Constantly Morphing. There Are Times When It's Directly Attacking The Nervous System, As If You're Being Bitten By Fleas And Lice. It's All In The Tissue And It's Not A Hallucination. It Was Eating Me Alive, Sucking The Juices Out. I've Been Sick All My Life.

I See Bodies As Individual Things.

You Dont Know What You Got Till Its Gone

I Had Made All These Rules For Myself: I'm Not Writing Social Commentary, I'm Not Writing Love Songs.

I Like My Freedom. I Like To Do My Own Grocery Shopping. People Do Recognize You. They Are Kind Of Shocked. Some People Like It. It Makes Them Feel At Ease. It Confirms Their Hopes That You Are In Fact Similar To Them.

With A Painting, You Don't Have To Go Back And Paint It Again.

I Wanted To Paint In A Folk-artist-y Way. My Heroes Were Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, And Rembrandt. I Think Picasso Is About As A Modern As I Got. But I Incorporated Things That They Rejected As Well As Movements That Happened Later.

What I Do Is Unusual: Chordal Movements That Have Never Been Used Before, Changing Keys And Modalities Mid-song.

My Family Could Only Afford To Get Me The Box Of Eight Crayola Crayons, But I Craved The One With All 24 Colours. I Wanted Magenta And Turquoise And Silver And Gold.

Unlike Some Of My Peers, I Haven't Really Hit A Writer's Block. When I Hit A Block I Just Paint, Which Is An Old Crop Rotation Trick.

Lord, There's Danger In This Land, You Get Witch Hunts And Wars When Church And State Hold Hands.

For The First Time In My Career, I'm Working In A Fine-arts Arena, So I'm Finally Getting Some Intelligent Reviews.

My Heart Is Broken In The Face Of The Stupidity Of My Species.

They Won't Give Peace A Chance, That's Just A Dream Some Of Us Had

I Don't Know Who I Am But You Know, Life Is For Learning.

Knowing Who You Are

I Met A Redneck On A Grecian Isle Who Did The Goat Dance Very Well.

I Never Loved A Man As Far As I Could Pitch My Shoe.

We Love Our Lovin'....but Not Like We Love Our Freedom.

Back Then, I Didn't Have A Big Organization Around Me. I Was Just A Kid With A Guitar, Traveling Around. My Responsibility Basically Was To The Art, And I Had Extra Time On My Hands. There Is No Extra Time Now. There Isn't Enough Time.

I Paint My Joy And I Sing My Sorrow.

I'm Your Biggest Fan, California, I'm Coming Home

If You See Yourself As A Kingly Type, Then You Need Your Serfs And Your Army And So On Around You.

I'm Irresponsible To My Career In Order To Paint. Because Painting Is Obsessive. I Forget To Eat. I Forget To Sleep.

We Managed To Put Together A Compilation That Had Some Creativity To It. In The Meantime I Was Listening To The Free Radio Stations And I Noticed That During Their War Coverage They Were Playing These Songs Born Out Of The Vietnam War That Were All Critical Of The Soldiers.

All Romantics Meet The Same Fate Some Day. Drunk And Cynical And Boring Someone In Some Dark Cafe.

Augustine, Anne Sexton And Sylvia Plath Are Confessional Writers And All Three Make Me Sick. I Have Nothing In Common With Them.

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.

My Life Came Down To Being A Granny And Watching A Lot Of Television.

A Little Lawyer On The Tube, He Said, Its So Easy Now, Anyone Can Sue.

Fear Is Like The Wilderland - Stepping Stones Or Sinking Sand

Stepping Stones

Something's Lost, But Something's Gained, In Living Everyday.

Moons And Junes And Ferris Wheels The Dizzy Dancing Way You Feel As Every Fairy Tale Comes Real I've Looked At Love That Way.

Acid, Booze, And Ass, Needles, Guns, And Grass, Lots Of Laughs.

I Dreamed I Saw The Bombers Riding Shot Gun In The Sky And They Were Turning Into Butterflies Above Our Nation.

There'll Be Icicles And Birthday Clothes And Sometimes There'll Be Sorrow

I've Looked At Life From Both Sides Now...from Win And Lose, And Still Somehow It's Life's Illusions I Recall I Really Don't Know Life At All.

America Is In A Runaway-train Position And Dragging All The World With It. It's Grotesquely Mentally Ill.

In A Pure Anonymous Encounter You Find A World Alive And Full Of Character. In New York, The Street Adventures Are Incredible. There Are A Thousand Stories In A Single Block. You See The Stories In People's Faces. You Hear The Songs Immediately. Here, In Los Angeles, There Are Fewer Characters Because They Are All Inside Automobiles.

I Have One Piece Of Music, Since 1997, And I Don't See It Having Lyrics. Where Does It Go In This World? So I Haven't Recorded It.

They Took All The Trees And Put Them In A Tree Museum.

When You Reach That Kind Of Successful Pinnacle, It Is The Nature Of The Business And The Press And Everything That They Go About Tearing You Down.

I Heard Someone From The Music Business Saying They Are No Longer Looking For Talent, They Want People With A Certain Look And A Willingness To Cooperate.

The Hollywood Sirens Are Shrieking, While Down Some Search Lit Alley Runs Some Lost Belief.

I'm Not A Pitiable Creature. It's Just That I Suffer Very Eloquently.

I Could Drink A Case Of You, Darlin'...and I Would Still Be On My Feet, Yes I Would Still Be On My Feet.

Do You See How You Hurt Me, Baby? So I Hurt You Too. Then We Both Get So Blue. I Am On A Lonely Road And I Am Traveling, Looking For The Key To Set Me Free.

Missing Someone

Rachmaninoff Made A Musician Out Of Me. His 'rhapsody On A Theme By Paganini' Was The Piece That Sent Me Into Raptures. It Spoke To Me. To Me, It Was A Tender Entreaty For The Misunderstood.

My Name Had Gone Stale, And No Matter How Progressive I Got, It Was My Time To Die.

I See Music As Fluid Architecture.

The Bands And The Roadies, Love 'em And Leave 'em. It's Pleasure To Try 'em, But Trouble To Keep 'em.

I Could Drink A Case Of You.

Just Before Our Love Got Lost You Said "i Am As Constant As A Northern Star" And I Said, Constantly In The Darkness, Where's That At? If You Want Me I'll Be In The Bar.

Keep A Good Heart. That's The Most Important Thing In Life. It's Not How Much Money You Make Or What You Can Acquire. The Art Of It Is To Keep A Good Heart.

I'm Drinking Champagne, Got The Head Phones Up High, Can't Numb You Out.

All My Battles Were With Male Egos. I’m Just Looking For Equality, Not To Dominate. But I Want To Be Able To Control My Vision.

Edith Piaf Knocked My Socks Off When I Was 8, But I Didn't Know What She Was Singing About.

We Have A War Dictator Who Was Not Elected, He Snuck In. So He Punishes People That Threaten Him In Any Way, Or Even Say Something He Doesn't Like. It Has No Resemblance To Democracy.

It's Life's Illusions That I Recall, I Really Don't Know Life At All

During Times Like These, The Wise Are Influential.

Times Like These

I Create By Feeling Rather Than By Intellectualizing.

All The News Of Home You Read, More About The War And Of Bloody Changes.

Does The Moon Play Only Silver When It Strums The Galaxy?

Heart And Humor And Humility, He Said Will Lighten Up Your Heavy Load.

But Now Old Friends Are Acting Strange They Shake Their Heads, They Say I've Changed Well Something's Lost, But Something's Gained In Living Every Day

Inspirational Music

We Call For The Three Great Stimulants Of The Exhausted Ones, Artifice, Brutality, And Innocence.

Everybody's Saying Hell's The Hippest Way To Go. Well, I Don't Think So, But I'm Gonna Take A Look Around It Though.

When I Came To California, It Was The Mecca Of The World. Every Young Person On The Planet Wanted To Be Here.

I Am A Woman Of Heart And Mind, Looking For Affection And Respect, A Little Passion.

Fly Silly Sea Bird, No Dreams Can Possess You, No Voices Can Blame You For Sun On Your Wings.

You've Got To Shake Your Fists At Lightning Now, You've Got To Roar Like Forest Fire You've Got To Spread Your Light Like Blazes All Across The Sky They're Going To Aim The Hoses On You, Show 'em You Won't Expire Not Till You Burn Up Every Passion, Not Even When You Die Come On Now, You've Got To Try, If You're Feeling Contempt, Well Then You Tell It If You're Tired Of The Silent Night, Jesus, Well Then You Yell It Condemned To Wires And Hammers, Strike Every Chord That You Feel That Broken Trees And Elephant Ivories Conceal

Bob [dylan] Is Not Authentic At All. He's A Plagiarist, And His Name And Voice Are Fake. Everything About Bob Is A Deception. We Are Like Night And Day, He And I.

The Rock & Roll Industry Is Very Incestuous, And We Have All Been Close At One Time Or Another. A Lot Of Beautiful Music And A Lot Of Beautiful Times Came From That. A Lot Of Pain, Too, Because, Inevitably, Different Relationships Broke Up.

When The Spirit Of Child's Play Enters Into The Creative Process, It's A Wonderful Force And Something To Be Nurtured.

Love Is A Very Hard Feeling To Keep Alive. It's A Very Fragile Plant.

I Like To Move Around. I Travel. I've Driven Across Country By Myself.

I Certainly Don't Want To Be An Angry Old Artist.

In Terms Of Fiction, I'd Rather Go Out And Have A Good Time Than Read A Book About Someone Having A Good Or Bad Time.

Musically, I Don't Think I'd Ever Dry Up. I Trust My Musical Invention.

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

I Heard Someone From The Music Business Saying They Are No Longer Looking For Talent, They Want People With A Certain Look And A Willingness To Cooperate. I Thought, That's Interesting, Because I Believe A Total Unwillingness To Cooperate Is What Is Necessary To Be An Artist — Not For Perverse Reasons, But To Protect Your Vision. The Considerations Of A Corporation, Especially Now, Have Nothing To Do With Art Or Music. That's Why I Spend My Time Now Painting.

I See The Entire World As Eden, And Every Time You Take An Inch Of It Away, You Must Do So With Respect.

Richard Got Married To A Figure Skater, And He Bought Her A Dishwasher And A Coffee Percolator.

Give Me Spots On My Apples, But Leave Me The Birds And The Bees, Please.

Not To Dismiss Gershwin, But Gershwin Is The Chip; Ellington Was The Block.

How Does A Person Create A Song? A Lot Of It Is Being Open To Encounter And To Be In Touch With The Miraculous.

Heaven's Full Of Astronauts And The Lord's On Death Row.

Oh It Gets So Lonely When You're Walking And The Streets Are Full Of Strangers

He Saw My Complications And He Mirrored Me Back Simplified, And We Laughed How Our Perfect World Would Always Be Denied.

In Search Of Love And Music My Whole Life Has Been Illumination Corruption And Diving, Diving, Diving, Diving, Diving Down To Pick Up Every Shiny Thing

People Were Very Protective Of Me. Overly So. I Was In The Industry For A Long Time Before I Had Any Idea Of What Drugs People Were Doing.

We Are Stardust, We Are Golden And We've Got To Get Ourselves Back To The Garden.

I Didn't Like The Sound Of People Gasping At The Mere Mention Of My Name. It Horrified Me...

Rolling Stone Hates Me. They Must Have An Editorial Policy To Do Me In For Many Years.

I Don't Understand Why Europeans And South Americans Can Take More Sophistication. Why Is It That Americans Need To Hear Their Happiness Major And Their Tragedy Minor, And As Jazzy As They Can Handle Is A Seventh Chord? Are They Not Experiencing Complex Emotions?

The Pirate He Will Sink You With A Kiss, He'll Steal Your Heart And Sail Away.

In Some Ways, My Gift For Music And Writing Was Born Out Of Tragedy, Really, And Loss.

I Don't Know How To Sell Out. If I Tried To Sell Out I Don't Think I Could.

When The World Becomes A Massive Mess With Nobody At The Helm, It's Time For Artists To Make Their Mark.

The Land Of Litigation, The Courts Are Like Game Shows. Take What's Behind The Curtain The Jury Cries.

Love Is Touching Souls.

I Try Not To Steal From Myself, But The Modalities Create Similarities.

So Many Things I Would Have Done, But Clouds Got In My Way.

I Didn't Think I Had Much Of A Following In The South. I Thought I Was Anonymous Down There So I Kept To The South. But I Found In Certain Pockets That I Was Quite Recognizable And I Just Hit A Wig Store.

Once I Got The Open Tunings For Some Reason, I Began To Get The Harmonic Sophistication That I Heard That My Musical Fountain Inside Was Excited By. Once I Got Some Interesting Chords To Play With, My Writing Began To Come.

Buddy Holly And The Early Rock 'n' Roll Was No Lighter Than The Way I Play. It's Very Minimal.

My Husband Had An Education. He Had A Degree In Literature. I Married Into A Camp Of Literary Types.

If You're Smart Or Rich Or Lucky Maybe You'll Beat The Laws Of Man But The Inner Laws Of Spirit And The Outer Laws Of Nature No Man Can

We're Captive On The Carousel Of Time, We Can't Return We Can Only Look Behind.

At The Point Where I'm Trying To Force Something And It's Not Happening, And I'm Getting Frustrated With, Say, Writing A Poem, I Can Go And Pick Up The Brushes And Start Painting. At The Point Where The Painting Seems To Not Be Going Anywhere, I Go And Pick Up The Guitar.

I Come From Pioneer Stock, Developers Of The West, People Who Went Out Into The Wilderness And Set Up Home With Nothing But A Pair Of Oxen.

I Liked Playing In Small Clubs. I Really Liked Holding The Attention Of Thirty Or Forty People. I Never Liked The Roar Of The Big Crowd.

My Parents Told Me I'd Point To A Bed Of Flowers And Say 'pink. Pretty,' Before I Knew Any Other Words.

The Times You Impress Me The Most Are The Times When You Don't Try.

White Rhythm Is Waltzes, Marches, And The Polka. In Africa, Rhythm Is Used For A Celebratory Groove, But White Rhythm Doesn't Have Such An Enormous Vocabulary Of Spirits. It's Basically Militant.

All I Really, Really Want Our Love To Do Is To Bring Out The Best In Me And In You Too.

You Win The Lasting Laurels With Your Laughter.

I Don't Like To Make Fluffy Little Songs, But Now I Want To Make Some Light Songs.

They Used To Laugh At Me When I Refused To Ride On All Those Double Decker Buses, All Because There Was No Driver On The Top.

The Thing That Gave Me The Most Pain In Life, Psychologically, And It Gave Me Tremendous Pain Psychologically, Is Man's Disrespect For Nature.

The Most Important Thing Is To Write In Your Own Blood. I Bare Intimate Feelings Because People Should Know How Other People Feel.

People Used To Say Nobody Can Sing My Songs But Me, They're Too Personal.

Sunlight Will Renew Your Pride.

I'm Not A Kiss-and-teller. I Never Named Names.

I Met A Woman She Had A Mouth Like Yours She Knew Your Life She Knew Your Devils And Your Deeds And She Said "go To Him, Stay With Him If You Can But Be Prepared To Bleed

Depression Can Be The Sand That Makes The Pearl. Most Of My Best Work Came Out Of It.

If I'm Censoring For Anyone, It's For My Parents. They Are Very Old-fashioned And Moral People. They Still Don't Understand Me That Well.

The Beginning Of Survival Is My Best Album. I Am Very Proud Of It, And I Am Surprised At It, Too. I Thought Some Of Travelogue Was A Little Heavy, But I Don't Think This Is Heavy.

You Wake Up One Day And Suddenly Realize That Your Youth Is Behind You, Even Though You're Still Young At Heart.

I Still Believe In The Power Of The Word, That Words Inspire.

No One Likes To Have Less Than They Had Before. That's The Nature Of The Human Animal.

But Now It's Just Another Show, You Leave Em Laughing When You Go. And If You Care, Don't Let Them Know, Don't Give Yourself Away.

I Always Thought The Women Of Song Don't Get Along, And I Don't Know Why That Is.

I Believe That I Am Male And I Am Female.

Paul Simon Started Piling Up A Lot Of Words, More Than The Bar Could Handle, And I Stopped!

The Considerations Of A Corporation, Especially Now, Have Nothing To Do With Art Or Music.

The Only Thing I Have To Give To Make You Smile, To Win You With, Are All The Mornings Still To Live.

Abstract Expressionism Was Invented By New York Drunks.

Everyone I Know Has Attention Deficit, And They Say It With Great Pride. It's A Bad Time To Be Right.

Applause, Applause, Life Is Our Cause.

Won't You Stay We'll Put On The Day And We'll Talk In Present Tenses

My Goal As A Writer Is More To Comfort Than To Disturb.

I'm A Fine Artist Working In A Commercial Arena, So That's My Cross To Bear

You Have This Mounting Aggressive Ignorance With The Rabbit's Foot Of Their Particular Religion. You Don't Really Have Any Kind Of Spiritual Law, Just A Kind Of A Rabid Mental Illness. The Songs Are A Little Slice Of Life.

An Artist Needs A Certain Amount Of Turmoil And Confusion.

Elusive Dreams And Vague Desires Fanned To Fiery Needs By Deadly Deeds Of Falling Empires.

I Hate Show Business.

I Learned From Admiration And Osmosis.

There Are Things To Confess That Enrich The World, And Things That Need Not Be Said.

I Do Have This Reputation For Being A Serious Person.

They'll Crucify You For Staying The Same, And They'll Crucify You For Change. I'd Rather Be Crucified For Changing.

I'd Had A Rough Childhood.

Eventually, With Success, I Started To Feel More And More Isolated - Like I Didn't Have A Community Of Artists.

When I Felt That Fame - People Were Nosing Me Out - Well, I Moved On. I Used Traveling Names; Wigs If Necessary.

Some Get The Gravy, Some Get The Gristle.

You Know, Neil Young Is Singing Rock N' Roll Will Never Die, And Neil Never Rocked And Rolled In His Life. I Mean, He Rocked, But He Didn't Roll. He Has Got No Swing In Him.

My Individual, Psychological Descent Coincided, Ironically, With My Ascent Into The Public Eye.

Rationally I Have No Hope, Irrationally I Believe In Miracles.

She'll Prophesy Your Death. She Won't Say When.

Oh, I Am A Lonely Painter / I Live In A Box Of Paints.

I Know My Generation - A Lot Of Them, They're Getting Old Now, And They Want To Think Back Fondly, They Want To Kid Themselves. A Lot Of Them Think, 'yeah, We Were The Best.' That's The Kiss Of Death. That's Non-growth. And Also That's Very Bad For The World.

You Feed It All Your Woes, The Ghostly Garden Grows.

I Assume There Must Be Some Kind Of Genetic Thrust. My Two Grandmothers Were Very Different, But Both Of Them Were Frustrated Musicians.

It's In My Stars To Invent; I Was Born On Madame Curie's Birthday. I Have This Need For Originals, For Innovation. That's Why I Like Charlie Parker.

Do You Want - Do You Want - Do You Want To Dance With Me Baby?

I Hang My Laundry On The Line When I Write.

I Was Anti-intellectual To The Nth. Basically I Liked To Dance And Paint, And That Was About It.

Some Turn To Jesus And Some Turn To Heroin.

You've Got To Keep The Child Alive; You Can't Create Without It.

Inside Your Own Self Pity There You Swim, In Sinking Down To Drown Her Voice Still Haunts You, And Only With Your Laughter Can You Win.

Oh, The Jealousy, The Greed Is The Unraveling. It's The Unraveling And It Undoes All The Joy That Could Be. .

I Live In A Box Of Paints I'm Frightened By The Devil And I'm Drawn To Those Ones That Ain't Afraid

I Don't Like Being Too Looked Up At Or Too Looked Down On. I Prefer Meeting In The Middle To Being Worshipped Or Spat Out.

I Prefer Christmas, Which Is Everybody's Holiday. It's Just My Nature. I Don't Like To Be Zeroed In On En Masse.

Lazy Reviewers Look Up Other People's Reviews And They Write The Same Thing, So You Get People Writing Crap Based On Crap.

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