Background Image

...

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.

-Joni Mitchell

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

You Know, Neil Young

Joni Mitchell

...

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.

Views: 77284

Topic

More From Joni Mitchell

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.

I Wrote 'big Yellow Taxi' On My First Trip To Hawaii. I Took A Taxi To The Hotel And When I Woke Up The Next Morning, I Threw Back The Curtains And Saw These Beautiful Green Mountains In The Distance. Then, I Looked Down And There Was A Parking Lot As Far As The Eye Could See, And It Broke My Heart This Blight On Paradise. That's When I Sat Down And Wrote The Song.

They Paved Paradise And Put Up A Parking Lot.

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

My Childhood Was Very Difficult. I Had Every Childhood Disease And Then Some, But My Parents Didnt Mollycoddle Me. They Left Me To Fight Those Battles On My Own. I Guess That Was Very Canadian, Very Stoic. But Its Good. I Had To Become A Warrior. I Had To Give Up Hope And Find A Substitute For Hope That Would Be Far More Stable.

He's Swept With The Broom Of Contempt And The Rooms Have An Empty Ring.

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.

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

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

I Couldn't See Passion As A Bad Thing.

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.

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

I Am As Constant As A Northern Star

Van Gogh Was Impulsive.

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.

I'd Had A Rough Childhood.

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

I Came Upon A Child Of God, He Was Walking Along The Road And I Asked Him, Where Are You Going And This He Told Me: "i'm Going On Down To Yasgur's Farm I'm Going To Join In A Rock 'n' Roll Band I'm Going To Camp Out On The Land, I'm Going To Try An' Get My Soul Free.

Bows And Flows Of Angel Hair And Ice Cream Castles In The Air And Feather Canyons Everywhere, I've Looked At Clouds That Way.

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.

To Enjoy My Music, You Need Depth And Emotionality.

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.

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

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

Knowing Who You Are

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

I Find A Lot Of Poetry To Be Narcissistic.

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

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.

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.

Sex Sells Everything And Sex Kills.

I Conceived In Art College At The Age Of 20, Near The End Of Term.

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.

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

I Was Demanding Of Myself A Deeper And Greater Honesty, More And More Revelation In My Work In Order To Give It Back To The People Where It Goes Into Their Lives And Nourishes Them And Changes Their Direction And Makes Light Bulbs Go Off In Their Head And Makes Them Feel. And It Isn't Vague, It Strikes Against The Very Nerves Of Their Life And In Order To Do That You Have To Strike Against The Very Nerves Of Your Own.

I Can't Remember Anything I Ever Wrote.

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

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

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 See Bodies As Individual Things.

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

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

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.

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

I Got In Before Soho Was Soho. It Was Just Little Italy When I Was In There. It's Still Off The Touristy Track. It's Just Away From The Saturday Action, The Crowds And Everything. It's Too Expensive. It's Insane. You've Got To Be A Billionaire To Live On Manhattan Now.

During Times Like These, The Wise Are Influential.

Times Like These

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

I Paint My Joy And I Sing My Sorrow.

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

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

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.

The God Of The Old Testament Is The Depiction Of Evil.

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.

I Sang In Art School, Just To Get Money To Smoke.

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

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

Some Turn To Jesus And Some Turn To Heroin.

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

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

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.

You Dont Know What You Got Till Its Gone

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Fear Is Like The Wilderland - Stepping Stones Or Sinking Sand

Stepping Stones

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

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

Sunlight Will Renew Your Pride.

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

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

Some Get The Gravy, Some Get The Gristle.

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

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

I Learned A Woman Is Never An Old Woman.

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

An Unhappy Mother Does Not Raise A Happy Child.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Because Elvis Gave 'em Cars, You Think I'm Cheap.

I Thrive On Change. That's Probably Why My Chord Changes Are Weird, Because Chords Depict Emotions. They'll Be Going Along On One Key And I'll Drop Off A Cliff, And Suddenly They Will Go Into A Whole Other Key Signature. That Will Drive Some People Crazy, But That's How My Life Is.

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

I Have Lost My Credibility As A Hit Maker Because Of These Side Excursions Into Other Branches Of Music; By Not Being Consistent. Consistency Seems To Be All-important.

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.

Nobody Understood The Reoccurring Dream, But After September 11, When We Were Coerced To Do A National Duty And Go Out And Shop, Surely People Could Begin To See What I Was Getting At.

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.

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

I Never Really Wanted To Be A Star. I Didn't Like Entering A Room With All Eyes On Me. I Still Don't Really Like The Attention Of A Birthday Party.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Let Light Hearts Remake Us.

I'm A Painter First, And A Musician Second.

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

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

Some People Are Upset To See You Doing Ordinary Things. Those People, If They Were A Celebrity, They Would Have An Entourage.

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

Sorrow Is So Easy To Express And Yet So Hard To Tell.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

When I Was 19 I Went To Art School. I Had Six Months Of Teaching Myself To Play Baritone Ukulele Under My Belt So I Was Sort Of A Novice Folkie... I Was Singing Folk Songs At That Time.

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

You Snipe So Steady, You Snub So Snide, So Rip And Ready To Diminish And Deride.

You Could Write A Song About Some Kind Of Emotional Problem You Are Having, But It Would Not Be A Good Song, In My Eyes, Until It Went Through A Period Of Sensitivity To A Moment Of Clarity. Without That Moment Of Clarity To Contribute To The Song, It's Just Complaining.

I Create By Feeling Rather Than By Intellectualizing.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Grocery Shopping

I Lost My Daughter At 21. I Had To Give Her Up Because I Was Broke, No Place To Take Her, No Money To Take Her. That Was Very Traumatic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Think I Would Go Further Into Fine Arts, I Think, If I Were To Continue.

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

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

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

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

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

I Loved Debussy, Stravinsky, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Anything With Romantic Melodies, Especially The Nocturnes. Nietzsche Was A Hero, Especially With Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He Gets A Bad Rap; Hes Very Misunderstood. Hes A Maker Of Individuals, And He Was A Teacher Of Teachers.

Happiness Is The Best Facelift.

Laughing And Crying, You Know It's The Same Release.

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

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.

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

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

You Win The Lasting Laurels With Your Laughter.

I Do Have This Reputation For Being A Serious Person.

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.

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

Woke Up, It Was A Chelsea Morning, And The First Thing That I Knew There Was Milk And Toast And Honey And A Bowl Of Oranges, Too.

Everything Comes And Goes; Pleasure Moves On Too Early And Trouble Leaves Too Slow

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

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

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

I Hate Show Business.

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

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

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

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

There's A Man Who's Been Out Sailing In A Decade Full Of Dreams And He Takes Her To A Schooner And He Treats Her Like A Queen Bearing Beads From California With Their Amber Stones And Green He Has Called Her From The Harbor He Has Kissed Her With His Freedom He Has Heard Her Off To Starboard In The Breaking And The Breathing Of The Water Weeds While She Was Busy Being Free

Innocence Is Drowned In Anarchy. The Best Lack Conviction Given Time To Think, And The Worst Are Full Of Passion Without Mercy.

I Could Drink A Case Of You.

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.

Applause, Applause, Life Is Our Cause.

Daydreamin' Drugs The Pain Of Living.

I'm A Little Young For Retirement.

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.

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

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

The Coming Of The Kids Hasn't Come Out In My Art Yet.

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

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.

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

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

Chase Away The Demons, And They Will Take The Angels With Them.

An Artist Needs A Certain Amount Of Turmoil And Confusion.

My First Four Albums Covered The Usual Youth Problems - Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places - While The Next Five Are Basically About Being In Your 30s.

I Was Young For My Age. Not As Naïve As They Expected. I Don't Know Why I Seem To Bring That Out In People.

That's One Thing That's Always, Like, Been A Difference Between, Like, The Performing Arts, And Being A Painter, You Know. A Painter Does A Painting, And He Paints It, And That's It, You Know. He Has The Joy Of Creating It, It Hangs On A Wall, And Somebody Buys It, And Maybe Somebody Buys It Again, Or Maybe Nobody Buys It And It Sits Up In A Loft Somewhere Until He Dies. But He Never, You Know, Nobody Ever, Nobody Ever Said To Van Gogh, 'paint A Starry Night Again, Man!' You Know? He Painted It And That Was It.

I See Music As Fluid Architecture.

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

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

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

I Believe That I Am Male And I Am Female.

Americans Have Decided To Be Stupid And Shallow Since 1980.

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

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.

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.

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.

When You're Trying To Pass On The Best Of The Stuff You're Culling To What Should Be A Hungry Culture But You Have It Diminished... That's Kind Of Disappointing.

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

You Can Give Me 400,000 Hostile People And I Won't Even Break Sweat. If You Give Me 200 Adoring People, My Mouth Will Dry Out.

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

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

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.

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

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

Trending Author

Geoffrey Holder

Nikos Kazantzakis

Category