Joni Mitchell Album

When morning comes to Morgantown
The merchants roll their awnings down
The milktrucks make their morning rounds
In morning, Morgantown

We'll rise up early, with the sun
To ride the bus while everyone is yawning
And the day is young
In morning, Morgantown

Morning Morgantown
Buy your dreams a dollar down
Morning any town you name
Morning's just the same

We'll find a table in the shade
And sip our tea and lemonade
And watch the morning on parade
In morning, Morgantown

Ladies in their rainbow fashions
Colored stop and go lights flashing
We'll wink at total strangers passing in
Morning, Morgantown

Morning Morgantown
Buy your dreams a dollar down
Morning any town you name
Morning's just the same

I'd like to buy you everything
A wooden bird with painted wings
A window full of colored rings
In morning, Morgantown.

But the only thing I have to give
To make you smile, to win you with
Are all the mornings still to live
In morning, Morgantown

I slept last night in a good hotel
I went shopping today for jewels
The wind rushed around in the dirty town
And the children let out from the schools
I was standing on a noisy corner
Waiting for the walking green
Across the street he stood
And he played real good
On his clarinet, for free

Now me I play for fortunes
And those velvet curtain calls
I've got a black limousine
And two gentlemen
Escorting me to the halls
And I play if you have the money
Or if you're a friend to me
But the one man band
By the quick lunch stand
He was playing real good, for free

Nobody stopped to hear him
Though he played so sweet and high
They knew he had never
Been on their T.V.
So they passed his music by
I meant to go over and ask for a song
Maybe put on a harmony...
I heard his refrain
As the signal changed
He was playing real good, for free

He comes for conversation
I comfort him sometimes
Comfort and consultation
He knows that's what he'll find
I bring him grapes and cheeses
He brings me songs to play
He sees me when he pleases
I see him in cafes
And I only say, hello
And turn away before his lady knows
How much I want to see him
She removes him, like a ring
To wash her hands
She only brings him out to show her friends
I want to free him

Secrets and sharing soda
That's how our time began
Love is a story told to a friend
It's second hand
But I'll listen to his questions
I'll give my answers when they're found
He says she keeps him guessing
But I know she keeps him down
She speaks in sorry sentences
Miraculous repentances
I don't believe her
Tomorrow he will come to me
And he'll speak his sorrow endlessly and he'll ask me why
Why can't I leave her?

He comes for conversation
I comfort him sometimes
Comfort and consultation
He knows that's what he'll find

Trinna wears her wampum beads
She fills her drawing book with lines
Sweing lace on widows weeds
And filagree on leaf and vine
Vine and leave are filagree
And her coats a second hand one
Trimmed in antique luxury
She is a lady of the canyon

Annie sits you down to eat
She always makes you welcome in
Cats and babies round her feet
And all are fat and none are thin
None are thin and all are fat
She may bake some brownies today
Saying, you are welcome back
She is another canyon lady

Estrella circus girl
Comes wrapped in songs and gypsy shalws
Songs like tiny hammers hurled
At bevelled mirrors in empty halls
Empty halles and bevelled mirrors
Sailing seas and climbing banyans
Come out for a visit here
To be a lady of the canyon

Trinna takes her pains and her threads
And she weaves a pattern all her own
Annie bakes her cakes and her breads
And she gathers flowers for her home
For her home she gathers flowers
And Estrella, dear companion
Colors up the sunshine hours
Pouring music down the canyon
Coloring the sunshine hours
They are the ladies of the canyon

Willy is my child, he is my father
I would be his lady all my life
He says he'd love to live with me
But for an ancient injury
That has not healed
He said I feel once again
Like I gave my heart too soon
He stood there looking through the lace
At the face on the conquered moon
And counting all the cars up the hill
And the stars on my window sill
There are still more reasons why
I love him

Willy is my joy, he is my sorrow
Now he wants to run away and hide
He says our love cannot be real
He cannot hear the chapel's pealing silver bells
But you know its hard to tell
When your in the spell if its wrong or if its real
But you're bound to lose
If you let the blues get you scared too feel
And I feel like I'm just being born
Like a shiny light breaking in a storm
There are some many reasons why I love him

You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard

While you still have the time you could get away and find
A better life, you know the grind
Is so ungrateful
Racing cars, Whisky bars
No one cares who you freally are

You're the keeper of the cards
Yes I know it gets hard
Keeping the wheels turning
And the wife she keeps the keys
She is so pleased to be
A part of the arrangment

You could have been more than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a consumer
Lying in some room trying to die
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard

You could have been more
You could have been more
You could have been more

It was a rainy night
We took a taxi to your mothers' home
She went to Florida and left you
With you father`s gun, alone
Upon her small white bed
I fell into a dream
You sat up all the night and watched me
To see, who in the world I might be

I am from the Sunday school
I sing soprano in the upstairs choir
You are a holy man
ON the FM radio
I sat up all the night and watched thee
To see, who in the world you might be

You called me beautiful
You called your mother - she was very tanned
So you packed your tent and went
To live out in the Arizona sand
You are a refugee
From a wealthy family
You gave up all the golden factories
To see, who in the world you might be

The priest sat in the airport bar
he was wearing his father's tie
and his eyes looked into my eyes so far
whenever the words ran dry
behind the lash and the circles blue
he looked as only a priest can thru
and his eyes said me and his eyes said you
and my eyes said, let us try.

He said you wouldn't like it here
no, it's no place you should share
the roof is ripped with hurricanes
and the room is always bare
I need the wind and I seek the cold
he reached past the wine for my hand to hold
and he saw me young and he saw me old
and he saw me sitting there.

Then he took his contradictions out
and he splashed them on my brow
so which words was I then to doubt
when choosing what to vow
Should I choose them all- should I make them mine
the sermons, the hymns and the valentines
he asked for truth and he asked for time
and he asked for only now.

Now the trials are trumpet scored
oh will we pass the test
or just as one loves more and more
will one love less and less
oh come let's run from this ring we're in
where the christians clap and the germans grin
saying let them lose, crying let them win
oh make them both confess.

Lady called the blue boy, love,
She took him home
Made himself an idol, yes,
So he turned to stone
Like a pilgrim she travelled
Ta place her flowers
Before his granite grace
And she prayed aloud for love
To waken in his face
In his face, oh __________

Sometimes in the evening
He would read to her
Roll her in his arms
And give his seed to her
She would wake in the morning
Without him
And go to the window
And look out thru the pain
But the statue in her garden
He always looked the same
He looked the same, ah _________

Bring her boots of leather
And she will dance for him
Shyly from a feather fan
She'll glance for him
Here he comes after midnight
To find her again
He will come a few times more
Till he finds a lady statue
Standing in a door
In her door, oh __________

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot SPOT
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don't know what you’ve got
‘Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to seem 'em
Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer, farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But LEAVE me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you’ve got
‘Til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

I said
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

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
And then try and get my soul free

Chorus*
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who l am
But you know life is for learning

*
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation

*
We are stardust -
Billion-year-old carbon -
We are golden
Caught up in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Yesterday, a child came out to wander
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful, when the sky was full of thunder
and tearful at the falling of a star

and the season's 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 up 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
'til 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 game

so the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
though his dreams have lost some gandeur 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