Joni Mitchell talking during a concert [from the album Miles of Aisles]"
There's one thing that always like... uh... been a major difference between the performing arts to me and being a painter, you know. Like a painter does a painting and he does a painting and that's it. He's had the joy of creating it and hangs it on some wall. Somebody buys it - somebody buys it again or maybe nobody ever buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere til he dies.
But nobody ever says to him - nobody ever says to Van Gogh, "Paint the starry night again, man." You know, he painted it - that was it. Let sing this song together, okay? This song doesn't sound good with one lonely voice. It sounds good with - the more voices on it the better, the more out of tune voices on it the better. It was made for out of tune singing this song.
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Circle of Life by Joni Mitchell
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
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 thru 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 game
So 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