Women Artists

"When I hear the word Culture I take out my checkbook"

"I need to explore and discover and so that has given me, really, to some what seems like courage, but really it's just in my stars, there's nothing I can do about it . . . . I guess I'll just take my award and run now."

"Joni, what fucking chords were you playing on Court and Spark? I could never figure them out."

"If you're looking to wade into Joni [Mitchell's] musical waters, open D is an essential first step. Often, you see the same Joni songs transcribed in open E, as it's the same tuning one step down, and just requires different capo placement."

"That's the music that I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell. Court and Spark I love because I'd always hoped that she'd work with a band. But the main thing with Joni is that she's able to look at something that's happened to her, draw back and crystallize the whole situation, then write about it. She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. "Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed"."

"Joni Mitchell said in an interview, Everything I am,/I'm not."

"She is of course well past the stage of having to prove herself artistically. She is in possession of one of the most extraordinary song catalogs of the past half-century. Her chords break harmonic rules, have no technical names and defy Western musical theory. Her voice is an instrument that has grown sublimely heavier and huskier over the decades. . . .Once you get past the security gates, Ms. Mitchell's house feels like a pocket of middle-class comfort in the midst of zillionaire Beverly Hills. In some ways life is still as it was in 1974, when she bought the house: She has no computer, no voice mail, no cellphone and no e-mail. At one point, when we tried to remember one of her lyrics, we scrolled through my iPod. She said it was the first time she had listened to one."

"Joni, you have more class than Richard Nixon, Mick Jagger, and Gomer Pyle combined!"

"It's coming on Christmas, They're cutting down trees. They're putting up reindeer And singing songs of joy and peace. I wish I had a river I could skate away on"

"Friends have told her "Not so proud" Neighbors trying to sleep are yelling "Not so loud" Lovers in anger, "Block of ice" Harder and harder just to be nice."

"Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release."

"Some are friendly Some are cutting Some are watching it from the wings Some are standing in the centre giving to get something."

"Secrets and sharing soda, That's how our time began. Love is a story told to a friend It's second hand."

"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."

"I remember the time you told me, you said "Love is touching souls," Surely you've touched mine, cause Part of you pours out of me In these lines from time to time."

"Hey farmer, farmer, Put away that DDT now Give me spots on my apples But leave me the birds and the bees Please!"

"They took all the trees And put them in a tree museum And they charged all the people A dollar and a half just to see 'em."

"Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone. They paved paradise, And put up a parking lot."

"“That's one thing that's always, like, uh, the 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, you know. He’s had the joy of creating it, and he hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it, and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he’s never, you know, nobody ever says to him, you know, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it, and that was it.”"

"They paved paradise And put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot."

"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, We are golden, And we’ve got to get ourselves Back to the garden."

"I don't know who I am / but you know, life is for learning."

"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."

"And the seasons they go round and round, And the painted ponies go up and down, We’re all 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."

"I’ve looked at love from both sides now From give and take, and still somehow, It’s love’s illusions I recall I really don’t know love at all."

"Tears and fears and feeling proud, To say "I love you" right out loud, Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I’ve looked at life that way. 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 ev’ry day."

"I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, From up and down, and still somehow It’s cloud illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all."

"Rows and flows of angel hair, And ice cream castles in the air, And feather canyons ev’rywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way. But now they only block the sun, They rain and snow on ev’ryone, So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way."

"Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine, You taste so bitter and so sweet Oh I could drink a case of you, darling And I would still be on my feet I would still be on my feet."

"You go down to the pick up station Craving warmth and beauty You settle for less than fascination 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 Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf You hurry To the blackness And the blankets To lay down an impression And your loneliness."

"In our possessive coupling So much could not be expressed So now I'm returning to myself These things that you and I suppressed."

"There's been a tremendous amount of growth. An actress is not expected to continue to play her ingenue roles, you know, I've written myself roles to grow into gracefully, but there is no growing into gracefully in the pop world. Basically the reason I'm so unruly in this business is because I never wanted to be a human jukebox."

"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."

"Any time I make a record it's followed by a painting period. It's good crop rotation."

"Like Van Gogh's paintings were a diary of his life, my paintings are kind of a diary of my life. And they're all good moments that I've preserved, and I've got them around me."

"I sing my sorrow and paint my joy."

"(about "Both Sides Now") I wrote it when I was 21. I took a lot of ridicule, too. "What do you know about life? You're only 21." You know, but I really think it took me to — that was done in my 50s — to, you know, it took a mature woman to bring it to life...I grew into that song."

"(about "River.") We needed a sad Christmas song, didn't we?"

"(about her experience as a student in school) All they did was, she said something and you said something back. From here on in, I'm not even going to try unless they ask us a question that nobody knows the answer to."

"at that point, that's when I forged my identity as an artist. At 8, I, you know, rebelled against the church and I rebelled against the educational system. I stepped outside the box and forged my identity as an artist."

"I've got nervous energy like a kid, still."

"I've always been a painter. I didn't come to it late. I was always the school artist. I came to music late, you know, relatively. I mean, I picked up — I tried it at 8. I took a year of piano lessons and wrote my first song when I was 8, wrote it out in notes."

"I feel more ambidextrous: I suffer, I enjoy; I suffer, I enjoy."

"I don’t think of myself as an intellectual...It’s a nice place to visit; I wouldn’t want to live there. I spend as little time there as possible."

"I don’t think of myself as confessional. That’s a name that was put on me. The confessional poets like [Sylvia] Plath, whom I read later when they started calling me confessional, most of their stuff seemed contrived to me and not as greatly honest as it was touted to be. I never wanted to act the part of the poet, with pearls of language and wisdom falling from my lips...I’ve always used the songwriting process as a self-analysis of sorts. Like the Blue album – people were kind of shocked at the intimacy. It was peculiar in the pop arena at that time, because you were supposed to portray yourself as bigger than life. I remember thinking, “Well, if they’re going to worship me, they should know who they’re worshiping.”"

"I was kind of a media dropout. I was lucky if I could name the president. I was much more inner-world oriented."

"(about the label "female songwriter") It implies limitations...They tend to lump me always with groups of women. I always thought, “They don’t put Dylan with the Men of Rock; why do they do that to me with women?”"

"It’s a funny thing about happiness. You can strive and strive and strive to be happy, but happiness will sneak up on you in the most peculiar ways. I feel happy suddenly. I don’t know why. Some days, the way the light strikes things. Or for some beautifully immature reason like finding myself running to the kitchen to make myself some toast. Happiness comes to me even on a bad day. In very, very strange ways. I’m very happy in my life right now."

"any acts of frustration or concern or anxiety in my life are all peripheral to a very solid core. A very strong, continuing course I’ve been following. All this other stuff is just the flak that you get for engaging in the analytical process in the first place. Even Freud knew that; to me it was the hippest thing he ever said: “Dissection of personality is no way to self-knowledge.” All you get out of that is literature, not necessarily peace of mind. It’s a satisfying, but dangerous, way to learn about yourself."