Both Sides Now
Rows and flows of angel's hair
And icecream castles in the air
And feathered canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and they snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way.
I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, but still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all.
Moon and Junes and Ferris wheels
That dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show
You leave them laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away.
I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, but 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 every day.
I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose, but still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all.
Commentary
Every time someone I know claims that song lyrics aren’t really poetry, I have the urge to sit them down and make them listen to a Joni Mitchell album to prove to them how wrong they are. Any Joni Mitchell album.
But of all the songs in all her albums this is the one I would pick if I really had to make a case for it. ‘Both sides, now’ has everything – a superbly executed rhyme pattern (don’t miss the internal rhymes in the first, fourth and seventh stanzas that pick up the tempo of the song so effectively), a repeating structure that brings out the deeper allegories, some incredibly vivid phrases (what better description of a cloud bank than “feathered canyons everywhere”), a gorgeous refrain (to really know how gorgeous, listen to the song and feel the breath catch in your throat as the pause before “at all” stretches forever and ever) and an emotional range that goes from the almost joking (Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels) to the achingly lonesome (“if you care, don’t let them know”).
But most of all, this is a song that even read aloud has a voice all its own. It’s the voice of a generation that grew up too quickly, the voice of cynicism, the voice of tiredness. But it is also the voice of hope - of the spirit’s struggle to reclaim lost wonder, of an acceptance of one’s own limitations that is both humility and joy. It is at once the voice of our defeat and the voice of our renewal.
So if you really don’t know Joni Mitchell’s music at all (except for a few allusions on Minstrels you might recall) - do yourself a favour and go out and buy this album* and listen to Both Sides. Now.
— Aseem
*There are actually two albums - there’s Clouds (1970) and Both Sides, Now (2000) - the versions of the song on both are pretty different and make for an interesting contrast. (and no, the guys at Reprise Records are not paying me for these blatant plugs!)
Show 5 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
TJ · 5 November 2004
And don’t forget the album Blue with ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’. It was phenomenal:
“The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in ‘68 And he told me all romantics meet the same fate Something cynical and drunken, boring someone in some dark cafe
You laugh he said you think you’re immune
Go look at your eyes they’re full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you All those pretty lies pretty lies
When you gonna realise they’re only pretty lies Only pretty lies just pretty lies”
Penney Mark · 5 November 2004
There can be no doubt that song lyrics are (sometimes) poetry. The stuff of poetry is coursing through a very great many of the best songs out there, in almost any genre you can think of. The best example of consonance I know of comes from Van Morrison:
“Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance.”
Kenny Rogers, with a chilling little metaphor that you miss the first few times you hear the song (the full lyrics are replete with wonderful imagery):
“And somewhere in the darkness, the gambler, he broke even.”
U2-I’m quoting just one snippet of this marvelous work of poetry:
“Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head?”
One more example: Cole Porter, demonstrating that his talent for rhyming can actually make a sad song sadder.
“When you’re near there’s such an air of spring about it
I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it
There’s no love song finer
But how strange the change from major to minor
Every time we say goodbye.
I could go on and on. But the thing is that song lyrics are only sometimes poetry. More often than not, they’re just there to “fit” or “serve” the music. What the music supplies is intangible and (by definition) cannot be put into words. As a result, when you’re looking at song lyrics, you’re looking at half a work of art; there’s no reason to suppose that that half can necessarily stand on its own. Consider this Guns and Roses number:
“I used to do a little but the little wouldn’t do it
So the little got more and more
Just keep trying to get a little better
Said a little better than before.”
Not a great poem. But it goes very, very well with the song (which is about cocaine addiction) because it fits the frenetic pace of the song so perfectly, and that frenetic pace, the driving urgency, in turn fits the subject of the poem. You can tell from this excerpt that the song is rapid (you cannot read it slowly without doing violence to it) but it doesn’t actually become effective as art until you’ve got the music to go with it.
So yes, song lyrics are sometimes poetry. Sometimes they’re just lyrics, meaningless (or less meaningful) without the songs they refer to. But it’s generally true that one mark of a great song is that the lyrics can stand on their own (but the music still enhances them immeasurably).
Mark
Adam Donovan · 21 November 2004
Aseem: Thank you for reminding me that this magical, acheing song is also poetry of a high order. I have turned on a lot of people to the later album from 2000. Hearing the age in her voice makes the whole experience of it so much more poignant and personal; she takes us back to those days-who were we then, what were we after, what did we want, what do we still want, maybe? The whole thing is so fragile, ironic, redolent of another time. It gets me every time I hear it. Thank you. Adam
Lxlymndza · 6 July 2005
The earlier lyrics of Natalie Merchant have always struck me as poetic.
We are the roses in the garden. Beauty with thorns beneath our leaves. To pick a rose you ask your hand to bleed.
What is the reason for having roses when your blood is shed carelessly. It must be for something more than vanity….
Time in Eden
Shaun Oliver · 7 February 2008
actually, if I remember correctly the conscription was based on year of birth.