I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons
If it gets through to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture postcard charms
Oh, Amelia, it was just a false alarm
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But 'til you get there yourself
You never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Others just come to harm
Oh, Amelia, it was just a false alarm
I wish that he was here tonight
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia, it was just a false alarm
A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me, she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons
If it gets through to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture postcard charms
Oh, Amelia, it was just a false alarm
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But 'til you get there yourself
You never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Others just come to harm
Oh, Amelia, it was just a false alarm
I wish that he was here tonight
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia, it was just a false alarm
A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me, she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms
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ANd Joni does compare her life to Amelia. Her dream to "fly" was her dream to love. SHe's talking to Amelia, perhaps in her loneliness, and telling the mythical pilot of her own wonderlust. She flew too high trying to get it and crashed into his arms. Perhaps her life on the road caused the problems.
"Like me, she had a dream to fly."
I think what Joni is trying to portray in this song is the common sense of needing to escape... To remove yourself from your own existense in order to find yourself.
Amelia never returned from this journey. And Joni, apparently did. "It was just a false alarm."
By the third verse she has begun to understand the sacrifice she has made, and in the fourth crystallizes that sacrifice in her words of hard lost love and the pain that goes with that loss. I find it interesting that in this verse and only this verse she addresses Amelia not in the first person (as a confidant), but in the third person in a much more clinical way (“I tell Amelia”).
A ghost of aviation, swallowed by the sky…she has lost her way in her devotion to her career. These verses are all about the wreckage of her life, as a consequence of her own choices. And then that lovely last refrain, in which she speaks of resignation to her lonely life of dreams (twice, in case you missed it the first time) and false alarms.
As the road leads cursed and charmed." As soulrevue points out - these are tough choices between pursuing our dreams or pursuing love. But which is the false alarm? The failed relationship (e.g. verse 4)? or Our pursuing the dreams that end in death (like Earhart and Icarus)?
This reference comes straight on the heels of the previous verse in which she muses "Maybe I've never really loved - I guess that is the truth. I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude."
So she is wondering if all of her supposed loves have been false alarms. That she has spent her life "busy being free... at icy altitudes." The freedom of flight being the quintessential symbol of freedom, and "falling into" someone's arms is not the same as actually loving them.
Of course, spending her life in clouds hearkens back to her first, most famous song, "Clouds" that she really doesn't know at all.