A Strange Boy

"We got high on travel And we got drunk on alcohol And on love the strongest poison and medicine of all"

She pulls them like stars from the sky and studs them in songs that illuminate our own experience. As we sometimes do when we get older I've been looking back (via YouTube) at the music which lit the journey thus far. I watched so many concerts and interviews, charting her own transformations and came to one conclusion, that the consistency, quantity and quality of her output is amazing. Jimmy page, describing his own search for a muse said something like only one person gets it right every time, Joni Mitchell.

Different themes seem to collide in this song, so the meaning is not entirely clear, but there is reference to how even the war could not turn him into a man, which of course is what the military always says it is trying to turn boys into, boys who go to war like the Vietnam War of Joni's time, yet return even more wounded and shrunk emotionally than before. Despite his immaturity, she still finds him attractive, giving him as she says seductive power over her; you don't have to be a mature man after all to have that power, this is one area in which he can succeed, namely to give her pleasure and companionship. She dotes on him all the same, buying him things even though he is incapable of making his own money. In the 1960s there was even a cult of innocence, but the extremely intelligent Joni, a poet, likely found friendship and company there even while recalling and putting into poetic form the magnetism that drew her to men like him, even while acknowledging he was a half-formed creature, bullied in school, sent to war as a young man, who was never given the chance by the world around him to be more; indeed, he even balks at her suggestion to start believing in himself and reach out for more, just as she did with her musical art, reaching to the heavens and getting there; but he resists such motivation, so in love is he with his counter-cultural defense.

it's very "humid california." it has a sort of summery feel, but it's the kind where it's unbelievably dry, like a desert.

I plan to use this in one of my imaginary movies.

I adore this song. A lot. So powerful, so poetic. And not as easily likable as many of her others, which I think makes it more appealing to me.

We got high on travel And we got drunk on alcohol And on love the strongest poison and medicine of all See how that feeling comes and goes Like the pull of moon on tides Now I am surf rising Now parched ribs of sand at his side

Those are the lines that have described the time I've spent dicking around with my friends and waiting for the next time we all drink together. I usually listen to this song along side of furry sings the blues. The line

We're only welcome for our drink and smoke

reminds me of how the "in" crowd only seem to want you around to get intoxicated with them. They're the people I've spent so long trying to avoid and surely, I'm becoming just like them.

I love the bass in this song.

So who was she writing about in this song? It doesn't come close to describing her well-known lovers (her husband, Leonard Cohen, Graham Nash). Anyone know?