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Carey Lyrics
Carey
-Joni Mitchell
The wind is in from Africa
Last night, I couldn't sleep
Oh you know it sure is hard to leave you, Carey
But it's really not my home
My fingernails are filthy
I've got beach tar on my feet
And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy French cologne
<i>Chorus</i>:
Oh Carey get out your cane (Carey get out your cane!)
I'll put on some silver (I'll put on some silver)
Oh, you're a mean old Daddy, but I like you
Come on down to the mermaid cafe
And I will buy you a bottle of wine
And we'll laugh, and toast to nothing
And smash our empty glasses
Let's have a round for these freaks and these soldiers
A round for these friends of mine
Let's have another round for the bright red devil who
Keeps me in this tourist town
<i>Chorus</i>
Maybe I'll go to Amsterdam
Or maybe I'll go to Rome
And rent me a grand piano
And put some flowers around my room
But let's not talk about fare thee wells now
The night is a starry dome
And they're playing that scratchy rock 'n roll
Beneath the Mantella moon
<i>Chorus</i>
The wind is in from Africa
Last night, I couldn't sleep
Oh you know it sure is hard to leave you, Carey
But it's really not my home
Maybe it's been too long a time since I was
Scrambling down the street
Now they got me used to that clean white linen
And that fancy French cologne
Oh, Carey get out your cane (Carey, get out your cane.)
I'll put on my finest silver (I'll put on my finest silver,)
We'll go to the Mermaid Cafe
Have fun tonight
I said oh you're a mean old Daddy but you're out of site
Last night, I couldn't sleep
Oh you know it sure is hard to leave you, Carey
But it's really not my home
My fingernails are filthy
I've got beach tar on my feet
And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy French cologne
I'll put on some silver (I'll put on some silver)
Oh, you're a mean old Daddy, but I like you
And I will buy you a bottle of wine
And we'll laugh, and toast to nothing
And smash our empty glasses
Let's have a round for these freaks and these soldiers
A round for these friends of mine
Let's have another round for the bright red devil who
Keeps me in this tourist town
Or maybe I'll go to Rome
And rent me a grand piano
And put some flowers around my room
But let's not talk about fare thee wells now
The night is a starry dome
And they're playing that scratchy rock 'n roll
Beneath the Mantella moon
Last night, I couldn't sleep
Oh you know it sure is hard to leave you, Carey
But it's really not my home
Maybe it's been too long a time since I was
Scrambling down the street
Now they got me used to that clean white linen
And that fancy French cologne
I'll put on my finest silver (I'll put on my finest silver,)
We'll go to the Mermaid Cafe
Have fun tonight
I said oh you're a mean old Daddy but you're out of site
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
could carey possibly be the "redneck on a grecian isle who did the goat dance very well"?
see I never thought about the red hair with bright red devil, but I always have with the line "Oh the Rogue, the red, red rogue" in "California." Based on the rest of the comments around here, it sounds like it's most likely the same person
see I never thought about the red hair with bright red devil, but I always have with the line "Oh the Rogue, the red, red rogue" in "California." Based on the rest of the comments around here, it sounds like it's most likely the same person
@sploogerella YES!
@sploogerella YES!
@sploogerella YES!
@sploogerella YES!
Joni is one of few truly great singer-songwriters. Apart from her unique playing style, what sets her apart from most, is how directly she communicates her feelings and the way that she shares with you images of places and people.
Carey covers a time when traveling in Europe - specifically here the island of Crete near the town of Matala. (I think the lyric should read "... Beneath the Matala moon."
Cary was a guy from North Carolina that she met while on the island and had to leave to continue her trip and eventual return to California.
Check out this link for more of the story: http://www.matala-crete.com/matala_crete_info/crete_country_info/15.html
Every time I hear this song I feel the urge to jump on a plane to Crete to get lost for a while.
i'd always thought "get out your cane" was an odd line; most people who walk with a cane always have them close at hand even if they sit all day (like me). maybe it means sugar cane. I don't know but I never thought it was about cocaine. "I'll put on some silver" must mean jewelry, but that's another line which sounds awkward to me.
on the subject of joni's wanderlust, etc. there's that line in "Coyote" which--come to think of it--is yet another song written for a friend, lover (or both) one would guess is many years her senior. you know the words I mean: about the lines on the freeway. you can see how travel has "written" those lines on her, quite literally: on the cover of Hejira, in a kind of double-exposure. and on the last repetition, she gets more descriptive: "the fine white lines..." hey how many successful folks in the 70s didn't indulge, particularly in the entertainment industry?
not everyone perhaps. despite several tries, I always found it unpleasant...or at best, undetectable. people will say "then you never had good stuff." but trust me, I know how stimulants affect me, and I simply don't like the way they make me feel.
after 20 years of chronic illness I've become an amateur pharmacologist. if I'm dumb enough to forget, and...oh, let's say, drink more than one can of Mountain Dew...I get irritable & sleepless. then I'm in pain (more than usual) for the next week.
you wanna know my weakness, OK ask for "steely dan" and maybe you too can have a talk with doctor wu. he's a sneaky, unreliable bastard...don't say you weren't warned.
@foreverdrone In the nineteen-sixties, there was a minor retro fashion trend of young men carrying walking sticks. As to the initial reason, it may have been self-defense, since long haired hippy-type guys were targets for red-necks who might want to beat them up. It was both fancy and practical.
@foreverdrone In the nineteen-sixties, there was a minor retro fashion trend of young men carrying walking sticks. As to the initial reason, it may have been self-defense, since long haired hippy-type guys were targets for red-necks who might want to beat them up. It was both fancy and practical.
In the context of the song, with her wearing silver, she would be saying - "let's fancy up to go out on the town".
In the context of the song, with her wearing silver, she would be saying - "let's fancy up to go out on the town".
I'm a little too young to have done had one as a fashion statement, but my oldest brother was 20 in 1966, and he had...
I'm a little too young to have done had one as a fashion statement, but my oldest brother was 20 in 1966, and he had a fancy walking stick.
This song is one of the most important songs on "Blue" I think. Like California and This flight tonight it's about her trip around Europe in 69 or 70, where she allegedly did a lot of the writing for this album.
Its really mostly as simple as it looks, shes describing the places she's been, Matalla in Greece where the Mermaid Cafe is real ( greece may also inspire the line about "these soldiers", as it was under military rule, and "these freaks" are her fellow hippy travellers.
I cant remember who the Carey of the title is, though I think its mentioned in jonis biography (?) but Im pretty sure there was a man with red hair in her life while or before she wrote this son. The "bright red devil".
Although its on the surface just about her travels, there is a lot of longing and emotion in the song as in the rest of the album. She expresses uncertainty about where she'll go next and discontent at not being "home" - also shown in California and River in particular. But she shrugs all her sadness off with the chorus and urges herself to have fun and live for the moments.
I think its a wonderful song, not as sad and gentle as the rest on blue but a great one to hum along to and imagine yourself pleasantly drunk in a greek bar, dancing your cares away
Well, it's about being in love. I guess. It might not even be about the relationship kinda love, just a love for a friend. She likes this guy so much that she calls him a devil, she hates him at the same time, because he's keeping her in "This tourist town" and really she wants to go home, back to cleanliness and "fancy French Cologne".
I really love the way she sings it, especially the Mermaid Cafe verse - what an amazing voice! Also, the claps on the second and fourth beats of each bar really add to the holiday, relaxd atmosphere of the song. Can songs even have atmospheres?
Anyway, that's my rant over. Ignore it, it's a load of bull! :P
i love this song so much! it's my second favourite Joni song (after A case of you obviously) I just love her voice in it, the way she can jump octaves in the middle of a line and the ephasis on certain words like 'lets have a round'. And the lyrics, that she loves this person and really doesnt want tp leave him but its a bittersweet love cos she's homesick too. Yep 'mazin song
and here I was thinking that Joni was only hanging out with this guy as long as his supply of blow lasted... "Carey get out your (co-)Cane"
Either way it's a beautiful song.
oh my god. arthadude, i totally agree with you! that's honestly the first thing i thought when i heard, "Carey, get out your cane."
I was at the Miles of Aisles concert (Universal Amphitheater)... My god! Joni was lovely.
The rhythm of the poetry here is so universal that I find myself using these lyrics in many different tunes... it's amazing.
I know the story behind Carey's cane. It has nothing to do with coke. A friend of mine was staying in the Matala caves at that time. One day he was hiking in the Samaria Gorge, and sat down to finish a man's macrame bracelet he was making (this was 1970!) A Greek guy suddenly appeared, carrying the most beautiful carved shepherd's crook. With much smiling, pointing, and laughing, he indicated that he wanted the bracelet, so they traded bracelet for crook. When my friend got back to the caves, he met Joni Mitchell and Carey. Carey drank too much wine, and fell off a rock after drinking retsina, spraining his ankle badly. So my friend lent him the shepherd's crook. Hence the 'cane' in the song Joni wrote a little later.
Well, that's a great story!
Well, that's a great story!
@marita53 Thanks so much for this. Sometimes people love (mis)interpreting lyrics - it's much easier (lazier) than actually trying to find out.
@marita53 Thanks so much for this. Sometimes people love (mis)interpreting lyrics - it's much easier (lazier) than actually trying to find out.
Joni can confirm:
Joni can confirm:
The following transcript of the introduction to this song that Mitchell gave during a performance at the Troubadour is on this site devoted to Crete: https://crete.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/joni-michell-in-matala-crete/
The following transcript of the introduction to this song that Mitchell gave during a performance at the Troubadour is on this site devoted to Crete: https://crete.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/joni-michell-in-matala-crete/
"I went to Greece a couple years ago and over there I met a very unforgettable character. I have a hard time remembering people's names, like, so I have to remember things by association, even unforgettable characters I have to remember by association, so...
"I went to Greece a couple years ago and over there I met a very unforgettable character. I have a hard time remembering people's names, like, so I have to remember things by association, even unforgettable characters I have to remember by association, so his name was 'Carrot' Raditz, Carey Raditz, and oh, he's a great character. He's got sort of a flaming red personality, and flaming red hair and a flaming red appetite for red wine and he fancied himself to be a gourmet cook, you know, if he could be a gourmet cook in a cave in Matala. And he announced to my girlfriend and I the day that we met him that he was the best cook in the area and he actually was working at the time I met him – he was working at this place called the Delphini restaurant – until it exploded, singed half of the hair off of his beard and his legs, and scorched his turban, melted down his golden earrings.
"Anyway, one day he decided he was going to cook up a feast, you know, so we had to go to market because, like, in the village of Matala there was one woman who kind of had a monopoly – well actually there were three grocery stores, but she really had a monopoly, and because of her success and her affluence, she had the only cold storage in the village, too. So she had all the fresh vegetables and all the cold soft drinks and she could make the yogurt last a lot longer than anyone else, and we didn't feel like giving her any business that day. Rather than giving her our business we decided to walk ten miles to the nearest market.
"So I had ruined the pair of boots that I'd brought with me from the city, because they were really 'citified,' kind of slick city boots that were meant to walk on flat surfaces. The first night there we drank some Raki and I tried to climb the mountain and that was the end of those shoes. So he lent me these boots of his which were like Li'l Abner boots – like those big lace-up walking boots - and a pair of Afghani socks, which made my feet all purple at the end of the day. And I laced them up around my ankles and I couldn't touch any – the only place my foot touched was on the bottom, you know, there was nothing rubbing in the back or the sides – they were huge - and he wasn't very tall, either, come to think of it, was kind of strange – I guess he had sort of webbed feet or something. But we started off on this long trek to the village, I forget the name of it now, between Matala and Iraklion – and started off in the cool of the morning. And by the time we got halfway there we were just sweltering, me in these thick Afghani socks and heavy woolens and everything. So we went into the ruins of King Phestos' palace to sit down and have a little bit of a rest, and while we were there these two tourist buses pulled up and everybody got off the buses in kind of an unusual symmetry, you know, they all sort of walked alike and talked alike and they all kind of looked alike. And they all filed over to a series of rubble-y rocks- a wall that was beginning to crumble – lined themselves up in a row and took out their viewing glasses, overgrown opera glasses, and they started looking at the sky. And suddenly this little speck appeared on the horizon that came closer and closer, this little black speck.
"Carey was standing behind all of this leaning on his cane, and as it came into view he suddenly broke the silence of this big crowd and he yells out, 'it's ah MAAGPIE' in his best North Carolina drawl. And suddenly all the glasses went down in symmetry and everybody's heads turned around to reveal that they were all very birdlike looking people. They had long skinny noses – really – they had been watching birds so long that they looked like them, you know – and this one woman turned around and she says to him (in British accent) "it's NOT a magpie – it's a crooked crow." Then she very slowly and distinctly turned her head back, picked up her glasses, and so did everybody else, and we kept on walking. Bought two kilos of fish which would have rotted in the cave hadn't it been for the cats.
"When we got back from that walk, Stelios, who was the guy who ran the Mermaid Cafe, had decided to put an addition on his kitchen, which turned out to be really illegal and it was so illegal, as a matter of fact, that the Junta dragged him off to jail. And torture was legal over there – they burnt his hands and his feet with cigarette butts mainly because they hated, you know, all of the Canadians and Americans and wandering Germans living in the caves, but they couldn't get them out of there because it was controlled by the same archaeologist that controlled the ruins of King Phestos' palace, and he didn't mind you living there as long as you didn't Day-Glo all of the caves. And everyone was, like, putting all of their psychedelia over all this ancient writing. So they carted him off to jail."