I'd have to say that I agree with what Orange has found, although I came to that conclusion intuitively while listening to the song. It took me a while to really internalize what she was saying, but it seemed to be a kind of equivocation playing itself out in her head … she'd associated with the "bohemian" crowd, the artists who go on about doing what they do sheerly for love of the purity of art and disdain the acceptance of their artwork by a larger audience as "selling out"—and perhaps this is what Joni thought some people were saying about her; she'd expanded beyond her range of hippie-folk and thus "betrayed" her fellow artists and first loyal audience, so she must be a "sell-out". Also, she seems to be commenting on the fact that regardless of their posturing, many supposedly-"deep", "intellectual" artists are simply affecting airs—in essence, they are no better than what they claim to despise (superficiality)—"bohemian" or "bourgeois", they're both just masks that a person wears to efficiently navigate their social predicament.
Furthermore, reflecting upon it, she seems to have never felt as though she belonged to either group—she's neither one of the "bohemians" nor one of the "bourgeois" patrons, so what does that make her?
It seems a very unresolved song, and there's beauty in that ambivalence. She seems to implore the listener to appreciate artists on an intensely individualistic and internal basis rather than on basis of their image and affectations.
I'd have to say that I agree with what Orange has found, although I came to that conclusion intuitively while listening to the song. It took me a while to really internalize what she was saying, but it seemed to be a kind of equivocation playing itself out in her head … she'd associated with the "bohemian" crowd, the artists who go on about doing what they do sheerly for love of the purity of art and disdain the acceptance of their artwork by a larger audience as "selling out"—and perhaps this is what Joni thought some people were saying about her; she'd expanded beyond her range of hippie-folk and thus "betrayed" her fellow artists and first loyal audience, so she must be a "sell-out". Also, she seems to be commenting on the fact that regardless of their posturing, many supposedly-"deep", "intellectual" artists are simply affecting airs—in essence, they are no better than what they claim to despise (superficiality)—"bohemian" or "bourgeois", they're both just masks that a person wears to efficiently navigate their social predicament.
Furthermore, reflecting upon it, she seems to have never felt as though she belonged to either group—she's neither one of the "bohemians" nor one of the "bourgeois" patrons, so what does that make her?
It seems a very unresolved song, and there's beauty in that ambivalence. She seems to implore the listener to appreciate artists on an intensely individualistic and internal basis rather than on basis of their image and affectations.