Taxi 4 Magyarul

[Kanisha Marchant]

ThoughtI saw you in a summer's nightIn the scent of a Georgia pineYou were dancing in the starlightUnderneath a moon so brightThought I saw you in the afternoonA honeysuckle in the month of JuneYou were dancing by the riversideMaking patterns with the dragonflies

Thought I saw you in an angel's kissIn the Alabama morning mistYou were dancing by the mountainsideMaking patterns with the butterfliesHummingbird you know I wanna be free tooBut you won't leave me any clues to find youI want to be dancing in the starlight underneath a moon so bright

HummingbirdI used to do trips to Nashville in the hope of learning something from the talented songwriters there and it was a privilege to work with some of the great ones. The elusive country hit has thus far escaped me but I loved being in Tennessee, and I think my songs did get better as a result. I wrote the laid back 'Hummingbird' with Darryl Burgess on the balcony of the Universal Music Publishing building on Music Row in the heat of June. The inspiration came from the actual Hummingbirds I saw in the garden at the house down Granny White. Any garden with Hummingbirds and Fireflies (or lightening bugs as I learned to call them) is all right by me!

Stony GroundA song about farmers and climate. I live in a farming area and don't think I could ever go back to living in a city. Searching for a lyric idea to go with one of Luke's great chord sequences, I simply looked out of the window and sung about the farm across the way. The line about the 'Water we draw from the well has been tasting sour' was suggested by Chris Stewart's book 'Driving over Lemons' and the plea, 'How we'll heal this hurting land, I'll never know' is in truth, a tribute to my own limited achievements as a landscape gardener in my own back yard!

Take me to the water taxiLet the island slide from viewLet the sea-fish make their patternLet the long-tails bid adieuLet the porter take you bags manYou know it's what he's paid to doPouring oil on troubled watersAnd sometimes liquor too

Said my plane leaves in an hourI should see her circling soonThe same old smell of gasolineEvery time I'm leaving youTake me to the Crescent cityI want to taste the Delta rainLet me see the Ol' Tom BigbeeAnd love the Southland once again

I've got 'Three Island' in my sights nowI've got the East Eleuthera shoreTake me on to ColoradoCos I'm not coming back no moreKeep your eyes on the horizonKeep on running t'wards the sunCos in this everlasting eveningTomorrow never comes

Water TaxiA very real form of transport where I lived in Harbour Island in the Bahamas. To get to Dunmore Town and visit the legendary Pink Sand beach, you have to get a water taxi from Three Island dock, near the airport at North Eleuthera, to the Government dock on Briland as it is known locally. Even the most jaded traveller would have to admit, to a frisson of excitement, as they cross the clear, glass calm water of Cistern bay, towards the tiny clap board village that looks like something out of the South Seas, but is only 250 miles from Miami. I went to Colorado twice from there and this song is about that journey but it took a chilly January morning in Dominic Miller's studio in France, to bring the story to life, as all the words came out in a quite serious attempt to conjure up the feeling of 'seep through the bones' warmth I missed so much!

In a hotel room in DecataurRain pouring down on the roofLate check out in a terrible stateAnd I'm through with youBy a mile marker sign back in TexasThere's a woman who calls on my phoneSaying 'Austin motel I'm feeling like hellAnd I need you home'

Which rules of loveAre you playing by tonight Kansas City?Which bank ofthe river of dreamsDo you want me to land?Down and out in Los Angeles waiting on youI've got the freaks and the chic and the Aztec eliteBut I need you too

And at sword point I did join the smugglers bandWhat the Red-Coats make illegal manWe'll find away to tradeNeither bayonet nor jail will call to haltThe seas may run with blood tonightOr silver coins may flyBut the morning air has still her taste of salt

In Alice town in '26There were women wine and songAnd the lights of South Beach showing in the darkWe'd load the rum and whisky kegsAnd be upon our wayAnd race against the dawn's early startThe tale it ends in Norman's Cay in 1989Under moonlight that would stun the evening starFirearms and landing lightsAnd our product standing byAnd D.C.3 in neutral all the while

Watch The WallFrom Kipling this time, I believe, another tale of smuggling and daring do. Across two hundred years and four thousand miles, one chap tells of his exploits in the waters of the channel and the Gulf Stream. Rubbing shoulders with Hemingway and the Scarlet Pimpernel in Bimini and Normandy respectively, he gets his come uppance in the notorious Normans Cay of the 1980's. Written with Toby Tyler in the wonderful Landing Hotel.

Delta RainAn old favourite of mine, this version with Dorie is closer to how I heard it originally than the Blessing version but it is so long ago that I wrote it Ic an hardly remember life before Delta Rain. In my early twenties I spent three weeks staying with a school friend in the French Quarter and the characters of the quarter still fascinate me. Fireflies (again), French soldiers and belltrees, a plantation bodice ripper of the old school!

Written at Monestevole in Italy with Amber Rubarth, who is from Nevada. This camping trip romance is all about Western skies and kindling! Luke picks up a gut string Spanish guitar for his solo and all around the campfire, grizzled cowpokes are reduced to blubbing girls! 'I'll keep you warm tonight darling but tomorrow you know I'll be gone'. I think those are the mots juste.

Well I don't play that game no moreI got tired of keeping scoreI'm just taking it one day at a timeI must do what I must doI may win or I may loseBut whichever way the wind blowsI'll be fineBecause I don't do that no more

Don't Do That No More.Another Nashville song this time with Gary Nicholson and the redoubtable Delbert McLinton. Delbert taught John Lennon how to play harmonica in Hamburg and I always loved his song 'Giving it up for your love' so it was a real pleasure to spend the day with him and listen to his superb voice in the room as he experimented with lyric ideas. It was great to get together with Jim and Kevin to play the backing track and Luke and Dorie and I all enjoyed playing it live in December. NB Everything that glisters is not gold; check your copy of the Merchant of Venice, California.

SweetheartAs we all know nostalgia is not what it used to be but looking back at old songs is sometimes allowed, in private, under correct supervision, with the appropriate safety procedures in place. In this case we have again gone back to the original idea and kept it simple, what I had feared was a somewhat bitter lyric now sounds like a perfectly normal declaration of love but that's just getting older I expect. Anyway as the great Noel Coward said in 'Present Laughter'. 'Come along Dear, away with melancholy, it's a quarter past eleven!'

The deepest darkness is always right before the dawnThat's the way it's always been,Miles of aisles strung and spread like stereo surround,Is all I remember seeing,But yonder breaks the light, in flashes from the east,I hope the dawn may bring you peace,

The light is on the waterIt ripples like a soundit's dancing on the bayouAnd it's shaking from the groundAnd we're rolling down the highwayAnd the songs are getting sadAnd we sing of long lost loversWe never even had

So they paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

With a pink hotel

A boutique

And a swinging night spot.

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone

They paved paradise

Put up a parking lot.

They took all the trees

Put 'em in a tree museum

And they charged all the people

An arm and a leg just to see 'em

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone

They paved paradise

Put up a parking lot.

Hey farmer

Put away your DDT

Give me spots on my apples

But leave me the birds and bees

Please

Don't it always seem to go

You don't know what you got 'til it's gone

They paved paradise

And they put up a parking lot.

Late last night

I heard the screen door slam

And a big yellow taxi come and took away my old man.

Don't it always seem to go

You don't know what you got 'til it's gone

They paved paradise

Put up a parking lot.

This song ended up in the ballet [the Alberta Ballet Company ballet of her music, Fiddle and the Drum]. It's the only song like it in the ballet and on the album. It's the encore of the ballet, which doesn't usually have one because it's dance. But [choreographer] Jean Grande-Maitre said, "Joni always has encores, so we must have one." I chose to revisit this song and do it so that it has an element of humor in it. I came across a doo-wop pattern and kept going with it. The chorus sounds like bop. I came up with an arrangement that is very French-circus sounding and uses instrumental sounds, like the accordion, that some people may consider square. It works great for the ballet encore - it dances perfect without drums - and on the album, the song keeps the theme going and lightens the feel after "Bad Dreams."

Why is this song still viable? It's taken people a long time to see that we have to cut back on our electricity, but we won't. The idea of this song wasn't popular when I first recorded it, and it's not now either because we're drowning in pop culture."

Sorry this is not good for profits, Ad, but the fact is that ANY "pesticide" loses effectiveness if it's used repeatedly. DDT was overused and began doing more harm to humans than to mosquitoes, much as glyphosate is now doing more harm to humans than to "weeds."

"DDT is a persistent organochlorine pesticide and is largely responsible for the great decrease in the reproductive capabilities and consequently in the populations of fish-eating birds, such as the bald eagle, brown pelican, and osprey. Because of DDT's effects on birds, the chemical has not been used in the United States since 1972, and can no longer be used except in cases of public health emergency. At the time Joni wrote this lyric (1967-68), the continued use of DDT was quite controversial. DDT is still used in several other areas of the world."

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