One of our cats has developed the less-than-endearing habit of yelling
to be let out on weekday mornings at about 5:00 AM. This is about 30
minutes before my alarm goes off. Well anyway, this morning after
performing my duties as door opener for His Feline Majesty, I got back
in bed and while trying to drift off to catch another half hour's
worth of zz's, I got to thinking about the recent thread about Songs
To Aging Children Come. The thread may be dead but not in my head.
I think this song is Joni's answer to the question:
Where do your songs come from?
Joni replies that they come from the wells of her imagination (I think
they're windless for the sake of alliteration) and might be inspired
by a light show at a rock concert (with or without chemical
stimulation.) Or maybe a song arises from watching a fortune teller
read her tea leaves (she thinks of Rose - her heart begins to tremble)
or if you're a famous songwriter or maybe a musician in a Renaissance
royal court, maybe your work is commissioned or ordered by the King
and Queen for a royal marriage or birth or some other fete or holiday.
>From these sources and by these sometimes mystical & mysterious
avenues, songs (to aging children) come.
In the next verse she wonders why everyone else doesn't hear all the
music that she does. After all, being the musical genius that she is,
she hears songs outside her window & the traffic writes the words.
This is the woman who tunes her guitar to bird song. Maybe people are
just going too fast to hear all the music in the world that Joni hears
in all that chiming & clicking & laughing.
Some of the melodies that come to her are not happy ones. Some come
with sad & melancholic images attached to them. Listening to these
melodies inspires words that fill the eyes with tears and the heart
with sorrow (but with Joni they always end up making us feel better
somehow.)
And of course the natural world makes many contributions to Joni's
songbook. The scent of dying roses yield up a perfumed rhapsody (but
will they bequeath it to her?) The moon serenades her with it's songs
(all of them silver?) as it strums the strings of stars that stretch
across the galaxy.
And by describing in poetic language how her muse inspires her, a song
(to aging children) comes.
Mark in Seattle
(who will leave 'False Alarms' to others who haven't already thrashed
it out)
