Joni Mitchell Library of Congress Award

The Joni Mitchell receiving the Gershwin Award from the Library of Congress was as amazing and different energy as the Women’s March in DC was 6 years ago. Huge crowd, no barriers, open, strong, powerful, humane, human spirit, courage, unstoppable and against no one. FOR everyone, with her unwavering, won’t look away, clear eyes seeing the devil and the grace, often in the same moment, in the same thing.

A man at the March commented that any gathering that big, if the sexes were reversed, there’s no way a woman could feel as safe surrounded by that many men as he did, we all did, surrounded by that many women.

Women feel different than men, and when men aren’t so outnumberingly around. The vibe is different, the concerns and topics are more thrival, more generative, and more right here, right now immediate, yet without rush. It was extraordinary. Almost as extraordinary as she and her artistry are.

Her new song that Brandi Carlyle sang, Shine, as unwavering and inclusive as a Zen master’s koan.

This wasn’t sung during the concert, but it’s been singing to me all evening.

Sweet Bird

Out on some borderline
Some mark of inbetween
I lay down golden in time
And woke up vanishing

Sweet bird you are
Briefer than a falling star
All these vain promises on beauty jars
Somewhere with your wings on time
You must be laughing
Behind our eyes
Calendars of our lives
Circled with compromise
Sweet bird of time and change
You must be laughing
Up on your feathers laughing

Golden in time
Cities under the sand
Power ideals and beauty
Fading in everyone’s hand

Give me some time
I feel like I’m losing mine
Out here on this horizon line
With the earth spinning
And the sky forever rushing
No one knows
They can never get that close
Guesses at most
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching

Joni Mitchell — July 3, 1975