Joni Mitchell: Big Yellow Taxi

[Andrew MacLean]

Sometimes known as "You don't know what you've got till its gone ..."

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see em
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that d.d.t. now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot


Why has a refugee from the 1960's struggled so hard to remember the lyric of this song? These three lines ...

Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone

... have been much in my mind since last Friday, during which time the whole site was disabled. We all use the site and perhaps like me, many of the rest of the users never quite focus on the work that John does to keep it available for us.

Thanks to John it is back. Thanks John!

[John Smith]

Glad to see you're using the old words, Andrew.

The new fangled line is

"twenty-five bucks just to see 'em"

Inflation, eh?

[Andrew MacLean]

Yes; actually I always thought the 'dollar and a half ...' was a token of how poorly the value of the trees in the tree museum were rated by the people. Twenty five bucks sounds like rather a lot of money and would tend to put a greater value on the trees!

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what youve got
Till its gone

Anyway John, it is good to know that in a world of constant change some of us still appreciate the way things ought to be!

Andrew

[Lesley Foster]

Hear, hear to that.

Lesley