To me it brings across the fallacy of the era in which she sings. The guts of the song being various rallying calls of the 60's. And however well meaning these intentions where, the focus of the song is this 'big yellow taxi', which took her old man. That the dreamers of the 60's where either so devout to the notions of the latter half of that decade that they simply didn't see the more immediate emotional crisis going on or rather perhaps that it is a little bit easier to rant and rave at the horrors of the world en masse than it is to consult that most imtimate place where your lover cannot handle being with you anymore. I find it interesting that post 11/9/01 that even Yoko Ono once confining herself to her bed for peace, supported the military response to afganistan acknowledging that the 60's peace rallies had more than an elment of maschismo. Granted that level of aggression was useful to a degree it did lead to a short-sightedness that has been endlessly recorded in current popular history.
And that is what strikes me about Joni in this period of her work, for all the joy that she manages to put across; its the relentless desire to present the other side of the coin to her generation that makes me feel so connected to her. And don't even get me started on blue...
To me it brings across the fallacy of the era in which she sings. The guts of the song being various rallying calls of the 60's. And however well meaning these intentions where, the focus of the song is this 'big yellow taxi', which took her old man. That the dreamers of the 60's where either so devout to the notions of the latter half of that decade that they simply didn't see the more immediate emotional crisis going on or rather perhaps that it is a little bit easier to rant and rave at the horrors of the world en masse than it is to consult that most imtimate place where your lover cannot handle being with you anymore. I find it interesting that post 11/9/01 that even Yoko Ono once confining herself to her bed for peace, supported the military response to afganistan acknowledging that the 60's peace rallies had more than an elment of maschismo. Granted that level of aggression was useful to a degree it did lead to a short-sightedness that has been endlessly recorded in current popular history. And that is what strikes me about Joni in this period of her work, for all the joy that she manages to put across; its the relentless desire to present the other side of the coin to her generation that makes me feel so connected to her. And don't even get me started on blue...