Lyric discussion by u91746 

Joni is a magician. Absolute magic. What is true in small things, she finds parallels to bigger things. In "Big Yellow Taxi", she links the loss of the environment and pesticides to her personal loss of her boyfriend who's left in a big yellow taxi. Here, she draws a parallel between the innocence of youth in cloud-watching, the innocence of that first love, and draws it to her personal experience of life in totality: seeing both sides - anxious anticipation to wistful regret.

I agree with comments about the magic of her early version - still anxious and anticipating, cheery and upbeat - versus the absolutely powerful and amazing remastered version...the wisdom of age, and looking back at life from "win and lose" and still somehow it's still the illusions we recall.

Magic.

@u91746 the more modern version isn’t “remastered”, it’s a completely new version of it recorded by Joni when she was almost 40 years older.

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