Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and throughout western Canada, before moving on to the nightclubs of Toronto, Ontario. She moved to the United States and began touring in 1965. Some of her original songs ("Urge for Going", "Chelsea Morning", "Both Sides, Now", "The Circle Game") were recorded by other folk singers, allowing her to sign with Reprise Records and record her debut album, Song to a Seagull, in 1968. Settling in Southern California, Mitchell helped define an era and a generation with popular songs like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock". Her 1971 album Blue is often cited as one of the best albums of all time; it was rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", rising to number 3 in the 2020 edition. In 2000, The New York Times chose Blue as one of the 25 albums that represented "turning points and pinnacles in 20th-century popular music". NPR ranked Blue number 1 on a 2017 list of Greatest Albums Made by Women.
Mitchell switched labels and began exploring more jazz-influenced melodic ideas, by way of lush pop textures, on 1974's Court and Spark, which featured the radio hits "Help Me" and "Free Man in Paris" and became her best-selling album. Mitchell's vocal range began to shift from mezzo-soprano to more of a wide-ranging contralto around 1975. Her distinctive piano and open-tuned guitar compositions also grew more harmonically and rhythmically complex as she melded jazz with rock and roll, R&B, classical music and non-Western beats. In the late 1970s, she began working with noted jazz musicians including Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Pat Metheny as well as Charles Mingus, who asked her to collaborate on his final recordings. She later turned to pop and electronic music and engaged in political protest. She was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards in 2002 and became a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2021.
Mitchell produced or co-produced most of her albums. A critic of the music industry, she quit touring and released her 17th and last album of original songs in 2007. Mitchell has designed most of her own album covers, describing herself as a "painter derailed by circumstance".
Big Yellow Taxi
Joni Mitchell Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
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
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
Hey, farmer, farmer
Put away the DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees, please
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
I said, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
In Joni Mitchell's song "Big Yellow Taxi," the singer laments the loss of nature and open spaces to development as she sings the iconic lyrics "They paved paradise, put up a parking lot." The opening lines describe the destruction of paradise, which is metaphorically paved over to make a parking lot. The visual imagery of a bustling modern landscape replacing a natural paradise is striking. The second stanza makes a direct reference to the removal of trees from their natural setting and charging people to see them in a contrived environment, as is often done with antiques, art, and even animals.
The chorus repeats the phrase "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?" This phrase is commonly used to imply that we take what we have for granted, and we do not value it until it's lost, like a loved one or nature. In the third stanza, Joni Mitchell asks the farmer to put away the DDT, a pesticide commonly used in the 60s and 70s that caused environmental damage to plants, animals, and humans. She wants to see natural spots on her apples and is possibly referring to the pesticide residues that could damage the fruit's natural look.
The last two stanzas describe how the singer mistakenly did not appreciate and value what they had until it was gone. She speaks of hearing a large yellow taxi take her old man away, implying that she lost something valuable without understanding its worth. The sense of regret and loss is palpable in her voice, and the repeated chorus reinforces this idea.
Line by Line Meaning
They paved paradise
The destruction of natural beauty and purity by human development
Put up a parking lot
The creation of man-made concrete spaces at the expense of nature
With a pink hotel, a boutique
The emergence of short-lived and exploitative businesses that cater to tourists
And a swinging hot spot
The popularity of commercialized entertainment at the cost of environmental preservation
Don't it always seem to go
The unfortunate recurring pattern of human behavior that takes the environment for granted
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
The realization of the worth and beauty of something only after it is lost
They took all the trees
The systematic desolation of forest and woodland environments
Put 'em in a tree museum
The commodification and exploitation of trees for profit and artificial displays
And they charged the people
The process of monetary gain from the exploitation of natural resources
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
The absurdity of profiting from the display of natural resources
Hey, farmer, farmer
The addressing of those responsible for the current state of environmental decay
Put away the DDT now
The cessation of the use of harmful pesticides that have detrimental effects on the environment
Give me spots on my apples
The preference for natural and unmodified fruits and produce
But leave me the birds and the bees, please
The desire to preserve the ecosystem and its species that play crucial roles in it
Late last night
The suddenness and surprise of environmental destruction
I heard the screen door slam
The abruptness and speed with which the environment is being destroyed
And a big yellow taxi
The symbol of human development and its impact on the environment
Took away my old man
The loss of something valuable and irreplaceable due to human action
Lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc.
Written by: Joni Mitchell
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind