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".
Marcie
Joni Mitchell Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Stops inside a candy store
Reds are sweet and greens are sour
Still no letter at her door
So she'll wash her flower curtains
Hang them in the wind to dry
Dust her tables with his shirt and
Wave another day goodbye
Marcie's faucet needs a plumber
Marcie's sorrow needs a man
Red is autumn, green is summer
Greens are turning and the sand
All along the ocean beaches
Stares up empty at the sky
Marcie buys a bag of peaches
Stops a postman passing by
And summer goes
Falls to the sidewalk like string and brown paper
Winter blows
Up from the river there's no one to take her
To the sea
Marcie dresses warm its snowing
Takes a yellow cab uptown
Red is stop and green's for going
Sees a show and rides back down
Down along the Hudson River
Past the shipyards in the cold
Still no letter's been delivered
Still the winter days unfold
Like magazines
Fading in dusty grey attics and cellars
Make a dream
Dream back to summer and hear how
He tells her
Wait for me
Marcie leaves and doesn't tell us
Where or why she moved away
Red is angry, green is jealous
That was all she had to say
Someone thought they saw her Sunday
Window shopping in the rain
Someone heard she bought a one-way ticket
And went west again
Joni Mitchell's song "Marcie" is a bittersweet tale of a lonely young woman who seeks solace in the small pleasures of daily life, while secretly yearning for a lost love who seems to have forgotten her. The lyrics evoke a vivid sense of place and time, with images of seasonal changes, urban landscapes, seascapes, and rural idylls. The use of color symbolism is prominent throughout the song, as red and green are contrasted to express the emotions of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, youth and age, and passion and regret.
The opening verse sets the tone for the song, as Marcie is depicted as a flower child, dressed in a coat of flowers, who stops inside a candy store to indulge in the sweet pleasures of life. However, her loneliness is palpable, as she looks for a letter that never arrives, and hangs her flower curtains to dry, as if hoping to catch a breeze of love. The use of the word "still" underscores the sense of waiting and disappointment that pervades the song, as Marcie's life seems to be stuck in a rut of unfulfilled longing and mundane routine.
The second verse introduces more concrete details of Marcie's life, as she deals with practical problems like a leaky faucet and a broken heart. The use of imagery and symbolism is especially potent in this verse, as red and green are used to evoke the passing of time and the changing of seasons. The contrast between the greens of summer and the reds of autumn highlights the fleeting nature of life and love, while the image of the empty beach suggests the loneliness and emptiness of Marcie's existence. The unexpected appearance of a postman and a bag of peaches adds a touch of whimsy to the verse, but also serves to emphasize the sense of isolation that Marcie feels.
The third verse brings Marcie into the harsh reality of winter, as she dresses warm and takes a cab uptown to seek some diversion. The use of red and green again serves to underscore the contrasting moods of the season, as does the mention of the Hudson River and the shipyards. The fact that Marcie still hasn't received a letter from her absent lover reinforces the sense of loss and longing that permeates the song. The last verse provides some closure to the story, as Marcie leaves without a word and heads west, leaving us to wonder if she will find what she's looking for, or if she will continue to wander aimlessly. The use of color symbolism and the indirect narration of the story leaves much to the imagination and invites the listener to empathize with Marcie's plight.
Line by Line Meaning
Marcie in a coat of flowers
The image of Marcie wearing a coat made of flowers
Stops inside a candy store
Marcie walks into a store that sells candy
Reds are sweet and greens are sour
Some types of candy are sweet while others are sour
Still no letter at her door
Marcie has not received any letters
So she'll wash her flower curtains
Marcie decides to clean her curtains decorated with flowers
Hang them in the wind to dry
She wants to dry the curtains by hanging them outside
Dust her tables with his shirt and
She uses his shirt to dust off the tables
Wave another day goodbye
Marcie ends her day and says goodbye to it, ready for the next one
Marcie's faucet needs a plumber
The plumbing in Marcie's house needs fixing
Marcie's sorrow needs a man
Her sadness could be cured by a man's companionship
Red is autumn, green is summer
The colors red and green represent the seasons of autumn and summer respectively
Greens are turning and the sand
The vegetation is changing and transitioning with the arrival of a new season
All along the ocean beaches
The beaches that surround the ocean
Stares up empty at the sky
The sky is empty and can be seen clearly from the beach
Marcie buys a bag of peaches
Marcie purchases a bag of peaches
Stops a postman passing by
Marcie stops a postman as they pass by
And summer goes
The summer season comes to an end
Falls to the sidewalk like string and brown paper
Summer fades away like string and brown paper that falls to the ground
Winter blows
Winter comes
Up from the river there's no one to take her
There is no one around to help Marcie leave or to come with her
To the sea
To be by the ocean
Marcie dresses warm its snowing
Marcie wears warm clothes because it is snowing outside
Takes a yellow cab uptown
Marcie gets into a cabbie's yellow car to go uptown
Red is stop and green's for going
The colors red and green are associated with stopping and going respectively
Sees a show and rides back down
Marcie goes to see a performance and comes back down afterwards, probably in the same cab
Down along the Hudson River
Travelling beside the Hudson River
Past the shipyards in the cold
Marcie sees shipyards during a cold and chilly day
Still no letter's been delivered
Marcie has not received any letters
Still the winter days unfold
Winter days continue to happen without much change
Like magazines
Winter days pass by like the pages of a magazine
Fading in dusty grey attics and cellars
Memories of past days fade like old things stored in attics and cellars
Make a dream
Create a dream
Dream back to summer and hear how he tells her
Remember the summer days and re-imagine how he told her something
Wait for me
A message he gave to Marcie for her to stay and wait for him
Marcie leaves and doesn't tell us
Marcie departs and doesn't tell anyone where she's going
Where or why she moved away
It is not clear where she went or why she left
Red is angry, green is jealous
The colors red and green represent anger and jealousy respectively
That was all she had to say
Marcie only said that much and nothing more
Someone thought they saw her Sunday
Someone thinks they saw Marcie on a Sunday
Window shopping in the rain
Marcie looks at window displays of stores while it rains outside
Someone heard she bought a one-way ticket
Someone heard that Marcie bought a one-way ticket
And went west again
Marcie may have gone towards the west once again
Lyrics © Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing, RESERVOIR MEDIA MANAGEMENT INC
Written by: Joni Mitchell
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind