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".
Sweet Bird
Joni Mitchell Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Some mark of in between
I lay down golden-in time
And woke up vanishing
Sweet bird you are
Briefer than a falling star
All these vain promises on beauty jars
You must be laughing
Behind our eyes
Calendars of our lives
Circled with compromise
Sweet bird of time and change
You must be laughing
Up on your feathers laughing
Golden in time
Cities under the sand
Power, ideals and beauty
Fading in everyone's hand
Give me some time
I feel like I'm losing mine
Out here on this horizon line
With the earth spinning
And the sky forever rushing
No one knows
They can never get that close
Guesses at most
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
In the song “Sweet Bird,” Joni Mitchell sings about feeling lost and caught in between moments, marked by “calendars of our lives circled with compromise.” She describes herself as laying down golden in time, but waking up vanishing, reflecting on the fleeting nature of time and beauty. The titular “sweet bird” represents the passing of time and change. Mitchell acknowledges that no one can truly grasp the depth and significance of these shifts, and that all we have are “guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching.”
On a deeper level, “Sweet Bird” can be interpreted as a meditation on mortality and the inevitability of change. The cities that were once “golden in time” are now fading in everyone’s hand, a reminder that nothing is permanent. The lyrics evoke a sense of wonder and curiosity, as Mitchell contemplates the mysteries of our existence and the nature of time itself. The sweet bird, with its wings on time, represents the fleeting moments that make up our lives.
Line by Line Meaning
Out on some borderline
Joni Mitchell finds the place where the borderline between two different things can be seen
Some mark of in between
The mark between two things or states (like past and future) is visible to Joni Mitchell
I lay down golden-in time
Joni Mitchell feels that she is surrounded by time and sees it as something precious
And woke up vanishing
She realizes that time is short, and life quickly disappears without warning
Sweet bird you are
Joni Mitchell addresses time and calls it a bird because it flies away quickly
Briefer than a falling star
Time is shorter than the duration of a falling star that disappears in a flash
All these vain promises on beauty jars
People often make empty promises to preserve beauty, but nothing lasts forever
Somewhere with your wings on time
Time flies away just like a bird using its wings to soar high in the sky
You must be laughing
Time makes people laugh because of how unpredictable and brief it can be
Behind our eyes
Time leaves its mark on our lives and is seen through our experiences
Calendars of our lives
Time is measured through the calendars we use to track the days and years of our lives
Circled with compromise
We often have to compromise the time for other things in life like work and responsibilities
Sweet bird of time and change
Joni Mitchell sees time and change as partners that work together like a bird in flight
Up on your feathers laughing
Joni Mitchell imagines that time is laughing because of its fleeting nature
Golden in time
Time is like gold, valuable and precious because it cannot be reproduced or replicated
Cities under the sand
Civilizations that once existed have been buried in time, forgotten and disappeared
Power, ideals and beauty
Things that people value like power, ideals and beauty eventually fade away with time
Fading in everyone's hand
Just like sand that slips through our fingers, time slips away from everyone's hand
Give me some time
Joni Mitchell wants time to slow down because she feels like she is running out of it
I feel like I'm losing mine
Joni Mitchell feels like she is losing her time and cannot hold onto it
Out here on this horizon line
She feels like she is standing on the boundary of time, where the past meets the future
With the earth spinning
As the earth spins, time keeps moving on, and we cannot stop it no matter what
And the sky forever rushing
The sky is always above us, but time moves faster than we can imagine
No one knows
Despite human efforts, no one can entirely understand the nature of time and the universe that surrounds us
They can never get that close
People can only guess about the universe, but they can never be entirely sure about its mysteries
Guesses at most
People can merely make assumptions about what they don't know, but they can't hold all the answers
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching
People's assumptions are based on how time and change are affecting their surroundings, and their observations may not always be accurate
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing
Written by: JONI MITCHELL
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind