Shadows and Light
Live - 1980 - Debaser id 12297

Downtown
My darling dimestore thief
In the War of Independence
Rock 'n Roll rang sweet as victory
Under neon signs
A girl was in bloom
And a woman was fading
In a suburban room
I said, "Take me to the dance,
Do you want to dance?
I love to dance"
And I told him, "They don't take chances
They seem so removed from romance"
"They've been broken in churches and schools
And molded to middle class circumstance"
And we were rolling, rolling, rock n' rolling

Downtown
The dance halls and cafes
Feel so wild you could break somebody's heart
Just doing the latest dance craze
Gail and Louise
In those push-up brassieres
Tight dresses and rhinestone rings
Drinking up the band's beers
Young love was kissing under bridges
Kissing in cars, kissing in cafes
And we were walking down Main Street
Kisses like bright flags hung on holidays
"In France they kiss on Main Street"
"Amour, mama, not cheap display"
And we were rolling, rolling, rock n' rolling

Downtown
In the pinball arcade
With his head full of pool hall pitches
And songs from the hit parade
He'd be singing "Bye, Bye, Love"
While he's racking up his free play
Let those rock 'n roll choir boys
Come and carry us away
Sometimes Chickie had the car
Or Ron had a car
Or Lead Foot Melvin with his hot-wire head
We'd all go looking for a party
Looking to raise Jesus up from the dead
And I'd be kissing in the back seat
Thrilling to the Brando-like things that he said
And we'd be rolling, rolling, rock n' rolling

The big man arrives
Disco dancers greet him
Plainclothes cops greet him
Small town, big man, fresh lipstick glistening
Sophomore jive
From victims of typewriters
The band sounds like typewriters
The big man he's not listening
His eyes hold Edith
His left hand holds his right
What does that hand desire
That he grips it so tight

Edith in the ring
The passed-over girls are conferring
The man with the diamond ring is purring
All claws for now withdrawn
One by one they bring
His renegade stories to her
His crimes and his glories to her
In challenge they look on
Women he has taken grow old too soon
He tilts their tired faces
Gently to the spoon

Edith in his bed
A plane in the rain is humming
The wires in the walls are humming
Some song-some mysterious song
Bars in her head
Beating frantic and snowblind
Romantic and snowblind
She says-his crime belongs
Edith and the Kingpin
Each with charm to sway
Are staring eye to eye
They dare not look away
You know they dare not look away

No regrets Coyote
We just come from such different sets of circumstance
I'm up all night in the studios
And you're up early on your ranch
You'll be brushing out a brood mare's tail
While the sun is ascending
And I'll just be getting home with my reel to reel
There's no comprehending
Just how close to the bone & the skin & the eyes
And the lips you can get
And still feel so alone
And still feel related
Like stations in some relay
You're not a hit and run driver
No no
Racing away

You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway

We saw a farmhouse burning down
In the middle of nowhere
In the middle of the night
And we rolled right past that tragedy
Till we turned into some road house lights
Where a local band was playing
Locals were up kicking and shaking on the floor
And the next thing I know
That coyote's at my door
He pins me in a corner and he won't take no
He drags me out on the dance floor
And we're dancing close and slow
Now he's got a woman at home
He's got another woman down the hall
He seems to want me anyway
Why'd you have to get so drunk
And lead me on that way

You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway

I looked a coyote right in the face
On the road to Baljennie near my old home town
He went running through the whisker wheat
Chasing some prize down
And a hawk was playing with him
Coyote he's jumping straight up & making passes
He had those same eyes just like yours
Under your dark glasses
Privately probing the public rooms
And peeking through keyholes in numbered doors
Where the players lick their wounds
And take their temporary lovers
Their pills & powders to get them through this passion play
I'll have no regrets Coyote
I just get off up aways

You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway

Coyote's in the coffee shop
He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs
He picks up my scent on his fingers
While he's watching the waitresses' legs
He's too far from the Bay of Fundy
From appaloosas and eagles and tides
And the air conditioned cubicles
And the carbon ribbon rides
I'm spelling it out so clear
Either he's going to have to stand & fight
Or take off out of here
I tried to run away myself
To run away and wrestle with my ego
And with this flame
He put here in this Eskimo
In this hitcher
In this prisoner
Of the fine white lines
Of the white lines on the free free way

When Charlie speaks of Lester
You know someone great has gone
The sweetest swinging music man
Had a Porkie Pig hat on
A bright star
In a dark age
When the bandstands had a thousand ways
Of refusing a black man admission
Black musician
In those days they put him in an
Underdog position
Cellars and chittlins'

When Lester took him a wife
Arm and arm went black and white
And some saw red
And drove them from their hotel bed
Love is never easy
It's short of the hope we have for happiness
Bright and sweet
Love is never easy street!
Now we are black and white
Embracing out in the lunatic New York night
It's very unlikely we'll be driven out of town
Or be hung in a tree
That's unlikely!

Tonight these crowds
Are happy and loud
Children are up dancing in the streets
In the sticky middle of the night
Summer serenade
Of taxi horns and fun arcades
Where right or wrong
Under neon
Every feeling goes on!
For you and me
The sidewalk is a history book
And a circus
Dangerous clowns
Balancing dreadful and wonderful perceptions
They have been handed
Day by day
Generations on down

We came up from the subway
On the music midnight makes
To Charlie's bass and Lester's saxophone
In taxi horns and brakes
Now Charlie's down in Mexico
With the healers
So the sidewalk leads us with music
To two little dancers
Dancing outside a black bar
There's a sign up on the awning
It says "Pork Pie Hat Bar"
And there's black babies dancing...
Tonight!

words by Joni Mitchell
music by Charles Mingus

I'm down to a roll of dimes
I'm stalking the slot that's hot
I keep hearing bells all around me
Jingling in the lucky jackpots
They keep you tantalized
They keep you reaching for your wallet
Here in fools' paradise!

I talked to a cat from Des Moines
He said he ran a cleaning plant
That cat was clanking with coin
Well, he must have had a genie in a lamp
'Cause every time--I dropped a dime--I blew it
He kept ringing bells
Nothing to it!

He got three oranges
Three lemons
Three cherries
Three plums
I'm losing my taste for fruit
Watching the dry cleaner do it
Like Midas in a polyester suit
It's all luck!
It's just luck!
You get a little lucky and you make a little money!

I followed him down the strip
He picked out a booth at Circus Circus
Where the cowgirls fill the room
With their big balloons
The Cleaner was pitching with purpose!
He had Dinos and Pooh Bears
And lions--pink and blue there
He couldn't lose there!

Des Moines was stacking the chips
Raking off the tables
Ringing the bandit's bells
This is a story that's a drag to tell
(In some ways)
Since I lost every dime
I laid on the line
But the cleaner from Des Moines
Could put a coin
In the door of a John
And get twenty for one
It's just luck!

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia it was just a false alarm

The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild & blue
It scrambles time & seasons if it gets through to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture post card charms
Oh Amelia it was just a false alarm

People'll tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you'll never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
Oh Amelia it was just a false alarm

I wish that he was here tonight
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia it was just a false alarm

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm

Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm

I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams Amelia
Dreams & false alarms

this is my solo.., excuse me sir...would you please take your seat, im playing my solo... no im serious can't you see im playing a solo here...hey buddy sit down so i can concentrate on my solo....ok that's it, you would think that and artist could play a solo once in a while with ou any interuptions, here...you take my guitar and show us what is so important...what...you work here, your the usher...ooook, sorry ,soooo i'll just plsy my solo then.

I'm travelling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I'm returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl

You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen...
Strains of Benny Goodman
Coming through the snow and the pinewood trees
I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones
I know - no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone

Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tribute to finality - to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality
In the church they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There's the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
We're only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Waving truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room

I'm travelling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some caf�
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way