This Flight Tonight - Joni Mitchell

Fri Mar 14 2025

can't start explaining how much this song has touched my heart today. i was sure the song was discussing something i was feeling but i did not know exactly what it was. i accidentally found online that "this is a break up song", and i didn't really want to know that.

i really like to, most times, ignore the poet's reasons and circumstances that led them to write a specific piece. i want my fav songs to mean whatever i want it to mean. i want things that can be interpreted in my needs whenever i'm listening.

i am starting to appreciate back the folksy american genre, which has always been part of my taste but i sort of divorced from it in the past year, in part for shame of liking the american, and in part when i started looking critically at the american export (read, shoving down the throat) of culture, including their musical genres, around the world. i probably was a victim of that cultural colonialism (and a good one, i shall say: the american kind is my favorite kind). but i finally can separate my origins from my reasons to listen to it. i finally got control back of "me" over my realm of ideas, over my flaky self. i'm starting to remember that the american genre was also my way of humanizing the other, of understanding the oneness by connecting with the essence of the different. of knowing the ways of their hearts through music and becoming their brother, sharing the beloved vessel of feelings.

for some reason, throughout sooo many american movies i've watched, especially those narrating stories of the hippies or discussing them on the sides, i felt connected to their values in ways that are not evident to me. their rejection of the normal always attracted me but there's also something about their freedom... perhaps it's their life in nature which i so crave, and yet i can't plan my life around it as i find myself pursuing my capitalistic ventures. such complex are the ways of the human that never want to pay attention to what their soul needs.

Look out the left, the captain said
The lights down there that's where we'll land
I saw a falling star burn up
Above the Las Vegas sands
[never has Las Vegas sounded so interesting to me until i read those lines.]
It wasn't the one that you gave to me
That night down south between the trailers
Not the early one
That you can wish upon
Not the northern one
That guides in the sailors
[i can't conceive the genius of mixing the northern/southern polarities in the same section with different meanings and contexts. so beautiful.]

Oh starlight, star bright
You've got the lovin' that I like all right
Turn this crazy bird around
[my favorite verse of the whole song. my favorite description of planes EVER. gonna start using it from now on.]
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight

You got the touch so gentle and sweet
But you've got that look so critical
[somehow i feel identified here: gentle, sweet... critical...]
Sometimes I think love is just mythical
Up there's a heaven
Down there's a town
Blackness everywhere and little lights shine
Oh blackness blackness dragging me down
Come on light the candle in this poor heart of mine

Oh starlight, star bright
You've got the lovin' that I like all right
[the signing of this verse is leaping with joy, in the midst of a breakup song. lovely.]
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight

I'm drinking sweet champagne
Got the headphones up high
Can't numb you out
Can't drum you out of my mind
[i so love her way of singing the first word of the next verse in her gasps for air, starting its second word most times. such a natural writer and singer.]
They're playing Goodbye baby, Baby Goodbye
Ooh ooh love is blind
[what a GENIUS intermingling of lyrics and tunes from another song.]
Up go the flaps down go the wheels
[i always feel envious of the americans, getting to know words such as flaps (describing the flaps of a plane) which the rest of the world calls "flaps" but the meaning is detached from their own language and it becomes just a part of an airplane, meanwhile the english speakers get to have their analogies with birds' wings.]
I hope you got your heat turned on baby
I hope they finally fixed your automobile
I hope it's better when we meet again baby
[endless love <3]

Starlight, star bright
You got the lovin' that I like all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight

i found this quote of her today that made me smile like an idiot:

“I don’t know if I’ve learned anything yet! I did learn how to have a happy home, but I consider myself fortunate in that regard because I could’ve rolled right by it. Everybody has a superficial side and a deep side, but this culture doesn’t place much value on depth — we don’t have shamans or soothsayers, and depth isn’t encouraged or understood. Surrounded by this shallow, glossy society we develop a shallow side, too, and we become attracted to fluff. That’s reflected in the fact that this culture sets up an addiction to romance based on insecurity — the uncertainty of whether or not you’re truly united with the object of your obsession is the rush people get hooked on. I’ve seen this pattern so much in myself and my friends and some people never get off that line. But along with developing my superficial side, I always nurtured a deeper longing, so even when I was falling into the trap of that other kind of love, I was hip to what I was doing. I recently read an article in Esquire magazine called ‘The End of Sex,’ that said something that struck me as very true. It said: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over. You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble. You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.” ― Joni Mitchell