Choose a song that you like primarily for its LYRICS. Show a www.youtube.com clip and discuss the words with the class. Place your discussion on your BLOG.
So i thought that I would have a go at as well.
Amelia: Joni Mitchell
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapour 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
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture-post-card-charms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm
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
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
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 and false alarms
This song is about the famous aviator, AND the writer- she seems to be trying to make connections between her experiences and those of Amelia Earhart. Therefore, the ‘six jet planes’ and the ‘six white vapour trails’ becomes connected to her experience- the guitar strings (being a musician). This is also apparent in the way the ‘drone’ of the engines becomes ‘a song so wild and blue’, and she really identifies with the aviator when she says ‘like me she had a dream to fly.’ The ‘clouds at icy altitude’ of Amelia Earhart (literal) becomes a metaphor for the singer- her difficulty in finding love or making proper connections. When she wrote this song, she was on the road driving across America, trying to forget her drummer, who she was in love with but who she had just broken off with. Finally, in her dreams she connects with Amelia Earhart as she dreams of ‘747’s over geometric farms.’
My favourite lines are:
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.
I can sense the pain of how difficult breaking up is for her- it doesn’t feel right for her, but she must do what he has told her. The pain is represented well by the sad, choking of the alliteration in ‘how I hide the hurt.’
