Joni Mitchell — Heijira Travelogue

[Verse 1] I'm traveling in some vehicle I’m sitting in some café A defector from the petty wars That shell shock love away [Verse 2] 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 [Verse 3] In our possessive coupling So much could not be expressed So now I'm returning to myself These things that you and I suppressed [Verse 4] 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 [Verse 5] 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 [Verse 6] 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 [Verse 7] 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 [Verse 8] 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 [Verse 9] 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 [Verse 10] 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 [Verse 11] 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 [Verse 12] White flags of winter chimneys Waving truce against the moon In the mirrors of a modern bank From the window of a hotel room [Verse 13] I’m traveling in some vehicle I'm sitting in some café A defector from the petty wars Until love sucks me back that way