A third helping of Joni Mitchell

With Christmas closing in like a ravenous wolf, I have reverted to my time-honoured method of keeping on-track and am accounting for the various blocks of time in my notebook as I move jerkily through my day. Right now, my notes inform me that I have spent the last fifty-one minutes surfing (there's yer problem!), so glancing at my to-do list, I've decided to ignore it for the sake of another Joni Mitchell post. And no, it won't be "River", because everyone knows that one...

Today, I'd like to draw your attention to a very early song of hers, from her album Clouds which contains two very famous songs: "Both Sides Now" and "Chelsea Morning", as well as the not-quite-so-famous "The Gallery". Our Joni had a rich and varied love-life, and this sounds like one of her more famous lovers being indicted here. (Leonard Cohen is a possible suspect; they are supposed to have been briefly involved around 1967.) But it hardly matters. This is a beautiful meandering melody with, as usual, clever and wry lyrics. Here she is, singing it on the Johnny Cash Show, probably in 1969, by which time she was living with Graham Nash (not that that matters either):