and then there is this. *There are various slight alterations of the lyrics from different versions. Joni Mitchell's original version runs:*
*They took all the trees* *And put them in a tree museum* *Then they charged the people**A dollar and a half just to see 'em* *whereas in Amy Grant's version, the people are charged "twenty-five bucks", and in Mitchell's own 2007 re-recording, the people are charged "an arm and a leg". British musician Wally Whyton <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Whyton> also recorded the song in 1971, changing the price to "one pound fifty" as well as changing "people" to "punters".* *Bob Dylan, instead of singing about the "big yellow taxi" that "took away my old man", sings, "A big yellow bulldozer took away the house and land." Similarly, in Mitchell's live version of the song released on Miles of Aisles <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_of_Aisles> in 1974, she sings about "a big yellow tractor" that "pushed around my house, pushed around my land". She then repeats the same verse, but with the original lyrics. While Amy Grant retains the taxi, her final reprise of the line about "paved paradise" reads "steam rolled paradise".* *On Counting Crows's 2002 cover version, lead singer Adam Duritz <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Duritz> sings "took my girl away" in place of "took away my old man".* -- bp part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 7:26 AM Bill Prince <part15...@gmail.com> wrote: > I also did some googling, and found this explanation about the concept for > the song. It doesn't explain the meaning of who her old man (or the taxi) > was, but I'm thinking it's a metaphor for something else altogether. > > > What have the artists said about the song? > > In an interview with the *Los Angeles Times* > <http://articles.latimes.com/1996-12-08/entertainment/ca-6804_1_early-songs/1>, > Joni Mitchell said: > > I wrote “Big Yellow Taxi” on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the > hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and > saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down > and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my > heart … this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song. > When it first came out, it was a regional hit in Hawaii because people > there realized their paradise was being chewed up. It took 20 years for > that song to sink in to people most other places in the country. That is a > powerful little song because there have been cases in a couple of cities of > parking lots being torn up and turned into parks because of it. > > > bp > <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> > > On 9/7/2020 9:34 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote: > > Radio station played a song I haven’t heard for a while – Big Yellow Taxi > by Joni Mitchell. From before most of the folks on this list were born. > Great song. > > > > It struck me that the last verse where a big yellow taxi takes her old man > away is probably not really about a taxi. So I Googled it, and Toronto > police cars at that time were yellow. (Joni Mitchell is Canadian.) I had > always assumed it meant her boyfriend just up and left. > >
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