Refuge Of The Roads by Joni Mitchell - Lyrics and Translation

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Refuge Of The Roads

Joni Mitchell

Refuge Of The Roads

Song byJoni Mitchell

in AlbumHejira

I met a friend of spirit

He drank and womanized

And I sat before his sanity

I was holding back from crying

He saw my complications

And he mirrored me back simplified

And we laughed how our perfection

Would always be denied

";Heart and humor and humility";

He said ";Will lighten up your heavy load";

I left him for the refuge of the roads

I fell in with some drifters

Cast upon a beachtown

Winn Dixie cold cuts and highway hand me downs

And I wound up fixing dinner

For them and Boston Jim

I well up with affection

Thinking back down the roads to then

The nets were overflowing

In the Gulf of Mexico

They were overflowing in the refuge of the roads

There was spring along the ditches

There were good times in the cities

Oh, radiant happiness

It was all so light and easy

Till I started analyzing

And I brought on my old ways

A thunderhead of judgment was

Gathering in my gaze

And it made most people nervous

They just didn't want to know

What I was seeing in the refuge of the roads

I pulled off into a forest

Crickets clicking in the ferns

Like a wheel of fortune

I heard my fate turn, turn turn

And I went running down a white sand road

I was running like a white-assed deer

Running to lose the blues

To the innocence in here

These are the clouds of Michelangelo

Muscular with gods and sungold

Shine on your witness in the refuge of the roads

In a highway service station

Over the month of June

Was a photograph of the earth

Taken coming back from the moon

And you couldn't see a city

On that marbled bowling ball

Or a forest or a highway

Or me here least of all

You couldn't see these cold water restrooms

Or this baggage overload

Westbound and rolling taking refuge in the roads

LanguageEnglish

Translated byAllen Morningstar

About this Song

Refuge of the Roads by Joni Mitchell is a reflective and introspective song that details a journey both physical and spiritual. The song narrates a road trip, during which Mitchell seeks solace and understanding through her travels. Throughout the song, she encounters a variety of people and experiences, each of which offers her a different perspective on life. The key themes include self-discovery, introspection, and the quest for peace. A particularly poignant moment in the song is when Mitchell describes finding a sense of refuge and clarity in the simple act of moving forward on the road, suggesting that sometimes, the journey itself is the destination.