Urge for going

After dutifully changing the oil and filter in the tractor this morning, we're listening to the second CD in the Joni Mitchell Archives - Volume 1, the early years (1963 - 1967). It includes two versions of the Urge for Going. Listening to a composer performer her works in different ways, showing the development and growth of talent, is a real treat. As much as anything, we're blown away by her guitar playing, enough so we finally looked up what the hell an "open G tuning" is. We suppose now we'll have to see what that sounds like on our long neglected guitar.

we read much more than we practice guitar

Photo by J. Harrington

The fact that we avoided disasters during the oil change was one of this week's other treats. Yesterday's delivery of a box of books from England, a package we weren't expecting until near the end of the month, is another one. This is shaping up as one of the better weeks in quite awhile around here. That brings us right back to the Urge for going.

Today's high temperature is forecast to reach 78℉. All week we've enjoy temperatures about 30℉ warmer than normal for this time of year. Next Tuesday, four days away, the high is forecast to be in the low 40's, accompanied by snow. Weather whiplash is on the way again. We've already had a week of freezing and snow late last month. This morning we saw a hornet for the first time in weeks. Local ponds that had frozen over are now, again, all open water. Firearms deer season opens tomorrow without a trace of tracking snow in the local woods.

geese, no chevron, with an urge for going

Photo by J. Harrington

[UPDATE: Bumblebees are going extinct in a time of ‘climate chaos’]

Farmers have used this week's weather respite to harvest more fields that hadn't been touched prior to the cold, snow and freezing spell. Some waterfowl are still hanging around but, we suspect that, come next week, they'll have an urge for going. Weather volatility, political volatility, public health volatility, they all, individually or collectively, may leave many of us one day next week facing something like this:

Urge For Going

by Joni Mitchell

I awoke today and found 
the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky 
then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold 
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row...

I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go

I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I had a man in summertime
He had summer-colored skin
And not another girl in town
My darling's heart could win
But when the leaves fell on the ground
And bully winds came around
and pushed them face down in the snow...
He got the urge for going
And I had to let him go

He got the urge for going
When the meadow grass was turning brown
And summertime was falling down and winter was closing in

Now the warriors of winter give a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying all that lives is gettin' out
See the geese in chevron flight 
Flapping and racing on before the snow...
They've got the urge for going
And they've got the wings to go

They get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I'll ply the fire with kindling now
I'll pull the blankets up to my chin
I'll lock the vagrant winter out
And I'll bolt my wandering in
I'd like to call back summertime
And have her stay for just another month or so...
But she's got the urge for going
So I guess she'll have to go

She gets the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And all her empire's falling down
And winter's closing in.

And I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is Falling Down.

This lyric has been formatted exactly as Joni preferred it to appear (capitalization, punctuation, line breaks, changes in wording, etc). Joni collaborated with Lisa and John Sornberger by making these changes for presentation in their book, Gathered Light.

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