Music of the season

Three years ago, on Saturday, October 6, 2018, the Better Half and I enjoyed sitting in the audience at the State Street Theatre for the Minneapolis performance of the Joan Baez “Farewell Tour.” That tour ended in Spain in late July, 2019. Baez, and her “last” album (to date), live on. I’m so glad we were there.

Joan Baez “Whistle Down the  Wind"

There are reports from Crex Meadows, across the St. Croix River, that sandhill cranes are beginning to gather in preparation for their southern migration. We’re still seeing a number of Canada geese feeding in the green fields around our area, so they’ve not yet got “the urge.” Will our climate breakdown bring us a compressed migration season, with warm weather until it isn’t? Will traditional migration times simply be moved to later in the year? We’ve not seen any real signs of migration yet this autumn except maybe a lack of teal and wood ducks. Is it possible, or even probable, that climate breakdown will end up wrecking each of our four seasons? Only time will tell.

Perhaps it’s the extended spell of unusually warm weather, but so far this October I’ve not experienced my normal bout of autumnal restlessness. Today, for the first time this season, I listened to Joni Mitchell’s haunting “Urge for Going” while returning from paying our second half property taxes at the county’s government center. Most years that song’s been played a dozen or more times by now, either Joni’s version or Tom Rush’s.

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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