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Song For Sharon Lyrics

Artist: Joni Mitchell
Album: Hejira

I went to Staten Island.
To buy myself a mandolin
And I saw the long white dress of love
On a storefront mannequin
Big boat chuggin' back with a belly full of cars...
All for something lacy
Some girl's going to see that dress
And crave that day like crazy

Little Indian kids on a bridge up in Canada
They can balance and they can climb
Like their fathers before them
They'll walk the girders of the Manhattan skyline
Shine your light on me Miss Liberty
Because as soon as this ferry boat docks
I'm headed to the church
To play Bingo
Fleece me with the gamblers' flocks

I can keep my cool at poker
But I'm a fool when love's at stake
Because I can't conceal emotion
What I'm feeling's always written on my face
There's a gypsy down on Bleecker Street
I went in to see her as a kind of joke
And she lit a candle for my love luck
And eighteen bucks went up in smoke

Sharon, I left my man
At a North Dakota junction
And I came out to the "Big Apple" here
To face the dream's malfunction
Love's a repetitious danger
You'd think I'd be accustomed to
Well, I do accept the changes
At least better than I used to do

A woman I knew just drowned herself
The well was deep and muddy
She was just shaking off futility
Or punishing somebody
My friends were calling up all day yesterday
All emotions and abstractions
It seems we all live so close to that line
And so far from satisfaction

Dora says, "Have children!"
Mama and Betsy say-"Find yourself a charity."
Help the needy and the crippled or put some time into Ecology."
Well, there's a wide wide world of noble causes
And lovely landscapes to discover
But all I really want right now
Is...find another lover

When we were kids in Maidstone, Sharon
I went to every wedding in that little town
To see the tears and the kisses
And the pretty lady in the white lace wedding gown
And walking home on the railroad tracks
Or swinging on the playground swing
Love stimulated my illusions
More than anything

And when I went skating after Golden Reggie
You know it was white lace I was chasing
Chasing dreams
Mama's nylons underneath my cowgirl jeans
He showed me first you get the kisses
And then you get the tears
But the ceremony of the bells and lace
Still veils this reckless fool here

Now there are 29 skaters on Wolmann rink
Circling in singles and in pairs
In this vigorous anonymity
A blank face at the window stares and stares and stares and stares
And the power of reason
And the flowers of deep feeling
Seem to serve me
Only to deceive me

Sharon you've got a husband
And a family and a farm
I've got the apple of temptation
And a diamond snake around my arm
But you still have your music
And I've still got my eyes on the land and the sky
You sing for your friends and your family
I'll walk green pastures by and by

Comments/Interpretations

by seamus on 5/21/2008 8:36am
great song !!!

by catherine on 12/15/2008 10:14pm
This is an incredibly awesome lyric.

by Ida on 3/20/2009 11:54am
I love this song...i used to think "And a diamond snake around my arm" was "and a diamond sneaker on my arm"...
:)

by Craig on 5/22/2009 2:04pm
Impossible song to cover and no other artist could do it. Music as biography... Incredible lyric!

by Juan on 6/22/2009 3:28pm
I haven't figured it out completely yet, but I feel it's great. It's admirable JM's and the english language ability/capacity of saying so much with so little. Greetings from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

by Jim on 5/19/2010 10:27pm
Genius

by Serge on 7/1/2010 9:47pm
A pure marvel, both lyric and music wise. An atmosphere of exaltation and deception, but a true testimony of a woman who did follow her own love path which was not to be nylons and lace, but all kinds of different adventures and experiments.

by Bob on 10/20/2010 8:05pm
You should hear Pamela Shane's version. It's awesome. You can find it on CDBaby or CDUniverse "Roses and Bone".

by TOM PATERSON on 12/1/2011 11:05am
a MASTERPIECE - long been one of my favs. amazing lyrics -she pours her heart out about chasing that dream of the perfect wedding and perfect marriage. don't know if she ever found LASTING contentment -Joni is probably STILL keeping her eyes on the land and skies !!.But pure GENIUS.

by Carol-Mae on 2/23/2012 2:30pm
Well what can I say? brilliant! Takes me back to the good ole hippie days. Joni is one of the most poetic lyricists ever. Sheer genius.

by Raymond5 on 6/1/2012 5:50pm
Second all the real emotions above -- Joni is a genius and the music and lyrics of this song are among her best -- beautiful magic, magic, magic!!!

by filabac on 6/18/2013 4:28pm
Ditto to everything everyone has said here. I still laugh everytime I hear "and eighteen bucks when up in smoke" - what a great line.

by joni-lover on 1/9/2014 5:45pm
'Love's a repetitious danger
You'd think I'd be accustomed to
Well, I do accept the changes
At least better than I used to do'

Can't ask for more than that!