Can you tell me what song this is?

[Brian]

I heard a song on the oldies station today. Female singer with a way pretty voice, I think it was her only hit. I'm pretty sure her first name was Julie.
The only lines I can remember are
"now my friends look at me strange, (something something) has changed"

and
something about "say I love you out loud"

The melody is stuck in my head.

Appreciate any help.

It's a 1960's song btw.

[Mercutio]

"Both sides now", Joni Mitchell
Bows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air,
And feather canyons everywhere,
I've looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun,
They rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done,
But clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down and still somehow
It's clouds' illusions I recall;
I really don't know clouds at all.

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels,
The dizzy dancing way you feel,
When every fairy tale comes real,
I've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show,
You leave 'em laughing when you go.
And if you care, don't let them know,
Don't give yourself away.

I've looked at love from both sides now,
From win and lose and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall;
I really don't know love at all.

Tears and fears and feeling proud,
To say "I love you" right out loud,
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds,
I've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange,
They shake their heads, they say I've changed.
Well something's lost but something's gained,
In living every day.

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall;
I really don't know life at all.

what a great song to have stuck in your head.

[Brian]

Thank you.

I just went and legally purchased Joni Mitchells version and Judy Collins version (the one I first heard.)

I suggest that you also go and legally purchase the Judy Collins version. As I said, she has a way pretty voice.

[a_unique_person]

Great song.

[Brian]

Yeah, lyrics don't come much better than that. (not to mention vocals and acoustic guitar playing.) I'd say that surpasses Bob Dylan, Slayer, Paul Simon and much of Leonard Cohen. Which is saying alot. The Joni Mitchell (original?) version is way better.

[Mercutio]

Originally posted by Brian
Thank you.

I just went and legally purchased Joni Mitchells version and Judy Collins version (the one I first heard.)

I suggest that you also go and legally purchase the Judy Collins version. As I said, she has a way pretty voice. You got me thinking...it was the Judy Collins version that was all over the radio while I was growing up, and that is the version I hear when I think about the song. The only version I have in the house, though, is the Joni version. I just played it. Wow, what a contrast between the two! The JC version is a piece of fluff, albeit a beautiful piece of fluff; the JM version is considerably darker & more serious. Plus, the chords are completely different, thanks to JM's childhood polio (If memory serves, her hand has difficulties in forming many chords--as a result, she relies on special tunings and modified chords; in this song, her guitar often drones like a dulcimer, with maybe two strings changing for the chord changes.).

I compare this very light tune to my son's "death metal" songs, and I find the simple "both sides, now" to be a much deeper, much more brooding song than the things my son thinks are deep, introspective philosophical lyrics.

Great song.

[RSLancastr]

I can't hear that song without remembering an incident...

After the first airplane flight I ever took, I was deplaning (along with a friend), when we had the following conversation.

Me: You know... I've looked at clouds from both sides now.

Friend: (groans)

Me: From up...

Friend: Stop.

Me: And down...

Friend: Please.

Me: And still, somehow...

Friend: I am begging you. Stop.

Me: It's clouds' illusions I recall.

Friend: (reaches as though to strangle me. I stop.

Later, in the terminal...

Me: You know... I really don't know clouds at all.

Friend: AAAAAAAARGH!!!

[RonPrice]

...and so wrote this piece of personal reminiscence...-Ron
_____________________
I listened to Judy Collins 40 years ago in my late teens and early twenties--back in the sixties--but I never heard her talk as I did in an interview this morning. I was then 62. The interview was a replay on ABC Radio National on the Margaret Throsby program. I found the interview and especially Collins'words a source of such nostalgia that I wrote the following prose-poem. Judy may never see the poem, but that does not matter. She is in no more need of accolades after more than 40 years of them. But thank you, Judy, for so much you have given me.
_______________________
TURN! TURN! TURN!
(the escape)

This morning I listened to a radio interview with singer and songwriter Judy Collins now in her late fifties. Margaret Throsby interviewed Collins on her ABC Radio National program, 6 December 2006. Collins informed listeners that her mentor Pete Seeger had written the words and the music to the song Turn Turn Turn as early as 1954. He did not release the song until 1962. The year 1962 was the beginning of my pioneering life in the Bahá’í community. Judy Collins sang the song on her 1963 album, Judy Collins #3. This was the year of the formation of the first Universal House of Justice. There was some significant turning going on in the Bahá’í community at the time.

Seeger had adapted the words from chapter three of the Book of Ecclesiastes, 3: 1-8 at another turning point in the history of the Bahá’í community and my own life. The words and that book of The Bible are often interpreted as conveying a spirit of fatalistic resignation. The words of Seeger's song have also been criticized as just being a series of over-simplifications. We all see things differently.

The Byrds' released a version of the same song in October 1965. Their version possessed, some felt, more optimism than previous versions. One analyst of the song said that The Byrds' release of Turn!Turn!Turn! in that October of 1965 captured the zeitgeist of the time. It was in that same month of 1965 that I decided to pioneer among the Inuit in Canada and when I arrived I played Pete Seepger Songs ad nauseam from the 12 LPs someone had given me as a wedding present.
I had, indeed, in that October of 1965, at last made a decision, a specific, a directed, a difficult decision to pioneer, to turn. This anthem of the peace movement and the civil rights cause, Turn Turn Turn could have been the anthem for my own decisions and some significant turning points in the life of my spiritual community, first at the age of 10, then at 18 and then again at the age of 21, as I started my baseball career, then finished high school and entered my last year of university.

I finally had a specific direction to my future vocational career as a teacher and to my role as a pioneer at that time in the Bahá’í community. I had done a lot of turning. -Ron Price, "Turn! Turn! Turn!" Wikipedia, 6/12/06.

They were hot days back then in '65.
Depression had lifted and those initial
erotic excitements or, perhaps it was
some quite mysterious body chemistry
had sent me into the manic phase
sufficiently below the hypomanic
to cope with life and limb and libido.

Somewhat serendipitously, it seems,
looking back after more than 40 years,
I chanced to go to Chatham--the end of
The Underground Railway--it happens--
where they came to a world of freedom1
as I--looking back--was going to my world
of freedom; or, perhaps, it was a prison,
the Most Great Prison of my life,
little did I know then in '65 when
I was just starting out on the road, Judy.

1 This town in southern Ontario was the last stop for Negroes escaping from the oppressive racism in the USA in the 19th century.
Ron Price

7 December 2006

___________________
That's all folks!

[Bikewer]

Randy Scruggs (I think!) did a very nice solo instrumental of this tune on the original "let the circle be unbroken" album.

[Piscivore]

Judy Collins can bite my shiny metal ass. Joni is the bomb. Get her "Chelsea Morning", "Big Yellow Taxi", "Circle Game", and "Songs To Aging Children Come" while you're at it.

[Trigood]

I can't hear that song without remembering an incident...

After the first airplane flight I ever took, I was deplaning (along with a friend), when we had the following conversation.

Me: You know... I've looked at clouds from both sides now.

Friend: (groans)

Me: From up...

Friend: Stop.

Me: And down...

Friend: Please.

Me: And still, somehow...

Friend: I am begging you. Stop.

Me: It's clouds' illusions I recall.

Friend: (reaches as though to strangle me. I stop.

Later, in the terminal...

Me: You know... I really don't know clouds at all.

Friend: AAAAAAAARGH!!!
:dl:

Thanks for sharing that. Sounds like a conversation I'd have with my boyfriend.

[Canadian Malcontent]

Mercutio, true romantic.

[Canadian Malcontent]

Re; Ron Price post #8

Dudes, the way the unnergroun' railroad started was by our Queen Victoria,
black man came here, States wanted him back, we were gonna ship the man when Queen Victoria stepped in and give the order that no man was to be sent to slavery EVER in Her Realm, She's the boss so we couldnt send. And thats what I tell people when they ask what the Monarchy is good for.

[Canadian Malcontent]

Yeah, lyrics don't come much better than that. (not to mention vocals and acoustic guitar playing.) I'd say that surpasses Bob Dylan, Slayer, Paul Simon and much of Leonard Cohen. Which is saying alot. The Joni Mitchell (original?) version is way better.

Check the lyrics on Brians sig.