Night Ride Home


We observed Joni Mitchell’s birthday a few days back in “The circle game.” To mark her birthday I picked out a video clip from “The Last Waltz” of Mitchell performing “Coyote” at the Band’s Thanksgiving 1976 concert. The song gives a bitter taste of a musician’s life on the road.
The blissful counterpart to “Coyote” is “Night Ride Home.” It’s the fourth of July fifteen years later. Mitchell is on vacation in Hawaii and on the road with the man she loves beside her — “far from the overkill, far from the overload.” On the banks of the Amstel River in Amsterdam, accompanying herself alone and looking her listener straight in the eyes, she brings this beautiful song to life.
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