Paprika Plains Lyrics - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter - Joni Mitchell

It fell from midnight skies 

It drummed on the galvanized 

In the washroom, women tracked the rain 

Up to the make-up mirror 

Liquid soap and grass 

And Jungle Gardenia crash 

On Pine-Sol and beer ... 

It's stifling in here ... 

I've got to get some air ... 

I'm going outside to get some air 

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Back in my hometown 

They would have cleared the floor 

Just to watch the rain come down! 

They're such sky oriented people-- 

Geared to changing weather ... 

I'm floating off in time 

I'm floating off 

I'm floating off in time 

When I was three feet tall 

And wide eyed open to it all 

With their tasseled teams they came 

To McGee's General Store 

All in their beaded leathers 

I would tie on colored feathers 

And I'd beat the drum like war ... 

I would beat the drum like war 

I'd beat the drum 

I'd beat the drum like war 

Photos 

But when the church got through 

They traded their beads for bottles 

Smashed--on Railway Avenue 

And they cut off their braids 

And lost some link with nature 

I'm floating into dreams 

I'm floating off 

I'm floating into my dreams 

I dream paprika plains 

Vast and bleak and God forsaken 

Paprika plains 

And a turquoise river snaking 

(Where crows gaze--vigilant on wires 

Where cattle graze the grasses 

Far from the digits of business hours 

The moon clock wanes and waxes-- 

But here all time is stripped away 

Nowhere on these plains 

Is a sprout or an egg in evidence 

To measure loss or gain ... 

Only a little Indian band 

Come down from some windy mesa 

No women to make them food and child 

No expressions on their faces 

I'm low in a helicopter 

And the wind from whirling blades 

Flaps their woven blankets 

And flags their raven braids 

How came they to this emptiness? 

How came they to this dream? 

How came I to this view 

From a flying machine 

Of earth and air and water 

And a band of Indian men 

Without herds or flocks or crops 

Or families or fires to tend? 

Like a phoenix up from ashes now 

A blanket figure springs 

With a fist raised up to turquoise skies 

Like liberty 

And at the point of vanishing 

Where the sky and the earth meet 

A bomb blooms 

Deadly mushroom 

White 

Gold 

Heat 

Like a phoenix up from ashes 

Up from violent mysteries 

And growing 'till the giant blast 

Is to it like a golfer's tee 

there comes a child's beach ball 

And memory takes me back 

to the beach to toss it up 

to the garage to get it patched 

A pink and yellow beach ball 

Rolling 

Grand 

Detached 

Turning the blues and greens of earth 

From space probe photographs 

I float out of the hovercraft 

Naked as infancy 

And weightless 

And drifting 

Horizontally 

Like a filing to a magnet 

Like the long descent of rain 

I am drawn 

I fall against the ball 

And lose paprika plains 

I suckle at my mother's breast 

I embrace my mother earth 

I remember perforated blinds 

Over the crib of my birth 

And just as Eve succumbed 

To reckless curiosity 

I take my sharpest fingernail 

And slash the globe to see 

Below me-- 

Vast Paprika plains 

And the snake the river traces 

And a little band of Indian men 

With no expressions on their faces.) 

The rain retreats 

Like troops to fall on other fields and streets 

Meanwhile they're sweet talking and name calling 

And brawling on the fringes of the floor 

I spot you through the smoke 

With your eyes on fire 

From J&B and coke 

As I'm coming through the door 

I'm coming back 

I'm coming back for more! 

The band plugs in again 

You see that mirrored ball begin to sputter lights 

And spin 

Dizzy on the dancers 

Geared to changing rhythms 

No matter what you do 

I'm floating back 

I'm floating back to you!