All my adult life I’ve been in love with Joni Mitchell‘s “Free Man in Paris.” But what I’ve especially loved all those years has been based on a misunderstanding, and right now I feel sick about this.
I’ve always adored the notion of Mitchell referring to herself as “a free man in Paris” as she describes her life as being partly defined by people less powerful or wealthy than herself hitting on her for help….”in it for their own gain”, “calling me up for favors.” Isn’t that the way of the world pretty much? Struggling or less powerful folks asking for help from wealthy, powerful people they might happen to know, looking for gimmes and whatnot? And Mitchell’s delightful, whimsical gender substitution…only an X-factor creative woman would call herself a “free man”, I’ve told myself all these years…a brilliant leapfrog notion…make your own rules, go your own way.
This morning I suddenly realized, to my immense disappointment in Mitchell as a lyricist, that “Free Man in Paris” is about David Geffen, with whom she travelled to Paris back in ’73 or whenever it was. I had simply never read up about the song; it had never occured to me that the tune was about another person’s experience, and Geffen’s yet! Jesus, I’m crestfallen.
This is almost as bad as my realization a few years back that I had misunderstood a key lyric in Mitchell’s “Refuge of the Roads.” I had thought that a line in the first verse went “hard of humor and humility, he said will lighten up your heavy load”….”hard of humor” as in hard of hearing….genius!
In fact Mitchell’s actual lyrics read “and we laughed how our perfection / would always be denied / ‘heart and humor and humility’ / he said ‘will lighten up your heavy load’ / I left him then for the refuge of the roads.” I’m so bummed out I can barely think, much less write.
The way I see it, he said
You just can’t win it
Everybody’s in it for their own gain
You can’t please ’em all
There’s always somebody calling you down
I do my best
And I do good business
There’s a lot of people asking for my time
They’re trying to get ahead
They’re trying to be a good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one’s future to decide
You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song
I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for
If l had my way
I’d just walk out those doors
And wander
Down the Champs Elysees
Going cafe to cabaret
Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
Nobody was calling me up for favors
No one’s future to decide
You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song