A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD...

Women in Literature and Politics
A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART."
MITCHELL, JONI. BORN 1943. Autograph Manuscript, "If I Had a Heart, I'd Cry," 2 pp, 4to, n.p., c.2007, on yellow foolscap, minor creasing and wear. WITH: Joni Mitchell: Mixed Media Originals. Los Angeles: Lev Morass Gallery, 2109. Original blindstamped corrugated cardboard covers.

HANDWRITTEN LYRICS FOR MITCHELL'S POIGNANT ELEGY ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD.

Canadian-American singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is one of the most innovative and influential voices of the 20th century. Her songs "Chelsea Morning," "Both Sides Now," and "Big Yellow Taxi" are among the most recognized and memorable of the era. She continued to record and tour through the 1990s, but took a ten-year break from writing around 1997, returning to the studio to record Shine, inspired by her opposition to the war in Iraq, in 2007. The songs on Shine focus on political and environmental issues in the vein of her earlier works.

The present manuscript features Mitchell's original lyrics for the song "If I Had a Heart" (here titled "If I Had a Heart, I'd Cry"). It reads:

Holy war
Genocide, Suicide
Hate and cruelty
How can this be holy?
If I had a heart
I'd cry

In ancient tales
The good go to heaven
And the wicked ones
burn in hell
Ring the funeral bells
If I had a heart
I'd cry

There are too many people now
And too little land
Too much rage and desire
You feel so feeble now
It's so out of hand
Big bombs and barbed wire
Can't you see
Our destiny
We're making this earth
our funeral pyre!

Holy Earth
How can we heal you
We cover you like a blight
Strange birds of appetite
If I had a heart
I'd cry