Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

Joni Mitchell



Don Juan's Reckless Daughter LP Version


I'm Don Juan's reckless daughter
I came out two days on your tail
Those two bald-headed days in November
Before the first snowflakes sail

Out on the vast and subtle plains of mystery
A split tongue spirit talks
Noble as a nickel chief
Strikin' up an old juke box

And he says, 'Snakes along the railroad tracks'
He says, 'Eagles in jet trails'
He says, 'Coils around feathers
And talons on scales

Gravel under the belly plates'
He says, 'Wind in the wings'
He says, 'Big bird draggin' its tail in the dust
Snake kite flyin' on a string'

I come from open prairie
Given some wisdom and a lot of jive
Last night the ghost of my old ideas
Reran on channel five

And it howled so spooky for it's eagle soul
I nearly broke down and cried
But the split tongue spirit laughed at me
He says, 'Your serpent cannot be denied'

Our serpents love the whiskey bars
They love the romance of the crime
But didn't I see a neon sign
Fester on your hotel blind

And a country road come off the wall
And swoop down on the crowd at the bar
And put me at the top of your danger list
Just for being so much like you are

You're a coward against the altitude
You're a coward against the flesh
Coward, caught between yes and no
Reckless this time on the line for yes, yes, yes

Reckless brazen in the play
Of your changing traffic lights
Coward, slinkin' down the hall
To another restless night

As we center behind the eight ball
As we rock between the sheets
As we siphon the colored language
Off the farms and the streets

Here in good old, 'God-save-America


The home of the brave and the free'
We are all hopelessly oppressed cowards
Of some duality, of restless multiplicity
Oh see, can you see?

Restless for streets and honky tonks
Restless for home and routine
Restless for country-safety and her
Restless for the likes of reckless me

Restless sweeps like fire and rain
Over virgin wilderness
It prowls like hookers and thieves
Through bolt-locked tenements

Behind my bolt-locked door
The eagle and the serpent are at war in me
The serpent fighting for blind desire
The eagle for clarity

What strange prizes these battles bring
These hectic joys, these weary blues
Puffed up and strutting, when I think I win
Down and shaken, when I think I lose

There are rivets up here in this eagle
There are box cars down there on your snake
And we are twins in spirit
No matter which route home we take or what we forsake

We're gonna to come up to the eyes of clarity
And we'll go down to the beads of guile
There is danger and education
In living out such a reckless lifestyle

I touched you on the central plains
It was plane to train my twin
It was just plane shadow to train shadow
But to me, it was skin to skin

The spirit talks in spectrums
He talks mother earth to father sky
Self indulgence to self denial
Man to woman

Scales to feathers, you and I
Eagles in the sky, you and I
Snakes in the grass, you and I
Crawl and fly, you and I

You and I, you and I, you and I
By the dawn till the light
You and I, you and I, you and I, you and I
Oh, you and I