A Strange Boy - Joni Mitchell

A strange boy is weaving

A course of grace and havoc

On a yellow skateboard

Thru midday sidewalk traffic

Just when I think he’s foolish and childish

And I want him to be manly

I catch my fool and my child

Needing love and understanding

What a strange, strange boy

He still lives with his family

Even the war and the navy

couldn’t bring him to maturity

He keeps referring back to school days

And clinging to his child

Fidgeting and bullied

His crazy wisdom holding onto something wild

He asked me to be patient

Well I failed

«Grow up!"I cried

And as, the smoke was clearing he said

«Give me one good reason why!»

What a strange, strange boy

He sees the cars as sets of waves

Sequences of mass and space

He sees the damage in my face

We got high on travel

And we got drunk on alcohol

And on love the strongest poison and medicine of all

See how that feeling comes and goes

Like the pull of moon on tides

Now I am surf rising

Now parched ribs of sand at his side

What a strange, strange boy

I gave him clothes and jewelry

I gave him my warm body

I gave him power over me A thousand glass eyes were staring

In a cellar full of antique dolls

I found an old piano

And sweet chords rose up in waxed New England halls

While the boarders were snoring

Under crisp white sheets of curfew

We were newly lovers then

We were fire in the stiff-blue-haired-house-rules