The Boho Dance - Joni Mitchell

Down in the cellar in the Boho zone

I went looking for some sweet inspiration, oh well

Just another hard time band with Negro affectations

I was a hopeful in rooms like this

When I was working cheap

It’s an old romance, the Boho dance

Hasn’t gone to sleep

But even on the scuffle

The cleaner’s press was in my jeans

And any eye for detail

Caught a little lace along the seams

And you were in the parking lot

Subterranean by your own design

The virtue of your style inscribed

On your contempt for mine

Jesus was a beggar, He was rich in grace

And Solomon kept his head in all his glory

It’s just that some steps outside the Boho dance

Have a fascination for me

A camera pans the cocktail hour

Behind a blind of potted palms

And finds a lady in a Paris dress

With runs in her nylons

You read those books where luxury

Comes as a guest to take a slave

Books where artists in noble poverty

Go like virgins to the grave

Don’t you get sensitive on me

'Cause I know you’re just too proud

You couldn’t step outside the Boho dance now

Even if good fortune allowed

Like a priest with a pornographic watch

Looking and longing on the sly

Sure it’s stricken from your uniform

But you can’t get it out of your eyes

Nothing is capsulized in me

On either side of town

The streets were never really mine

Not mine, not mine, these glamor gowns