#31 Joni Mitchell - Urge For Going

Album: Hits (1996); B-side to the You Turn Me on I'm a Radio single (1972).

Lyrics excerpt: 
I had me a man in summertime
He had summer-colored skin
And not another girl in town
My darling's heart could win
But when the leaves fell on the ground
Bully winds came around
Pushed them face down in the snow
He got the urge for going
And I had to let him go


Reasons to love this song:
Autumnal weather came rather suddenly where I live this year, making me want to listen to autumnal songs -- and Urge For Going is probably my favourite one -- even though I think of autumn as a colourful and pleasant season, and in this song the warm seasons are synonymous with life and love, and the cold seasons equal death and loneliness. (It's more complex than that, of course -- in this song's universe it is possible to escape from death and loneliness if you have "the wings to fly".) The music is melancholy, but I also hear it as incredibly warm, in contrast with the coldness described in the lyrics.

Youtube links:
Joni Mitchell performing the song on television in 1966. I love how the musicians around her all seem awestruck by her performance.


Tom Rush's version of the song (from his 1968 album The Circle Game, which also included two other Joni Mitchell covers):


My favourite cover of this song, by Charlotte Martin (from Reproductions, 2007):