Lyrics to
A Strange Boy

This version of A Strange Boy was released by Joni Mitchell in 1976.

Our About Joni Mitchell page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for A Strange Boy from 1976 as well as all of the other lyrics from Joni Mitchell that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Joni Mitchell or about the 1970s in general.

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

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Joni Mitchell has released many songs over the years besides A Strange Boy. Joni Mitchell released songs from 1968 to 2007 spanning across albums like Song To A Seagull, Clouds, Ladies Of The Canyon, Blue, For The Roses, Court And Spark, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Hejira, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Mingus, Wild Things Run Fast, Dog Eat Dog, Chalk Mark In A Rainstorm, Night Ride Home, Turbulent Indigo, Taming The Tiger, Both Sides Now, and Shine. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Joni Mitchell.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1976 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and A Strange Boy by Joni Mitchell

When you decide to study the lyrics to A Strange Boy, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1976 song by Joni Mitchell. Some of the lyrics to A Strange Boy have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Joni Mitchell and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to A Strange Boy if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to A Strange Boy" means the words set to the music of A Strange Boy, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Joni Mitchell. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to A Strange Boy and the lyrics to A Strange Boy are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Joni Mitchell who came here looking just for the lyrics to A Strange Boy, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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