Lyrics to
Big Yellow Taxi

This version of Big Yellow Taxi was released by Joni Mitchell in 1970.

Our About Joni Mitchell page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Big Yellow Taxi from 1970 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.

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot SPOT
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
Then they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go,
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer, farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But LEAVE me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Come and took away my old man
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

I said
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

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Joni Mitchell has released many songs over the years besides Big Yellow Taxi. 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.

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About Lyrics and Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

When you decide to study the lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1970 song by Joni Mitchell. Some of the lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi 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 Big Yellow Taxi 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 Big Yellow Taxi" means the words set to the music of Big Yellow Taxi, 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 Big Yellow Taxi and the lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi 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 Big Yellow Taxi, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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