Lyrics to
For Free

This version of For Free was released by Joni Mitchell in 1970.

Our Decade Lyrics Joni Mitchell profile has all of the For Free lyrics from 1970 and many more songs from the Joni Mitchell discography that we have on file.

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

I slept last night in a good hotel
I went shopping today for jewels
The wind rushed around in the dirty town,
and the children let out from the schools
I was standing on a noisy corner,
waiting for the walking green
across the street he stood
and he played real good,
on his clarinet for free

Now me I play for fortunes,
and those velvet curtain calls
I got a black Limousine and two gentlemen
escorting me to the halls
And I’ll play if you have the money,
or if you’re a friend to me
But the one man band,
by the quick lunch stand,
He was playing real good for free

Nobody stoped to hear him,
though he played so sweet and high
They knew he had never been on their tv
so they passed his music by
I meant to go over and ask for a song,
maybe put on a harmony
I heard his refrain
as the signal changed
He was playing real good for free

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Want more lyrics and songs by Joni Mitchell?

Joni Mitchell has released many songs over the years besides For Free. 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 lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1970 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and For Free by Joni Mitchell

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

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