Lyrics to
Funeral

This version of Funeral was released by Joni Mitchell in 1979.

Our About Joni Mitchell page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Funeral from 1979 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.

“..led an enormous band.”
“Oh, But I know he’s very lucky too, because when Mingus dies there’s gonna be the same funeral they had for Duke Ellington… in a big church and the whole country’s going to say, wow, he was so far out, you know what I mean?”
“No man, no big church! I’m going to be buried man – I got my shit all figured out!”
“You’re going to get a big funeral – you’re famous!”
“Vedanta Society, India, I’m going to be buried in India!”
“I know, but you’re going to get a big funeral in this country, and they’ll play your music for two days”
“Who’s going to do that?”
“It’s far out isn’t it, y’know what I mean?”
“…You want me to hurry up, man”
“No I don’t want you to hurry up, but in the future, I know you’re going to get a beautiful funeral – I can see it!”
“But I got it all planned, man!”
“…You’re going to be here many more years.”
“You know the Vedanta Society in India.. Yuga?”
“Yeah”
“Well I’m going to be buried by that church”
“Yeah?”
“So they gotta find another place to do it, that’s all.”
“…Plenty of time to go. You have another fifty years… you’re lucky!”
“Uh, Duke lived to be 77 years old right?”
“Right!”
“I’m gonna cut him!”
“Coltrane was very strong, you know…”
“I’m gonna cut Duke!”

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Want more lyrics and songs by Joni Mitchell?

Joni Mitchell has released many songs over the years besides Funeral. 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 popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1979 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Funeral by Joni Mitchell

When you decide to study the lyrics to Funeral, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1979 song by Joni Mitchell. Some of the lyrics to Funeral 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 Funeral 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 Funeral" means the words set to the music of Funeral, 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 Funeral and the lyrics to Funeral 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 Funeral, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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