Lyrics to
Rainy Night House

This version of Rainy Night House was released by Joni Mitchell in 1970.

Our About Joni Mitchell page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Rainy Night House 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.

It was a rainy night
We took a taxi to your mothers’ home
She went to Florida and left you
With you father’s gun, alone
Upon her small white bed
I fell into a dream
You sat up all the night and watched me
To see, who in the world I might be

I am from the Sunday school
I sing soprano in the upstairs choir
You are a holy man
ON the FM radio
I sat up all the night and watched thee
To see, who in the world you might be

You called me beautiful
You called your mother – she was very tanned
So you packed your tent and went
To live out in the Arizona sand
You are a refugee
From a wealthy family
You gave up all the golden factories
To see, who in the world you might be

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Joni Mitchell has released many songs over the years besides Rainy Night House. 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 Rainy Night House by Joni Mitchell

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

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