Lyrics to
The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

This version of The Hissing Of Summer Lawns was released by Joni Mitchell in 1975.

Our About Joni Mitchell page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for The Hissing Of Summer Lawns from 1975 as well as all of the other lyrics from Joni Mitchell that we have in our lyrics database.

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He bought her a diamond for her throat
He put her in a ranch house on a hill
She could see the valley barbecues
From her window sill
See the blue pools in the squinting sun
Hear the hissing of summer lawns

He put up a barbed wire fence
To keep out the unknown
And on every metal thorn
Just a little blood of his own
She patrols that fence of his
To a latin drum
And the hissing of summer lawns
Darkness
Wonder makes it easy
Darkness
With a joyful mask
Darkness
Tube’s gone, darkness, darkness, darkness
No color no contrast

A diamond dog
Carrying a cup and a cane
Looking through a double glass
Looking at too much pride and too much shame
There’s a black fly buzzing
There’s a heat wave burning in her master’s voice
Hissing summer lawns

He gave her his darkness to regret
And good reason to quit him
He gave her a roomful of Chippendale
That nobody sits in
Still she stays with a love of some kind
It’s the lady’s choice
The hissing of summer lawns

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Joni Mitchell has released many songs over the years besides The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. 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 music looking for more songs from 1975 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and The Hissing Of Summer Lawns by Joni Mitchell

The lyrics to The Hissing Of Summer Lawns are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Joni Mitchell used when the song was created in 1975. The lyrics to The Hissing Of Summer Lawns have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only Joni Mitchell and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to The Hissing Of Summer Lawns by Joni Mitchell. 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 The Hissing Of Summer Lawns" means the words set to the music of The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, 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 The Hissing Of Summer Lawns and the lyrics to The Hissing Of Summer Lawns 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 The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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