Lyrics to
Trouble Child

This version of Trouble Child was released by Joni Mitchell in 1974.

Our Decade Lyrics Joni Mitchell profile has all of the Trouble Child lyrics from 1974 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.

Up in a sterilized room
Where they let you be lazy
Knowing your attitude’s all wrong
And you got to change
And that’s not easy
Dragon shining with all values known
Dazzling you-keeping you from your own
Where is the lion in you to defy him
When you’re this weak
And this spacey…

So what are you going to do about it
You can’t live life and you can’t leave it
Advice and religion-you can’t take it
You can’t seem to believe it
The peacock is afraid to parade
You’re under the thumb of the maid
You really can’t give love in this condition
Still you know how you need it

They open and close you
Then they talk like they know you
They don’t know you
They’re friends and they’re foes too
Trouble child
Breaking like the waves at Malibu

So why does it come as such a shock
To know you really have no one
Only a river of changing faces
Looking for an ocean
They trickle through your leaky plans
Another dream over the dam
And you’re lying in some room
Feeling like your right to be human
Is going over too
Well some are going to knock you
And some’ll try to clock you
You know it’s really hard
To talk sense to you
Trouble child
Breaking like the waves at Malibu

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Joni Mitchell has released many songs over the years besides Trouble Child. 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 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Trouble Child by Joni Mitchell

The lyrics to Trouble Child are the words, verses and chorus for the song released by Joni Mitchell in 1974. Elements of the lyrics to Trouble Child are both direct in meaning and also metaphorical with the real meanings of the song only known by Joni Mitchell and any collaborating writers working on the lyrics for Trouble Child back when it was created.

Some people have an interest in the etymology behind words and phrases. You can take apart the lyrics to Trouble Child by Joni Mitchell in a number of ways. 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 Trouble Child" means the words set to the music of Trouble Child, 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 Trouble Child and the lyrics to Trouble Child 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 Trouble Child, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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