MISM

#AlternateFridayMusic
March 13 2026
The word is #water

"Cool Water" is a song written in 1936 by Bob Nolan. It is about a parched man and his mule traveling a wasteland tormented by mirages. This version is sung by Joni Mitchell and Willie Nelson from Mitchell’s 1988 album Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm.

https://youtu.be/-dBymrfhYI8?si=VWWXJt26k82cEoxD

Happy Lunar New Year.

#FortnightFridayMusic
Feb 6 2026
#Purple

A song by Bjork, from a recording of a live concert.

WISHINGSTONES

I found on a mountain beautiful stones.
Hid them all, wanted them concealed
Hid them in a small cave, lucky stones.
All my wonderful wishing stones.

Long has it been since last I saw those stones.
No longer I remember any of those wishes.
This story doesn't tell if they fulfill
through the days of my life.

This treasure of mine I no longer cry over,
It may be found by a boy or a girl.
Silverbright cristals with green and gray,
golden redstones, striped with Purple.

#FortnightFridayMusic

Jan 23 2026
The word is #Indecision

The song is This Flight Tonight by Joni Mitchell from her album Blue. She left a love and is on an airplane home, wondering if she should have stayed with him.

Oh starlight, star bright
You've got the lovin' that I like all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight

https://youtu.be/Rxs8wz4Vb9w?si=O-yzJqcrPbiFfL25

#AlternateFridayMusic
The word for January 16, 2026, is "Renewal".

The song is All I Want by Joni Mitchell from her album Blue.

All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause - Life is our cause
When I think of your kisses my mind see-saws
Do you see - do you see - do you see how you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue

https://youtu.be/GoWx8HDdyZ8?si=fRuOdCgm3Sfbd6-A

#FortnightFridayMusic
Jan 9, 2026
The word is #window

The song is Two Grey Rooms, by Joni Mitchell, from her album Night Ride Home. Perhaps one of her most lovely melodies, with some of her most poignant lyrics, with a beautiful video. Here is her explanation:

As archived in Mojo Magazine's March 2019 issue: “I had that music back around the time of [1982’s] Wild Things Run Fast, but it took seven years to find the story to fit the music. It’s a story of obsession…about this German aristocrat who had a lover in his youth that he never got over. He later finds this man working on a dock and notices the path that the man takes every day to and from work. So the aristocrat gives up his fancy digs and moves to these two shabby grey rooms overlooking this street, just to watch this man [from his window] walk to and from work. That’s a song that shows my songs aren’t all self-portraits.”

https://youtu.be/DjDi_plwi5A?si=B49MW53D7HAirLho

#AlternateFridayMusic
Jan 2 2026
We start the year with #Hope

This may be a repeat, but her lyrics are just too good. The song is Hejira, by Joni Mitchell, from her 1976 album Hejira.

In the church they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There's the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed all these years
We're only particles of change I know I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone

https://youtu.be/3V6Qq1QHttI?si=BWK47ZDC_PrDYg8l

#FortnightFridayMusic
Dec 26 2025
The word is #Apathy

The song is Passion Play (When All The Slaves Are Free), by Joni Mitchell, from the album Night Ride Home.

Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Apathy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)

https://youtu.be/uLMze6y9YaA?si=0KHtx_fCiyoxIjYB

#AlternateFridayMusic
Dec 18 2025
This week the word is #Zombie

The song is Bad Dreams, by Joni Mitchell, from her album Shine. The song was prompted by the utterance of her 3 yr old grandchild that bad dreams are good in the great plan. The child could not elaborate, and did not grow up to be a sage or poet, but Joni used the line to write a song.

The cats are in the flower bed
A red hawk rides the sky
I guess I should be happy
Just to be alive...
But we have poisoned everything
And oblivious to it all
The cell phone zombies babble
Through the shopping malls
While condors fall from Indian skies
Whales beach and die in sand...
Bad dreams are good
In the great plan.

https://youtu.be/dVUSKIdzk7E?si=y5Bxxxj7s60CLpR6