This song appears on the album 'Song to a Seagull'

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Nathan La Franeer
by Joni Mitchell   Printer-friendly version of this lyric

I hired a coach to take me
from confusion to the plane
And though we shared [bad word] space
I know I'll never meet again
The driver with his eyebrows furrowed in the rear-view mirror
I read his name and it was plainly written Nathan La Franeer
I asked him would he hurry
But we crawled the canyons slowly [bad word] the buyers and the sellers [bad word] the burglar bells and the wishing wells
With gangs and girly shows
The ghostly garden grows

The cars and buses bustled [bad word] the bedlam of the day
I looked [bad word] window-glass at streets
and Nathan [bad word] at the grey
I saw an aging cripple selling Superman balloons
The city grated [bad word] chrome-plate
The clock [bad word] slowly half-past-noon [bad word] the tunnel tiled and turning
Into daylight once again I am escaping
Once again goodbye
To symphonies and dirty trees
With parks and plastic clothes
The ghostly garden grows

He asked me for a dollar more
He cursed me to my face
He hated everyone who paid to ride
And share [bad word] space
I picked my bags up from the curb
And stumbled to the door
Another man reached out his hand
Another hand reached out for more
And I filled it full of silver
And I left the fingers counting
And the sky goes on forever
Without meter maids and peace parades
You feed it all your woes
The ghostly garden grows