“Big Yellow Taxi” is one of Joni Mitchell’s best-known tunes, and it’s today’s classic song of the day. She included it on her third album, Ladies of the Canyon, and released it as a single in April of 1970. It wasn’t a huge hit, peaking at #67 on the Billboard Hot 100. A near-simultaneous cover by a group called the Neighborhood charted higher, at #29. And a live version released by Ms. Mitchell in 1974, from her Miles of Aisles live album, went all the way to #24 on the charts.
“Big Yellow Taxi” is part environmental song (“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”) and a song about a lover leaving (“Late last night I heard the screen door slam, and a big yellow taxi took away my old man.” Ms. Mitchell said she wrote the song while on a trip to Hawaii:
“I wrote ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart […] this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song.”
There have been several other covers of “Big Yellow Taxi” over the years. In 1995, Amy Grant released her version of the tune, with slightly altered lyrics, which peaked at #67 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #18 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. That was eclipsed by the Counting Crows’ cover in 2002 (with Vanessa Carlton on backing vocals), which went to #42 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
For your viewing pleasure, here’s an animated video that John Wilson made of Cher singing “Big Yellow Taxi” for August 8, 1971, episode of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. It’s today’s daily bonus video of the day.
