Shadows And Light

Album: Hissing Of Summer Lawns (1975)
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Songfacts®:

  • This moving song explores the contrasts and differences we encounter in our lives: blindness and sight, wrong and right, day and night. This balance between good and bad is a common theme in Mitchell's songwriting, which often examines such complexities.
  • Mitchell provided all the sounds on this track; the gospel choir is really layered tracks of her voice. She also provided all the instrumentation, which is a Farfisa organ hooked up to an ARP synthesizer.
  • In 1980, Mitchell released a 2-disc concert album called Shadows And Light, featuring backup vocals by The Persuasions. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Brook - Spokane, WA
  • "Man of cruelty, mark of Cain," refers to the biblical Cain who murdered his brother, Abel. God condemned him with a mark of damnation on his forehead so no one would be able to kill him, ensuring he would spend his days wandering the earth as a fugitive for his crime.

Comments: 1

  • Martha from Knoxville, TnWho among us has not experienced the "blessings of parasites (children, pets) and the perils of benefactors (siblings who provide our car payments while we are unemployed, etc.)?
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