Cactus Tree

Album: Song To A Seagull (1968)
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  • There's a man who's been out sailing
    In a decade full of dreams
    And he takes her to a schooner
    And he treats her like a queen
    Bearing beads from California
    With their amber stones and green
    He has called her from the harbor
    He has kissed her with his freedom
    He has heard her off to starboard
    In the breaking and the breathing
    Of the water weeds
    While she was busy being free

    There's a man who's climbed a mountain
    And he's calling out her name
    And he hopes her heart can hear three thousand miles
    He calls again
    He can think her there beside him
    He can miss her just the same
    He has missed her in the forest
    While he showed her all the flowers
    And the branches sang the chorus
    As he climbed the scaley towers
    Of a forest tree
    While she was somewhere being free

    There's a man who's sent a letter
    And he's waiting for reply
    He has asked her of her travels
    Since the day they said goodbye
    He writes "Wish you were beside me
    We can make it if we try"
    He has seen her at the office
    With her name on all his papers
    Through the sharing of the profits
    He will find it hard to shake her
    From his memory
    And she's so busy being free

    There's a lady in the city
    And she thinks she loves them all
    There's the one who's thinking of her
    There's the one who sometimes calls
    There's the one who writes her letters
    With his facts and figures scrawl
    She has brought them to her senses
    They have laughed inside her laughter
    Now she rallies her defenses
    For she fears that one will ask her
    For eternity
    And she's so busy being free

    There's a man who sends her medals
    He is bleeding from the war
    There's a jouster and a jester and a man who owns a store
    There's a drummer and a dreamer
    And you know there may be more
    She will love them when she sees them
    They will lose her if they follow
    And she only means to please them
    And her heart is full and hollow
    Like a cactus tree
    While she's so busy being free Writer/s: Joni Mitchell
    Publisher: Reservoir Media Management, Inc.
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 4

  • Karma from NyShe's singing about being free and the guys who want her to settle down with them. She thinks she might love them all but she doesn't want to settle down. She doesn't want to hurt them but hey, would you settle down if you looked like Joni, had her intelligence and talent and was just getting started? I know I wouldn't. But yeah, it must have hurt to have so many wanting a committment from her; kinda selfish on their part in my humble opinion. Nonetheless, I think it made her feel bad...guilty...that they were hurt. She still wanted to see them but she didn't want to see one of them only and be tied down. Good for her.
  • David Lew from Canada Not sure if the "Woman" (cough. cough, Joni) was unhappy at all as some say. Believe the woman in the song Loved each and every man in to the depth of her soul. The line "she fears that one will ask for eternity", implies marriage. This was written when Mitchell's career was taking off and skyrocketing, she said multiple times how her Grandmother had ambitions, got married and settled. Joni always had the sense her Grandmother had longed for more even though she never complained about her life. Twas fear JM had that settling and marrying would end her career. Hence the the line "She will Love them when she sees them, they will lose her if they follow". Only after watching and reading so many interviews, concluded Joni truly Loved them all, fully and completely. As she said "I'm a serial monogamist". Some may debate a loneliness moving from one relationship to another and not settling down. To them I say, Joni was only in her early 20's when writing this, even if it sounds like a it takes place over a lifetime. Shows Joni lived to the fullest. Many young folks don't want to settle that young, life is starting and it's a big wide world to discover. In many ways there is a lot to admire here, a terrific life filled with passion, getting to meet and understand new different types of people and personalities. Each one helps us develop, grow and mature. If you read or listen to any of the men Mitchell dated (a few referred to in this song), all still smile when ask and/or are talking about her, they still smile, Love and respect her. She is friends with most of them to this day.

    For those who've had children in their late teens to early twenties, as parents we usually are concerned when they meet someone and want to settle. Usually saying 'there's lots of fish in the sea' (hate that expression) and 'what's the rush, there is lots of time'. No, don't believe Joni was writing about a sad and lonely person. Rather one who was living, loved over and over again, completely. Even if a fear of a lifelong commitment made her run, because she was so full of passion and love. Each time she met someone else and loved again.

    Fabulous song, terrific lyrics which can take on a different meaning to each listener, not once but many times over the years. The Guitar is also very underrated!
  • Saint Tropez from ShanghaiThere is a palpable tension between love and freedom in the cactus tree. The "love concept" of the 70's play a crucial role in how Joni wrote the lyrics through the eyes of her youth. Freedom was in that period was an ultimate break-off from all 9-5 job, wealth acquisitions, societal behaviors, love of country traditions and conventions. I am surprised that a "man of faith" is not included in one verse cause that would have sum-up the "system". The woman is frankly searching for True love in others and herself. In the late 60's and early 70's the Answer to genuine/true and lasting love came in the form of the Jesus' movement. Conversely, I have seen and met many women in their 40's living up to their freedom in their youth and ending up desperately lonely and looking for True love to fill their empty hearts. The paradox is that True love is ultimately bonding but set us free. We can only assume that the woman found it otherwise the song doesn't offer any solution to her emptiness and search for love and freedom.
  • Mike from West Linn, OrI'm not sure that this is a fact ... more of a personal view. The lyrics here concern a woman who seems to yearn to be free and to be accomplishing that freedom. But her heart is "full and hollow, like a cactus tree". As I heard the lyrics the woman was very happy being free, going from man to man as she wished, living the free love life of the times.
    A few years later a female roommate of mine was appalled that I thought that. To her the woman was miserable and unhappy ... hollow. We argued about this more than once. A girlfriend, at about this same time saw it both ways, as I now do.
    In any case, there are few singer/songwriters that come close to Joni. There are some fine lyricists, but they can't express their emotions and feelings in their voices as Joni could. There are some excellent voices but their lyrics are bland or trite or so terribly obscure that they aren't worth the effort.
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