The consensus seems to agree that this song was a slap in the face to her cheating boyfriend David Crosby, and that she first played at a party where he was present and everyone since then has concluded “Wow, what a direct shot she took at Croz” but when I look at the lyrics, i don’t really see it. I mean, yeah, there are oblique references to a guy she knows who “cheated” (at cards) and who played guitar, but I don’t get how folks go from the lyrics to “Oh, yeah, a slap across Crosby’s face.” What am I missing?
Is there an article you could link to? I’ve never heard this, and I’d love to see if there’s any truth to this, or if the party was even mentioned by anyone.
Here is Crosby discussing how this is how Mitchell broke up with him.
The pair briefly dated around 1967, and both of their careers benefited from each others’ influence. But as Mitchell wrote in her song “That Song About the Midway” (which ended up in on 1969’s Clouds LP), she eventually got tired of his behavior and wanted to move on. One night, among friends at the home of the Monkees’ Peter Tork, she delivered her breakup message.
“She came in and she was kind of different,” Crosby told Howard Stern recently. “She’s like, ‘I’ve got a new song,’ and we were all there, and we all said, ‘Oh, fantastic, a new Joni song!’ And she starts to sing it, and it’s plainly a goodbye to me. And then she sang it again in case I didn’t get it the first time – unbelievable! Everybody in the room was going, ‘Oh.’ Everybody . … It’s hysterically funny.”
here’s an interview Crosby gave that tells the story:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5oikxuhbd0
He says it was “plain” that she broke up with him in the song, but I can’t see it.
Thanks! I’d trust Crosby’s take on that evening. I’m sure that if she was about to break up with him, he might have been expecting something to happen. Maybe even at that party?
And he also had clues like her eye contact, general demeanor, body language… I was doubting the “Oh, everybody knew what was happening”, but not so far out if everyone knew them.
Kind of scuzzy way to break up, maybe that’s how artistes do it.
Hmmm, would it be thoughtless if I left my wife by drawing a big cartoon of me with a suitcase on the wall… of a party she was giving?
Sure. She could have been staring daggers at him as she sang it.
But what I’m asking is what in the lyrics hint at a breakup? The word “cheating”? It’s far from obvious to me that there’s something in the words that imply anything of the sort.
Or it could be that Crosby is the kind of person who needs everything to be about him.