"Big Yellow Taxi" and "Field Below"

Response to Poems

Authors Note: This piece is a response to the songs "Big Yellow Taxi", and "Field Below".

"Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell is about how the business' took over and created an economy, but didn't think twice about the environment. While "Field Below" by Regina Spektor is about how she is longing for the nature she grew up with but now lives in the big city an wants to go back to the way it was. Both poems are about how you don't know what you have until it is gone. Some ways you can see this is the great figurative language in these two poems. When in "Field Below" Regina Spektor says, "again the sun was never called" is an example of a metaphor and "darkness spreads over the snow" is an anaphora and "like ancient bruises" is a simile.

In "Big Yellow Taxi", and in "Field Below", both artists do a good job showing the mood and tone of the songs. In "Field Below" I think Regina Spektor is trying to have us feel sympathetic on why she can't go back to the way it was before the big city. I feel sorrow because she can't go back to the way it was unless she gives up everything. While in "Big Yellow Taxi", Joni Mitchell is trying to get us to do something about the environment, I felt sympathetic towards Joni Mitchell because she is distraught about the people came and "they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." The music in both songs goes well with the lyrics, in Big Yellow Taxi, th be tune is more upbeat and in "Field Below" the tune is more slow.