Song Lyrics

Who Has Seen The Wind

by Joni Mitchell

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Who has seen the wind
Scalloping the sea
Or gliding like a swallow
Over villages and trees?
"I have," said the willow
"And I begged him please to stay
But he went away
He went on his own one day.

And I sing, "One love have I"
And he sings "Now it's good-bye"
And I sing, "Part of me dies
Until I see you again."

Who has seen the sun
Through a parasol of leaves
Through scattered ruby cloud fires
Through the silver wings of bees
"I have," said the waters
"And I held his face to mine,
But he left in time
He went in his own good time."

Who has seen the stranger
In a coat of simple brown
With his face of many faces
With his eyes turned out of town
I have, and I kissed him
And I begged him please to stay
But he went away
With the sun and the wind away.

© June 19, 1967; Gandalf Publishing Co.

Footnotes

Here is Joni's introduction to this song from her performance at The Living End in Detroit in 1967:

Here’s another one, while I’m in this tuning, this is a sort of unveiling of things that I’ve written while on the road … in C modal tuning, oh no, C tuning … My favorite author is a Canadiana … Canadians are very patriotic, especially this year, because it’s Expo year in Canada, as well as being Centennial year … and my favorite author, only by coincidence, is W. O. Mitchell. He writes about my home province of Saskatchewan, and mostly about a fictitious place called Crocus, Saskatchewan, and he builds wonderful characters, and writes all kinds of “I wish I had said that,” sort of images, and he wrote this book called Who Has Seen The Wind? And I wrote a song called Who Has Seen The Wind …

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