Joni Mitchell - Shine (2007)

[DudeAsInCool]

This song is the title cut from Joni Mitchell's new album. Her lyrics, posted at her website, sadly sum up the age we live in:

Oh let your little light shine

Let your little light shine

Shine on Wall Street and Vegas

Place your bets

Shine on the fishermen

With nothing in their nets

Shine on rising oceans and evaporating seas

Shine on our Frankenstein technologies

Shine on science

With its tunnel vision

Shine on fertile farmland

Buried under subdivisions

Let your little light shine

Let your little light shine

Shine on the dazzling darkness

That restores us in deep sleep

Shine on what we throw away

And what we keep

Shine on Reverend Pearson

Who threw away

The vain old God

kept Dickens and Rembrandt and Beethoven

And fresh plowed sod

Shine on good earth, good air, good water

And a safe place

For kids to play

Shine on bombs exploding

Half a mile away

Let your little light shine

Let your little light shine

Shine on world-wide traffic jams

Honking day and night

Shine on another asshole

Passing on the right!

Shine on the red light runners

Busy talking on their cell phones

Shine on the Catholic Church

And the prisons that it owns

Shine on all the Churches

They all love less and less

Shine on a hopeful girl

In a dreamy dress

Let your little light shine

Let your little light shine

Shine on good humor

Shine on good will

Shine on lousy leadership

Licensed to kill

Shine on dying soldiers

In patriotic pain

Shine on mass destruction

In some God's name!

Shine on the pioneers

Those seekers of mental health

Craving simplicity

They traveled inward

Past themselves...

May all their little lights shine

Joni Mitchell's Website