Both Sides Now

In the song “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell, she changes her perspective from one that is representation of her dreams to one of her personal experiences. For example, she says “Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way” in her first line, and then directly after, she says “But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone. So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way”, which is practically her saying that she used to look up at the clouds and see angels, ice cream castles and feather canyons, but after her personal experiences, she realizes that she had spent too much time daydreaming and caught up in her imagination to realize what she could’ve been doing. She says that the clouds got in her way, which pretty much means that she had been too distracted by her dreams. When she says “But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they say I've changed”, it’s confirming the fact that she’s grown up and stopped daydreaming. She’s starting to see things as they really are instead of what they could be, and it’s changed her for who she was. Reality is tough, but being led on by the wonders of your imagination are tough as well. When she says the lines “I really don’t know clouds at all”, “I really don’t know love at all”, and “I really don’t know life at all”, it’s a strong realization that nobody does. People only know what they’ve grown to believe, whether true or not. And that is what the song “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell is about.