“This Is a Mountain Dulcimer” Songtext
von Joni Mitchell

This is a- a Mountain Dulcimer from the Appalachian Mountains in America
It′s a truly American folk instrument, right?
And, uh- this was made for me by a girl named Joellen who's from California
She does beautiful work, just-

She′s used all kinds of beautiful woods
Purple heart for the sides and coco burro
Which is kind of a- uhm, ripply orange wood for the back
And for the sound hole, she's carved little stylized swallows and
And, and on the tuning head, there's a hawk, and a
This is the 12th one that she′s built
And everybody′s always waiting for the next one that she does, you know?

As far as the origin of it goes, there's some confusion
Some people say that the Scots, when they came to the Appalachians
Were, were longing for their bagpipes, you know?
So they built this thing because it had lots of drones to it and a
Some people say that, indeed, it was the Swedes
Who, longing for their Zither, created it and, uh
Other people say that one day they just took a Fiddle
And stretched it out and put it on their lap


And, anyway, here it is, the Appalachian dulcimer
And you can tune it any way you want to
Just like any instrument, like the Guitar or the Piano
I′m going into a tuning now that I call matelotuning
Because I found it, as well as the song I'm going to play In Matlocrete

That was this place in- in Crete where a lot of people came to live in the caves
You know? And there were two big walls of caves on each side of a- a flat plain
And they looked like, uh- Halava cliffs, they were about that color
You know, Halava is?
Well, that′s what they looked like
And at night, they looked like big tenement buildings
Because people would have little fires going in their caves
And all of the different levels would be lit up
And kind of spots of light all over them

And at this point, this is last spring I'm talking about
There were a whole lot of people living there
I don′t know, how many people do you think there were there- but about 150 freaks?
From all over the place, from France and Canada and the United States of America
And, uh, England, everywhere
And, uh, they used to eat at the Mermaid Cafe
Most people who didn't cook in their caves ate down at the Mermaid Cafe
They also did most of their drinking there


Because the guy who ran the place, Stelios
Really liked all of the freaks, you know?
He like the encouraged their business
Not like other people in the town
Who sort of smiled and took your dracks from you
Well, that's neither here nor there

On Easter, there was a family that came down the beach and
Who decided that they were going to blend in with the freaks, you know?
And they came wearing headbands that they′d made out of cloth, you know?
That they′d ripped off of their pillowcases or something
And around their neck, one man had a string with old curlers on it for his beads
And another guy had a- a zucchini squash threaded onto a string painted bright red

And they gave us red Easter eggs
And little breads with kind of an egg paste in the middle
And they were very nice and the girl played the guitar
And we all sat around and had a really lovely Easter
But this is a song about a friend of mine from Matala
A friend of mine from London and Los Angeles and North Carolina and uh