Woodstock

• Woodstock, Joni Mitchell, 1969
• Instrumentation: Electric guitar, vocals. The song opens with a 45 second solo intro by the guitar, which goes from simpler notes to thicker chords. Then the vocals begin in a very crisp, clear manner. At times the vocalist is backed by more vocals which do not sing but rather back up with "do-do-dos." These vocal backups, when they briefly sing, remind me of the music in the movie "Brother where art thou."
• Texture: The texture varies in this song. At times it seems bare, such as the very beginning of the guitar's intro, and at times when Joni is singing too. However, when the guitar plays more chords rather than notes, and Joni is backed by more vocalists, the piece grows richer. While it is rich at times, the song overall feels very empty, and there are a number of silent pauses throughout. While the voice and the guitar go together, there seem to be two distinct lines of music most of the time.
• Range: The range in this piece also varies pretty widely. Joni hits some high notes, especially at the most passionate parts of the song, when she is saying that "we have got to get ourselves back to the garden." The song also reaches fairly high when Jodi sounds like a yodeler.
• Tempo: The tempo remains fairly slow throughout, although it does speed up at times. The tempo would never be categorized as fast, though.
• Meter: There is no very clear rhythmic beat to me, but I would guess that the song is in a 4 beat meter.
• Volume: The volume varies a lot, which really helps to emphasize the journey that the vocalist is describing. When Joni is describing the journey to Woodstock, she sings more quietly, and when she sings of the feelings associated with Woodstock, she sings more loudly which also makes her sound more passionate.
• Lyrics: She is singing about the Woodstock concert. The lyrics accurately describe the historic event Woodstock and the cultural movement that it represented. Woodstock is remembered as a mecca for hippies of the sixties, who questioned authority: "I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky and they were turning into butterflies above our nation. We are stardust... we are caught in the devil's bargain."