A story from Joni Mitchell by Rolling Stone in early 1971
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The following was spoken by Joni Mitchell before she played "Carey" at the Troubadour in mid-Novermber 1971 (transcribed from the tape by Kakki).
"It was a very small bay with cliffs on two sides. And between the two cliffs, on the beach, there were about four or five small buildings. There were also a few fishermen huts.
"The caves were on high sedimentary cliffs, sandstone, a lot of seashells in it. The caves were carved out by the Minoans hundreds of years ago. Then they were used later on for leper caves. Then after that the Romans came, and they used them for burial crypts. Then some of them were filled in and sealed up for a long time. People began living there, beatniks, in the fifties. Kids gradually dug out more rooms. There were some people there who were wearing human teeth necklaces around their necks," she said with a slight frown.
"We all put on a lot of weight. We were eating a lot of apple pies, good bacon. We were eating really well, good wholesome food.
"The village pretty well survived from the tourist trade, which was the kids that lived in the caves. I dont know what their business was before people came. There were a couple of fishing boats that went out, that got enough fish to supply the two restaurants there.
"The bakery lady who had the grocery store there had fresh bread, fresh rice pudding, made nice yogurt every day, did a thriving business; and ended up just before I left, she installed a refrigerator. She had the only cold drinks in town. It was all chrome and glass. It was a symbol of her success.
"Then the cops came and kicked everyone out of the caves, but it was getting a little crazy there. Everybody was getting a little crazy there. Everybody was getting more and more into open nudity. They were really going back to the caveman. They were wearing little loincloths. The Greeks couldnt understand what was happening.
Cary was standing behind all of this leaning on his cane and as it came into view he suddenly broke the silence of this big crowd and he yells out "its ah MAAGPIE" in his best North Carolina drawl. And suddenly all the glasses went down in symmetry and everybodys heads turned around to reveal that they were all very birdlike looking people. They had long skinny noses - really - they had been watching birds so long that they looked like them, you know - and this one woman turned around and she says to him (in British accent) "its NOT a magpie - its a crooked crow." Then she very slowly and distinctly turned her head back, picked up her glasses and so did everybody else and we kept on walking. Bought two kilos of fish which would have rotted in the cave hadnt it been for the cats.
When we got back from that walk Stelios, who was the guy who ran the Mermaid Cafe, had decided to put an addition on his kitchen which turned out to be really illegal and it was so illegal, as a matter of fact, that the Junta dragged him off to jail and torture was legal over there - they burnt his hands and his feet with cigarette butts mainly because they hated, you know, all of the Canadians and Americans and wandering Germans living in the caves but they couldnt get them out of there because it was controlled by the same archaeologist that controlled the ruins of King Phestos palace and he didnt mind you living there as long as you didnt Day-Glo all of the caves and everyone was like putting all of their psychedelia over all this ancient writing. So they carted him off to jail..."
"Come on down to the Mermaid Cafe and I will
Buy you a bottle of wine
And we ll laugh and toast to nothing
and smash our empty glasses down"
From "Carey" on the album "Blue"
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