Show 741 Friday 23 May

Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.

Today I recommend a song called Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell.

Joni Mitchell is from Canada and she’s a musician, songwriter, and painter.
And she became famous in the late 1960s.

This is what someone said about her: When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century.

So, she’s pretty famous. But I’d never actually heard of her until I saw Love Actually. In that movie there’s the thing about the Joni Mitchell CD. Anyway, the song Big Yellow Taxi came out in 1970.

And this is what she said about the song:

I wrote 'Big Yellow Taxi' on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart ... this blight on paradise. That's when I sat down and wrote the song.

I like these lines in the song:

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till its gone

Which I think means that you don’t really appreciate something until you don’t have it anymore.

She mentions something called DDT in the song.
DDT is: one of the best-known synthetic pesticides and has a long, unique, controversial history.

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees

Incidentally, I used to hate this song. It’s been covered many times and one of the covers was by Amy Grant. It came out in 1994 when I was working in commercial radio and we used to play it all the time and I didn’t like it. But I do like the original.

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today, the case of the man who said he lost interest in sex after he found two dead flies in a bottle of unopened drinking water has been dismissed by Canada’s Supreme Court.

Back in 2001, a man was living in Canada with his wife and two daughters. Cleanliness and hygiene were very important to the family and they only drank water delivered by a water purification business.On November the 21st 2001, a bottle of water was delivered to their house. There was a dead fly floating in the bottle. No one opened the bottle, or drank from it, but both parents vomited. Reportedly, the man couldn't put the experience out of his mind.
A judge said: "He became obsessed with thoughts about the dead fly in the water and about the potential implications for his family's health of their having possibly been drinking unpurified water supplied in the past."
The man said he suffered psychological damage, including depression, phobia, anxiety and damage to his sex life.The family sued the water company in 2005 and they won C$340,000 in damages. But the company appealed and yesterday the case was dismissed by the Supreme Court.

And that was Stick News for Friday the 23rd of May.
Kia Ora.

Word Of The Day

Today’s word is slam.
This is from the song Big Yellow Taxi:

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam

Slam is a verb which means: shut or be shut forcefully and loudly.

When people are angry they sometimes slam the door. Other people don’t usually like hearing doors be slammed so they say something like: Don’t slam the door!

friday joke

Dave and Tom were playing golf one Sunday afternoon. Dave was getting ready to take a shot when a funeral procession drove past the golf course. Dave straightened up, held his hand over his heart and stood in silence until the procession had passed.

“Dave I didn’t know you were so sensitive!” said Tom. “That was real respect for the dead, that was!”

“No, it was nothing,” said Dave. “How can one quiet moment compare with the 25 years she and I have had together?”

conversations with sarah
#453 The police cars were yellow?

Step 1: Repeat Taka’s lines.
Step 2: Read Taka’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Taka So the song is basically about her being unhappy with ... development?

Sarah Yeah, with people destroying the environment.

Taka Do they have big yellow taxis in Hawaii?

Sarah I don’t know, but in Wikipedia it says that she’s talking about police cars in Toronto.

Taka The police cars were yellow?

Sarah Yeah.

Taka What does this mean: and a big yellow taxi took away my old man

Sarah It either means that a man left her or that he was taken away by the police.

links

today's news
also here
and here

today's STICK NEWS pictures

music

show start
artist: BrunoXe
album: aprendiendo desde 2004
track: Mandrake
from: Jerez, Spain
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

WOD start
artist: DJ iPep's
album: Home Mix 2007
track: Game Toy
from: EVREUX, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

friday joke start
artist: AdHoc
album: Toutes directions
track: Sumbala
from: Annecy, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: Groovetracks
track: groovetracks ending
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: Nokom electro
album: Nokom
track: Bonnobaize
from: grenoble/lyon, France
artist at Jamendo
artist site

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