A Song for All the Seasons of Your Mind
Written by Janis Ian
収録アルバム
Janis Ian
A Song for All the Seasons of Your Mind
(1967, Verve) 2011,Universal Music Japan
16歳の時にレイシズムを批判した自作 Society's Child (1967)で世に出た頭でっかちの少女は，やがて容姿コンプレックスを題材としたり，あるいはおそらく容姿コンプレックスを創作活動のバネにしたであろう。
グラミーの最も栄誉ある大賞 Song of the Year をとった At Seventeen (1975) は，ボサノバのリズムやアレンジで軽快で洗練された曲づくりがされていたけれど，歌詞だけは，重苦しい内容だった。
それはつまり，彼女がずっと抱き続けていた少女時代の悔しい過去を描写し，自己憐憫に浸っている代物に過ぎなかったのだ。
16歳のときの 2枚目のアルバムのタイトル曲 For All the Seasons of Your Mind。
それは，音楽に対する純真......。
彼女の芸歴中，一服の清涼剤だ。
Waterfalls cascading down a summer wind of golden brown
Leaves are flying in the air and in the sky your tangled hair
Petals wear on moonlit nights, they're all the same on sunbeam lights
Watch the sky as it turns blue. Night is slow to rush on you
A song for all the seasons of your mind
A valanches burying and all the doctors hurrying
Mental institutions and the pain of retribution
All the muddy ponds and dirty sewers feed your mind upon a skewer
Put you up and pull you down. Rusty nails turn fingers brown
A song for all the seasons of your mind
Laughter flows among the trees. A golden green hilarity
Your eyes are aching from the sun and though the evening's just begun,
you don't know why you're laughing so. There is no cause for it to show
but just the same, fall to the floor of all the good times you recall
A song for all the seasons of your mind
Running through a blackened dream, waken with a nightmare scream
See your clothing come alive. Earthquakes cause your mind to slide
Try to find where peace is gone. Like turning live a rubber swan
Floating down an endless stream, forgetting mental poverty
A song for all the seasons of your mind
Happiness at loving one. Your game of grace for sad eyed swans
and quietly beneath the tree, loving all his mystery
The grass is still, it comes alive. Beneath your naked foot it writhes
Feel the life within you grow like beauty on a newborn rose
A song for all the reasons of your mind
Emptiness at losing him. The memory of all you've been
The grass is sharp to walk upon, the petals black, the trees are gone
Like frightened dogs before the war, you dream you search for just one more
As one becomes another one, you wonder where the day has gone
A song for all the seasons of your mind
On the silent evening breeze, knowledge comes so quietly
Clear blue water from above, an avalanche can teach you love
The leaves that swirl about your eyes may wear an unforeseen disguise
But when your clothing comes alive, you can be sure it's you inside
A song for all the seasons of your mind
Janis Ianwith Bruce Springsteen, left, and Billy Joel, right
April 7, 1951- , NY
