Big Yellow Taxi

My ignorance of popular music recorded before 1990 has brought me here to apologize to Joni Mitchell. Much like the many years I spent thinking the Black Crowes were actually capable of writing a hit song like Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle," I have for a long time believed that the hit song "Big Yellow Taxi" was a song written and recorded by the Counting Crows and sometimes sung with Vanessa Carlton. Wrong. This song was written by Joni Mitchell in 1970, but has been covered by many artists (including Bob Dylan) in the time since her original recording and did not become a bona fide hit again until the Counting Crows version came out in 2002.

Normally this is where I'd post an audio version of the original song, to pay homage to Joni Mitchell for the many years I've spent not giving her credit, but instead this is where I'll post my favorite cover version of the song since hers is not the best in my opinion. The first time I actually heard "Big Yellow Taxi," it was by Billie Joe Armstrong's other, non-Green Day band called Pinhead Gunpowder. It was recorded in 1994, but I probably didn't hear it until 1999 when Napster made it possible for a 14 year old kid with no money to listen to something other than what the radio or Mtv wanted me to hear.