About: Free Man In Paris   Goto Sponge  NotDistinct  Permalink

An Entity of Type : wsb:Song, within Data Space : wasabi.inria.fr associated with source document(s)

AttributesValues
type
sameAs
title
  • Free Man In Paris
has language
  • eng
subject
  • Folk songs
  • 1974 singles
  • 1974 songs
  • Joni Mitchell songs
  • Song recordings produced by Joni Mitchell
  • Songs written by Joni Mitchell
  • Songs about Paris
abstract
  • %22Free Man In Paris%22 is a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. It appeared on her 1974 album Court and Spark, as well as her live album Shadows and Light. It is one of her most popular songs. The song is about music agent/promoter David Geffen, a close friend of Mitchell in the early 1970s, and describes Geffen during a trip Geffen and Mitchell made to Paris with Robbie and Dominique Robertson. %22Free Man in Paris%22 went to number twenty-two on the Hot 100 and to number two on the Easy Listening chart.The home key of the song is A-major. The frequent substitution of %22flattened%22 scale degrees (flat-6 and flat-7; that is, in A-major, F-natural and G-natural in place of F# and G#) adds a jazzy folky sound to the song. The time signature is 4/4 except the compound quintuple meter intro counted as 15/8 or simply 2 bars of 6/8 plus 3 eighth notes.The opening melodic lick E-F#-E-E-A (set to the words %22The way I see it%22) is the fundamental source of the song's vocal line. It also foreshadows some of the dramatic chord progressions. The pattern is composed of two simple motions. The first is E-F#-E, a neighbouring-tone pattern in which the upward step to F#, and immediate return to E serve to embellish the E. The second is the upward motion from E to A in which the upward skip to A embellishes the E. Through both these simple motions, the primary melodic tone E is said to be prolonged over the entire lick. In scale step notation, these motions can be notated as 5-6-5, and 5-1.While Geffen is never mentioned by name, Mitchell describes how he works hard creating hits and launching careers but can find some peace while vacationing in Paris. Mitchell sings %22I was a free man in Paris. I felt unfettered and alive. Nobody calling me up for favors. No one's future to decide.%22In the 1970s, an instrumental version of the song was the theme music used for CBC Television's The Saturday Evening News, which aired at 6 p.m. till 1982 when it was replaced with Saturday Report. %22Free Man In Paris%22 has been covered by Aimee Mann, Neil Diamond, Sufjan Stevens, Adrienne Young, Phish, Elton John, Alanis Morissette and JoJo who changed the title to %22White Girl in Paris%22. It is ranked #470 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
schema:author
  • Joni Mitchell
schema:datePublished
homepage
musicbrainz
Musicbrainz GUID
  • 85dff2ff-a617-450e-aa7e-a73ff636b0b4
mo:performer
universally unique identifier
  • 5714ded625ac0d8aee468e88
wikipedia
bpm
mo:duration
isrc
  • USEA20100002
producer
  • Joni Mitchell
track number
schema:album
schema:duration
  • PT183.66800453S
wsb:allMusic_page
wsb:amazon_page
wsb:deezer_artist_id
  • 3283
wsb:deezer_page
wsb:deezer_song_id
  • 675048
wsb:explicit_lyrics_count
wsb:gain
wsb:has_explicit_lyrics
wsb:iTunes_page
wsb:language_detected
  • english
wsb:rank
wsb:record_label
  • Asylum Records
wsb:spotify_page
wsb:title_without_accent
  • Free Man In Paris
wsb:youTube_page
confidence
chord
wsb:arousal
wsb:has_emotion_tags
wsb:has_social_tags
wsb:valence
Faceted Search & Find service v1.13.91 as of Mar 24 2020


Alternative Linked Data Documents: Sponger | ODE     Content Formats:       RDF       ODATA       Microdata      About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data]
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3229 as of Jul 10 2020, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Single-Server Edition (94 GB total memory)
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2025 OpenLink Software