The song "Big Yellow Taxi" was written by Joni Mitchell and in most parts of the world her version was a reasonable hit. Here in Oz the competing version by The Neighborhood did better in some markets than the Joni version. Joni says she was inspired to write the song after she stayed in an hotel in Hawaii. She woke up one morning and looked out the hotel window at a paradise surround by a huge parking lot...the last verse was the only part not inspired by the scene she observed.Over the years there have been many versions of this environmental protest song, the most recent was done by Vanessa Carlton and the Counting Crows.
In 1970 when The Neighborhood's "Big Yellow Taxi" single was top 40 bound it was placed on 2 vinyl compilations. In Oz it was on "20 Electrifying Hits" made by Majestic Records. In the USA it was on a vinyl album called "20 Chartstoppers".
The Neighborhood's "Big Yellow Taxi" single has never been officially released on CD in Oz but if you know which foreign places to visit you can sometimes be lucky, like moi, and find bootleg CDs which contain some of these old rare tracks. When last in Vanuatu I was able to locate a shop in a back street of Port Villa which sold a range of "unofficial" CDs containing some great oldies...the brand name used on the CD was "KY" and they were listed as being made in Japan (which may be the town of Japan located in Indonesia). Another of the rare songs on this CD was "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" by the Hillside Singers.
Here for download is the mono single version of "Big Yellow Taxi":
http://rapidshare.com/files/233827103/neighborhood_-_big_yellow_taxi.mp3
Hey thanks Tom, nice to get hold of this one again. Cheers - Richard
ReplyDeleteThanks.
ReplyDeleteI'd been trying to replace this single.
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ReplyDeleteI remember the Neighborhood's version when it was popular on radio. Then Joni Mitchell's version took over and stayed popular on the radio to this day. I liked the Neighborhood's version much better. But I never heard it again until just now, thaks to the internet. I'm glad I found the old song. All this time I always thought Joni Mitchell stole the song, not realizing she wrote it.
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