Little Green

Giving a child to adoption to offer him a better life, is certainly a tough and serious decision to make for young mothers all over the world. The Song “little green” is written by Joni Mitchell, who gave her little girl up for adoption in 1967 after she gave birth in the age at 20 and her boyfriend left to California. They had a reunion in 1997, after they searched for each other for years.  About her decision she said:

“ I was dirt poor. An unhappy mother does not raise a happy child. It was difficult parting with the child, but I had to let her go. ”In “little green” , Joni Mitchell uses pure and pretty Imagery, characterization  of an indifferent father, a troubled mother, and an innocent child, and natural personification, to show that “sometimes there’ll be sorrow”, and life sometimes requires tough decisions.

    Little Green is “born with the moon in Cancer”, so she might have been born in a summer night,being the horoscopic cancer. Singing “when the spring is born” he puts the picture of flowers in the listeners heads and the positive feeling that is associated with springtime, that might rub off to the attitude against her daughter, influencing the way, other people see her, positively. She gives us a nice hand-tight example  how “icicles and birthday” are standing for a nice and neat childhood.

Mitchell characterizes the father of little green as a “non-conformer”. He went to California, right after the girl was born, “hearing that everything’s warmer there”.  After she wrote him a letter, telling him about the birth and except from a poem, she earns indifference from his side. He seems not rally to care, in order of being so far away anyways.

Herself, she describes as a “child with a child pretending”, telling the audience, that she was really young for having a baby. She decided, to give the baby up for adoption after naming it “little green”.
About herself she talks in the third form, so at the first sight it doesn’t seem like she’s actually talking about her own experience in the song.
The child itself was “born with the moon in cancer”, so probably in a summer night. Mitchell wants her to be a “gypsy dancer” and names her little green. When she gives her up for the adoption, she sings “little green, have a happy ending”, as saying a little goodbye to her daughter.

    In “like the colour, when the spring is born”,Mitchell compares her daughter’s name with the arrival of spring, giving the season human characteristics, as the world appears to turn into a bright and colourful place, that might be associated with hope and strength.
She uses similar Personification, when she sings”like when the northern lights perform”. Northern lights are a beautiful appearance that seem to be  almost magic, when they occur. Comparing her daughter with those, wishing her the freedom of those lights, that move gracefully over the sky, she impresses that she really wants only the best for the child.
“There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow”, she sings, wishing her daughter a life without worries, so she can focus on those little things in life, like bringing flowers to school, when the time of the year has come.

    Throughout the song, there are many seasonal literary devices that stick out, mostly describing that after the winter, the world gets green an beautiful again, just like life sometimes happens to be. Mitchell makes clear, that she wishes just the best for her baby daughter and thought about her decision seriously. That the song makes a little sleepy is makes sense, in order to be written for a little child and the opportunity to be a lullaby.