Amelia, It Was Just a False Alarm

Friends, in a serendipitous moment I found myself exploring the feelings of isolation and loneliness as I pieced together this collage.

On a recent chilly autumn day I was leafing through a copy of Wild Flowers of America by H.W. Rickett looking for a specific image (I don't remember what it was now) and stopped to study this Prickly Pear (Opuntia polyacantha). Later that same day, as I was looking through my file folder of people images torn from magazines, I spotted this image of Amelia Earhart and immediately thought of the Prickly Pear. Then suddenly a verse from Joni Mitchell's Amelia popped into my head:

  

I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747's
Over geometric farms
Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms

In Amelia, Mitchell is referring to Amelia Earhart (b. 1897), an American airplane pilot. Earhart was the first woman pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, authored books about her flying experiences and mentored women in aviation studies. In 1937 Amelia and Fred Noonan, her navigator, disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. Amelia's body was never found and she was pronounced dead in absentia in 1939.

Singer-songwriter and musician Joni Mitchell (b. 1943) wrote Amelia in 1976 as a tribute to 'the sweet loneliness of solitary travel' while driving cross-country by herself 'reflecting on the cost of being a woman and having something you must do.' In the song Mitchell alludes to Earhart's solo airplane travels while telling her own story of a love lost:

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

It felt appropriate to place Amelia in a quiet isolated cactus world, standing alone, surveying her surroundings. To further enhance the atmosphere, I added three flying geese (solo pilots?). Is she reminiscing about solo flights of the past? Or can she see into the future? Is she lonely, or comfortable at icy altitudes? These are universal questions each of us must ask ourselves from time to time.

It felt good to explore them through art making.

Thank you for looking, and here are the lyrics to Amelia in full:

Amelia

by Joni Mitchell

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia it was just a false alarm

The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture post card charms
Amelia it was just a false alarm

People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Others just come to harm
Oh, Amelia it was just a false alarm

I wish that he was here tonight
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia it was just a false alarm

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm

Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitudes
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia it was just a false alarm

I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams Amelia - dreams and false alarms

© 1976; Crazy Crow Music