A Starry Encore

Between songs on her live disc, "Miles of Aisles," Joni Mitchell explains to the crowd what she sees as the difference between the performing arts and the visual arts:

"That's one thing that's always like, uh...been a major difference between, like, the performing arts to me and being a painter, you know. Like a painter does a painting...and he does a painting, that's it, you know he's had the joy of creating it and he hangs it on some wall, somebody buys it...somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere till he dies. But he's never...nobody ever says to him...you know, nobody ever said to Van Gogh...'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it, that was it."

Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" (via)

Van Gogh probably never went on tour, or had to paint the same painting 250 nights a year.

"Moons and Junes and ferris wheels

the dizzy dancing way you feel

as ev'ry fairy tale comes real.

I've looked at love that way."

—Joni Mitchell, "Both Sides Now"