Two Grey Rooms Chords by Joni Mitchell

Seven years ago, while we were working on an album, we finished playing and the drummer,
Vinnie Caluta, said to me, Joni, do you have anything else we could play?
I still feel
like playing.
And I said, oh, I've got these piano changes, you know, we could mess around
with them.
We looked over to the piano in the room and there was a big X of masking
tape on it and a sign sitting in the middle of it like a spider, which said, Do Not Touch.
So I said to the engineer, who was very by the book, I said, Henry, you know, can we
just do one take on the piano?
And Henry said, Oh, I don't think so.
And I said, then
I saw on the sign it was Michelle Columbia, who I knew.
I said, Look, I'm going to play
real light.
I'm not going to put it out a tune.
You'll never know we've been here.
So finally, we convinced him where we could peel the tape back and we all sat down and
I don't think I played it through.
Maybe I did once and they charted it.
I don't remember
that.
All I know is we did one take on the song and nobody really was familiar with it.
And yet when it was completed, the thing had a loveliness to it.
Now, I was just getting
to know these guys, this band, and my husband was one of the players in it and we hadn't
even begun to date, I don't think at that point.
But their play was very, very male.
It contained like a lot of humor that even if I wanted to, if I got in on it with them,
I would have embarrassed them.
So unwittingly, they had created a situation in which I couldn't
participate, which made me kind of melancholy.
And I said to Henry, you know, set me up in
the vocal booth and I'll go in and throw in a vocal.
So I went in and there was an
emotion in my throat.
There was a kind of a sadness that, you know, that I couldn't
play with the boys, you know, not really.
And the fledgling melody came out in French
syllabication.
L'en, d'en, like Edith Piaf.
It had all these French syllables.
And for
seven years, I tried to find kind of a libretto or a story that would be suitable for it.
And also, I was attached to these vowels, which aren't common in English.
Finally, I
found a story about a fellow who was part of Fassbinder's scene, homosexual, aristocrat
German, who had had a lover in his youth that he never got over.
And in his 40s, he discovered
the route by which this guy went to work in the morning and in the evening at a certain
time.
[Bm] So he moved out of his fancy digs and into these crummy rooms overlooking the street
for the sole pleasure of seeing the man walk by in the morning and walk back in the evening
_ [A] _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _
[C] _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _
[G] _ _ [A] _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _
In their [C] home
_ [D] _ _ [G] _ [D] _ _
_ [G] Tomorrow [A] is [D] [G] late
Now [F#m] there's only one [A] day left [C] to go
[D] Till you [G] walk by [D] below my [G] window
The [A] weekend's [Em] dry, the days [F#m]
[C] are hard and sad
[D] If you don't [G] go [D] below my window
[F] No [D] one knows [D] I'm here
[A] One [F] day I just [D] disappeared
[A] And [D] I took these crummy grey rooms [Em] up here
[A] With a [G] view
When you [C] walk by [D] _ below my window
You _
[G] _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ [A] look so [D]
[Em] beautiful
[F#m] Time has been [C] untruthful
Heaven [D] knows I loved [G] you
30 years [D] ago
[G] Hot [A] days, your [Em] shirt's undone
[F#m] Rainy days, your [C] eyes
Oh, I know, fade [D] so fast
[G] Below my window
[F] No [D] one [D] knows I'm here
[A] One [F] day I just [D] disappeared
[D] And I took these two grey [Em] rooms up here
_ [A] With [G] a view
Only when you [C] walk [D] by below [Em] my window
_ [Bm] _ [C] When [D] you walk [G] by [D] below my [G] window
[D] Below _ _
[G] _ _ [D] my [G] window
_ [D] _ _
[G] _ [D] _ Hey, [G] hey
[D] Below my window
[G] [D] Below _ _ [G] _ _ my window
Below [D] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
my window _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _