I didn't recognize Joni Mitchell's "Free Man in Paris" by its title, but when I heard the opening chords it all clicked into place for me.
Just picture a 40ish Robert Redford starring as a record promoter...sitting in a New York City deli with a quirky-but-attractive administrative assistant...absent-mindedly taking drags from a cigarette and lamenting his lost youth and freedom.
"The way I see it," he said, "you just can't win it. Everybody's in it for their own gain. You can't please 'em all. There's always somebody calling you down.
"I do my best, and I do good business. There's a lot of people asking for my time. They're trying to get ahead. They're trying to be a good friend of mine.
"I was a free man in Paris! I felt unfettered and alive. There was nobody calling me up for favors and no one's future to decide. You know, I'd go back there tomorrow but for the work I've taken on: Stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song.
"I deal in dreamers and telephone screamers. Lately, I wonder what I do it for. If l had my way, I'd just walk through those doors and wander down the Champs Elysees; going cafe to cabaret, thinking how I'll feel when I find that very good friend of mine."
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It kind of amazes me that Mitchell could take what would have been a forgettable bit of exposition in a 70's film about people Searching For Themselves and turn it into the 470th greatest song of all time.
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