ESL Music Ideas - "Big Yellow Taxi" - Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” is an excellent song for the ESL classroom. It works well with an environmental theme. Allow the students to listen to the song, read the lyrics, and discuss the ideas that Mitchell is singing about. The chorus itself – “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” – is a common English phrase that can be explained to the class. How does it apply to this song? How does it apply to the environment?

From this song you can create discussion about the ideas in the song and the problems that Mitchell talks about. DDT, deforestation, and urbanization are some of those ideas.

I also like to do a listening activity in addition to the song. This Wikipedia link has a great explanation about how and why this song was written. I like to read this to the class and then ask them a number of comprehension questions.


Here is a listening activity with the lyrics:



Joni Mitchell
“Big Yellow Taxi”

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink ________________, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s _______________
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put em in a tree __________________
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that d.d.t. now
Give me spots on my ___________________
But leave me the ________________ and the bees
Please!
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last ____________________
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old __________________
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot