Up where the light undiluted is weaving in a drunk dream
And say say say in the lee of the bay, don't be bothered
Lay your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water
Flanked by furrows curling back like a match held up to a newspaper.
Emily they'll follow your lead by the letter
And I make this claim and I'm not ashamed to say I knew you better.
What they have seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter.
Let us go though we know it's a hopeless endeavour.
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever
Though there is nothing could help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning
There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning.
Oh Joanna, Joanna, Joanna! Lyrics like this have been swimming round deliciously in my head for the last month or so, since I discovered the exraordinary Joanna Newsom. (Thanks Reuben :)
She reminds me of that bit in "Mr Holland's Opus" where Mr Holland is talking about a record that someone lent him, which he played, hated, then played again... and then again... until he found he couldn't stop playing it. Joanna is very different to anything I've ever enjoyed before. Yet I feel like, in listening to her, I've learnt more about poetry than I ever did studying it at university. And I've learnt things about myself, and who I am and who I want to be, and how I see the world.
You know how on rare occasions you come across an album that, for a time, becomes like the soundtrack for your life? I find myself singing the oddest little bits of her songs at the oddest little moments. Especially when I'm at work, mindlessly entering columns of numbers into the computer and putting documents into alphabetical order. There's a sort of Robbie Burns feel to her, or Eliot perhaps - just revelling in the sheer pleasure of words being woven together in such a way that they point you towards some kind of truth that is felt rather than understood... or are just peculiarly evocative ("watch while the freight trains paw, paw at the wild wild night").
What do her songs mean? Some of them, like 'Sadie' and 'En Gallop' seem to express things that are inside me right now ("And all that I knew is moving away from me... and I have not forgot, but a silence crept over me"); others seem to contain things that ring true with life though not necessarily my own experience; others, I don't pretend to understand at all; but they've got inside of me somehow. It's curious; not sure if I can quite explain it. So I'll just let it be.
Check out more of her lyrics on the 3rd link above. I think they are just mind-blowingly, soul-liftingly, heart-stoppingly beautiful - especially the ones on the "Ys" album. But that's just my opinion :)
Happy days.
Lay your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water
Flanked by furrows curling back like a match held up to a newspaper.
Emily they'll follow your lead by the letter
And I make this claim and I'm not ashamed to say I knew you better.
What they have seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter.
Let us go though we know it's a hopeless endeavour.
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever
Though there is nothing could help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning
There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning.
Oh Joanna, Joanna, Joanna! Lyrics like this have been swimming round deliciously in my head for the last month or so, since I discovered the exraordinary Joanna Newsom. (Thanks Reuben :)
She reminds me of that bit in "Mr Holland's Opus" where Mr Holland is talking about a record that someone lent him, which he played, hated, then played again... and then again... until he found he couldn't stop playing it. Joanna is very different to anything I've ever enjoyed before. Yet I feel like, in listening to her, I've learnt more about poetry than I ever did studying it at university. And I've learnt things about myself, and who I am and who I want to be, and how I see the world.
You know how on rare occasions you come across an album that, for a time, becomes like the soundtrack for your life? I find myself singing the oddest little bits of her songs at the oddest little moments. Especially when I'm at work, mindlessly entering columns of numbers into the computer and putting documents into alphabetical order. There's a sort of Robbie Burns feel to her, or Eliot perhaps - just revelling in the sheer pleasure of words being woven together in such a way that they point you towards some kind of truth that is felt rather than understood... or are just peculiarly evocative ("watch while the freight trains paw, paw at the wild wild night").
What do her songs mean? Some of them, like 'Sadie' and 'En Gallop' seem to express things that are inside me right now ("And all that I knew is moving away from me... and I have not forgot, but a silence crept over me"); others seem to contain things that ring true with life though not necessarily my own experience; others, I don't pretend to understand at all; but they've got inside of me somehow. It's curious; not sure if I can quite explain it. So I'll just let it be.
Check out more of her lyrics on the 3rd link above. I think they are just mind-blowingly, soul-liftingly, heart-stoppingly beautiful - especially the ones on the "Ys" album. But that's just my opinion :)
Happy days.
posted by Kat | 3/19/2007 01:07:00 pm
1 Comments:
Hm, no, I can't resist; here's some more of my favourites:
Beneath the porch light we've all been circling
Beat our dust hearts, singe our flour wings
But in the corner, something is happening
Wild Cosmia, what have you seen
Water were your limbs, and the fire was her hair
And then the moonlight caught your eye
And you rose through the air
Well, if you've seen true light, then this is my prayer
Will you call me when you get there
*
The cities we passed were a flickering wasteland
But his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless
While down in the lowlands the crops are all coming;
We have everything!
Life is thundering blissful towards death
In a stampede of its fumbling green gentleness
*
Then the furthermost shake drove a murthering stake in
And cleft me right down through my center
And I shouldn't say so, but I know that it was then, or never
*
All my bones they are gone, gone, gone
Take my bones, I don't need none
Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on!
Suck all day on a cherry stone
Dig a little hole, not three inches round
Spit your pit in the hole in the ground
Weep upon the spot for the starving of me!
Till up grow a fine young cherry tree
Well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me?
A little willow cabin to rest on your knee
What'll I do with a trinket such as this?
Think of your woman, who's gone to the west
But I'm starving and I'm freezing in my measly old bed!
Then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head
Come across the desert with no shoes on!
I love you truly, or I love no-one
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