Poetry in song: Joanna Newsom
Apr. 4th, 2013 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicI haven't been reading much poetry these last few years, but some of the best I've encountered in that time are songs by Joanna Newsom. Behind the cuts are two of my favorites, including the first one I ever heard, the remarkable "Emily." Joanna's voice isn't for everyone, I know, but she's a demon on the harp, and the way she spins out stories and plays with the sounds and rhythms and textures of words—not to mention her ease with vocabulary—whew. I don't always know what it means, but I sure like listening to it.
(YouTube link if the embed doesn't work for you)
The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow
set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport of the pharaoh.
A little while later, the Pharisees dragged a comb through the meadow.
Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?
There is a rusty light on the pines tonight;
sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow, down into the
bones of the birches, and the spires of the churches, jutting out from the shadows;
the yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks, and the bale, and the barrow —
and everything sloped, like it was dragged from a rope, in the mouth of the south below.
We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey.
We thought our very hearts would up and melt away,
from that snow in the nighttime,
just going and going
and the stirring of wind chimes
in the morning
in the morning
Helps me find my way back in
from the place where I have been —
And, Emily, I saw you last night by the river.
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water —
frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever,
in a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror.
Anyhow, I sat by your side, by the water.
You taught me the names of the stars overhead, that I wrote down in my ledger —
though all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades, loosed in December,
I promised you I'd set them to verse, so I'd always remember
That the meteorite is the source of the light,
And the meteor's just what we see;
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.
And the meteorite's just what causes the light,
And the meteor's how it's perceived;
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void, that lies quiet in offering to thee.
*
You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I'm in;
threw the window wide, and cried amen amen amen.
The whole world stopped to hear you hollering.
And you looked down, and saw, now, what was happening:
The lines are fading in my kingdom
(though I have never known the way to border them in);
so the muddy mouths of baboons and sows, and the grouse, and the horse, and the hen
grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen.
And the mail is late, and the great estates are not lit from within.
The talk in town's becoming downright sickening.
In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare.
I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there
And row through the nighttime,
gone healthy,
gone healthy all of a sudden,
In search of the midwife
who could help me
who could help me,
help me find my way back in.
There are worries where I've been.
Say, say, say, in the lee of the bay
don't be bothered.
Leave 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've seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter.
Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor.
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined, and hold us close forever.
Though there is nothing would 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.
*
Come on home. The poppies are all grown knee-deep by now.
Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow.
Peonies nod in the breeze,
and as they wetly bow
with hydrocephalitic listlessness,
ants mop up their brow.
And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour;
butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours.
My clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines —
Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines.
Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight,
the way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light.
Squint skyward and listen —
loving him, we move within his borders:
just asterisms in the stars' set order.
We could stand for a century,
staring,
with our heads cocked,
in the broad daylight, at this thing:
Joy,
landlocked in bodies that don't keep —
dumbstruck with the sweetness of being,
till we don't be.
Told: take this.
Eat this.
Told: the meteorite is the source of the light,
And the meteor's just what we see;
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.
And the meteorite is just what causes the light,
And the meteor's how it's perceived;
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee.
(YouTube link if the embed doesn't work for you)
From the top of the flight
of the wide, white stairs,
through the rest of my life,
do you wait for me there?
There's a bell in my ears.
There's the wide, white roar.
Drop a bell down the stairs.
Hear it fall forevermore.
Drop a bell off of the dock.
Blot it out in the sea.
Drowning mute as a rock;
sounding mutiny.
There's a light in the wings, hits the system of strings,
from the side, where they swing —
see the wires, the wires, the wires.
And the articulation in our elbows and knees
makes us buckle;
we couple in endless increase
as the audience admires.
And the little white dove,
made with love, made with love;
made with glue, and a glove, and some pliers
swings a low sickle arc, from its perch in the dark:
settle down, settle down, my desire.
And the moment I slept, I was swept up in a terrible tremor.
Though no longer bereft, how I shook! And I couldn't remember.
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 knew that it was then, or never.
Push me back into a tree.
Bind my buttons with salt.
Fill my long ears with bees
praying please please please love
you ought not
No you ought not
Then the system of strings tugs at the tip of my wings
(cut from cardboard and old magazines):
makes me warble and rise, like a sparrow.
And in the place where I stood, there is a circle of wood —
a cord or two — which you chop, and you stack in your barrow.
It is terribly good to carry water and chop wood,
streaked with soot, heavy-booted and wild-eyed;
as I crash through the rafters,
and the ropes and the pulleys trail after
and the holiest belfry burns sky-high.
Then the slow lip of fire moves across the prairie with precision,
while, somewhere, with your pliers and glue, you make your first incision.
And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision,
doubled over with the hunger of lions,
Hold me close, cooed the dove,
who was stuffed, now, with sawdust and diamonds.
I wanted to say: Why the long face.
Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face.
Burro, buck and bray songs of long face!
Sing, I will swallow your sadness, and eat your cold clay,
just to lift your long face;
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
your precious longface.
And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate —
Why the long face?
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil —
Why the long face?
In the trough of the waves,
which are pawing like dogs,
pitch we, pale-faced and grave,
as I write in my log.
Then I hear a noise from the hull,
seven days out to sea.
It is that damnable bell!
And it tolls — well, I believe that it tolls — for me.
It tolls for me.
Though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break,
still, my dear, I'd have walked you to the very edge of the water.
And they will recognize all the lines of your face
in the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter.
Darling, we will be fine; but what was yours and mine
appears to me a sandcastle
that the gibbering wave takes.
But if it's all just the same, then will you say my same;
say my name in the morning, so I know when the wave breaks.
I wasn't born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight.
No; I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright.
So: enough of this terror.
We deserve to know light,
and grow evermore lighter and lighter.
You would have seen me through,
But I could not undo that desire.
From the top of the flight
of the wide, white stairs
Through the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there?
Lyrics from http://www.joannanewsomlyrics.com/
Thank you,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rubberbutton and recrudescence, for introducing me to her music.
Who are your favorite poet-songwriters these days?
(YouTube link if the embed doesn't work for you)
The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow
set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport of the pharaoh.
A little while later, the Pharisees dragged a comb through the meadow.
Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?
There is a rusty light on the pines tonight;
sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow, down into the
bones of the birches, and the spires of the churches, jutting out from the shadows;
the yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks, and the bale, and the barrow —
and everything sloped, like it was dragged from a rope, in the mouth of the south below.
We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey.
We thought our very hearts would up and melt away,
from that snow in the nighttime,
just going and going
and the stirring of wind chimes
in the morning
in the morning
Helps me find my way back in
from the place where I have been —
And, Emily, I saw you last night by the river.
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water —
frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever,
in a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror.
Anyhow, I sat by your side, by the water.
You taught me the names of the stars overhead, that I wrote down in my ledger —
though all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades, loosed in December,
I promised you I'd set them to verse, so I'd always remember
That the meteorite is the source of the light,
And the meteor's just what we see;
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.
And the meteorite's just what causes the light,
And the meteor's how it's perceived;
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void, that lies quiet in offering to thee.
*
You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I'm in;
threw the window wide, and cried amen amen amen.
The whole world stopped to hear you hollering.
And you looked down, and saw, now, what was happening:
The lines are fading in my kingdom
(though I have never known the way to border them in);
so the muddy mouths of baboons and sows, and the grouse, and the horse, and the hen
grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen.
And the mail is late, and the great estates are not lit from within.
The talk in town's becoming downright sickening.
In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare.
I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there
And row through the nighttime,
gone healthy,
gone healthy all of a sudden,
In search of the midwife
who could help me
who could help me,
help me find my way back in.
There are worries where I've been.
Say, say, say, in the lee of the bay
don't be bothered.
Leave 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've seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter.
Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor.
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined, and hold us close forever.
Though there is nothing would 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.
*
Come on home. The poppies are all grown knee-deep by now.
Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow.
Peonies nod in the breeze,
and as they wetly bow
with hydrocephalitic listlessness,
ants mop up their brow.
And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour;
butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours.
My clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines —
Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines.
Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight,
the way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light.
Squint skyward and listen —
loving him, we move within his borders:
just asterisms in the stars' set order.
We could stand for a century,
staring,
with our heads cocked,
in the broad daylight, at this thing:
Joy,
landlocked in bodies that don't keep —
dumbstruck with the sweetness of being,
till we don't be.
Told: take this.
Eat this.
Told: the meteorite is the source of the light,
And the meteor's just what we see;
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.
And the meteorite is just what causes the light,
And the meteor's how it's perceived;
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee.
(YouTube link if the embed doesn't work for you)
From the top of the flight
of the wide, white stairs,
through the rest of my life,
do you wait for me there?
There's a bell in my ears.
There's the wide, white roar.
Drop a bell down the stairs.
Hear it fall forevermore.
Drop a bell off of the dock.
Blot it out in the sea.
Drowning mute as a rock;
sounding mutiny.
There's a light in the wings, hits the system of strings,
from the side, where they swing —
see the wires, the wires, the wires.
And the articulation in our elbows and knees
makes us buckle;
we couple in endless increase
as the audience admires.
And the little white dove,
made with love, made with love;
made with glue, and a glove, and some pliers
swings a low sickle arc, from its perch in the dark:
settle down, settle down, my desire.
And the moment I slept, I was swept up in a terrible tremor.
Though no longer bereft, how I shook! And I couldn't remember.
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 knew that it was then, or never.
Push me back into a tree.
Bind my buttons with salt.
Fill my long ears with bees
praying please please please love
you ought not
No you ought not
Then the system of strings tugs at the tip of my wings
(cut from cardboard and old magazines):
makes me warble and rise, like a sparrow.
And in the place where I stood, there is a circle of wood —
a cord or two — which you chop, and you stack in your barrow.
It is terribly good to carry water and chop wood,
streaked with soot, heavy-booted and wild-eyed;
as I crash through the rafters,
and the ropes and the pulleys trail after
and the holiest belfry burns sky-high.
Then the slow lip of fire moves across the prairie with precision,
while, somewhere, with your pliers and glue, you make your first incision.
And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision,
doubled over with the hunger of lions,
Hold me close, cooed the dove,
who was stuffed, now, with sawdust and diamonds.
I wanted to say: Why the long face.
Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face.
Burro, buck and bray songs of long face!
Sing, I will swallow your sadness, and eat your cold clay,
just to lift your long face;
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
your precious longface.
And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate —
Why the long face?
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil —
Why the long face?
In the trough of the waves,
which are pawing like dogs,
pitch we, pale-faced and grave,
as I write in my log.
Then I hear a noise from the hull,
seven days out to sea.
It is that damnable bell!
And it tolls — well, I believe that it tolls — for me.
It tolls for me.
Though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break,
still, my dear, I'd have walked you to the very edge of the water.
And they will recognize all the lines of your face
in the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter.
Darling, we will be fine; but what was yours and mine
appears to me a sandcastle
that the gibbering wave takes.
But if it's all just the same, then will you say my same;
say my name in the morning, so I know when the wave breaks.
I wasn't born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight.
No; I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright.
So: enough of this terror.
We deserve to know light,
and grow evermore lighter and lighter.
You would have seen me through,
But I could not undo that desire.
From the top of the flight
of the wide, white stairs
Through the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there?
Lyrics from http://www.joannanewsomlyrics.com/
Thank you,
rubberbutton and recrudescence, for introducing me to her music.Who are your favorite poet-songwriters these days?
no subject
Date: Apr. 5th, 2013 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 5th, 2013 10:12 pm (UTC)i very very recently discovered Jericho Brown, and i think he might be one of my favorite poets in this moment. here is a shorter piece by him, but i recommend looking up some of his longer works.
:D poetry!