Occident - Joanna Newsom

Mercy me, the night is long

Take my pen, to write you this song

Lord, is it harder to carry on

Or to know when you are done?

All my life, I’ve felt as though

I’m inside a beautiful memory

Replaying with the sound turned down low

Long-life, show your face

Slow-heart, curb your taste

Smoke me out of my hiding place

Long-life, state your case

What in the world are we waiting for?

Building glowing cities along the shore

Where the wind batters in, baiting my kin like a matador

So much value, placed upon

What lies just beyond our plans

Waving my handkerchief, running along till the end of the sand

Long-life, speak your name

I’m so tired of the guessing game

But, something is moving just out of frame

Slow-heart, brace and aim

Breaching slowly, across the sea

One mast flash like the stinger of a bee

To take you away a swarming fleet is gonna take you from me

The universe is getting loose

Sodden spread from some leaden disuse

Rushing, unhinged toward diminishing lights like a headless caboose

I’ll wait for you alongside the ocean

And make do with my no-skin

But then, long-life, will you let me in?

And then, slow-heart, are you gonna know him?

Long-life, speak your name

I wait, while I decry the wait

And when I die, may I relate

Slow-heart, congregate

To leave your home, and your family

For some distortion of property?

Well, darling, I can’t go but you may stay here with me