#'for I’m putting my own ruin ‘til the end to lure o’er the deed' this one's a tough cookie i also hear 'open moon'
Text
The Air Again
by Joanna Newsom
June of ‘78
who are you, so arrayed
on the banks of Lake Adair.
Pale lacuna agape
and like the moon in the lake
you are not there,
my poor canary.
At uncertain behest
Maggie blown to the west
in a shimmering dust of gold
with her pale yellow hair
they would call her ‘canary’.
And I loved my Maggie so,
and that is all you need to know.
But women here ain’t ever glad,
not even Emma Nevada,
coming back to share her wedding cake.
Women here ain’t ever free
(and Emma never left)
we never leave,
we never last
we never ask
we never stake a claim or complain or take.
Not till I made a play
for a parcel that lay
on the Amador county line.
Had a notion that I’d find employ by-and-by
at the Lonesome Willow Mine
but they don’t enlist my kind.
In the meantime,
set to prospecting where I was able
and laying my Maggie a table.
And when it was warm we would pan,
when it stormed play Fan-Tan,
and when it was cold
they’d come sniffin’
with gold in their hands.
On and on and again
on and on and again,
you do what you can.
Take an eighth of an ounce
in allowance for the dance, only a dance,
if you’re alone and abandoned and cast aside.
You know, the pastor tried
in vain to ask her hand,
even him, everybody did.
And I had a plan but I had to sign away my mine
and the deed left us free to scrape and bleed and go to seed and never marry
not canary canary canary canary canary canary canary canary canary canary.
In the spring of that year
when the tinker was here,
gals would hire him to mend their tin.
I heard ‘em swarm from afar
like a storm in a jar,
like a choir of cherubim,
singing *him, hymn, hymns.
Whispering, ‘Maggie had gone
must’ve skipped with someone’,
sounded wrong
though it did seem fair.
April turned into May
and I looked every day for you, Maggie,
‘til I heard they found a whore
with the golden hair
on the shores of Lake Adair.
On the sluice she was spread
loose and languid and dead
from the kindness that she had shown.
Still she told me her tale lifting veil after veil
to expose a grin a-honed,
my yellow rose in the lode a-blown.
And though I long to believe
as I muddied my sleeve,
and I studied the wiccan hap,
and I want to revive,
she was never alive.
But by the grace
and the whim,
and the wheel,
and again,
and the wickedness of men.
But what to do then?
I hauled myself up from the shore
and I called at the door
of the foreman.
I told him and he laughed.
So, alas, there was savagery there.
Left a hole in his heart you could roll a cabbage in
‘A cabbage?!‘
“Oh, no no, just a little one, Maggie, just a little one.”
On and on and again ‘til they saw what I am
and I am never done,
I am never done.
Went inside for the light,
got a paper and a pen,
where to begin?
Do you sue for the rights?
Root* for the strike?
Through the alluvium
to where it heeds
*for I’m putting my own ruin ‘til the end to lure o’er the deed.
A noose on a live oak tree bent toward the saloon tent
and meant for me and Maggie.
And though it wasn’t him,
it could’ve been him,
or anyone who had done
what I know so many men intended when they came to win.
So arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant.
Held a cloth to my hands
taking stock of my plans,
well, there was something I had to make right.
I took his old buggy whip
and I lowered a skip
in the glow of the sodium lights
with a load of dynamite.
Maggie said, “I am here.”
And with a touch on the ear,
“After thirty years down in the mine,
help me lead out the mules
help me free the poor fools,
let them see for the very first time
they were blind, blind, blind.”
Then we rode through the rift and we beckoned to moon reflectin’
and she opened her neck like a stream.
I saw the Father appear,
heard her sob in my ear
like a mob of cherubim,
howling “him, him. It was him. It was him.”
So I threw a charge down the shaft
in the cart with the pastor
who spat and evangelized.
He was the last and the worst —
canary always goes first —
to sing where the waters rise,
hear her sing – go on now, Maggie –
On and on, on and on, on and on, and again
and on and on
on and on and again
on and on and again.
Then a knock on the wall and a knock and we all fall in
and down and in, and down and in
and we pass away.
But we pass only the baton man to man,
and so they return.
Pull the pumps, fill the sumps,
for they’re takin’ something;
they will never learn,
they will never learn.
And even if the churn drill and the stamp mill and the Pelton wheel,
and the smoking furnace all a-burning, overturning, learning
she will never breathe the air
again air again air again air again air again air again air again air again air.
Like a screech of a flare,
or like they’re reaching for air
beneath the smothering eiderdown.
Veins of gold, still outstretched
in a silent arrest
for miles and miles abound.
And if I’m underground
let me join in that line,
let me toil in that mine,
let me find what is hiding there,
let me dig where I durst,
let me drink when I thirst
and let me breathe the peril air.
And breathe
for my canary,
and breathe.
Let me breathe.
Let me breathe for my canary,
breathe for my canary canary canary,
breathe for my —
canary always goes first —
breathe for my canary canary canary canary,
breathe for my —
canary always goes first —
breathe for my canary canary canary canary canary canary,
breathe for my —
canary always goes first —
breathe for my canary canary canary canary canary canary canary canary.
#joanna newsom#the air again#well that was a mighty task#made me do linguistics research too hahaha#she's a story teller extraordinaire#ok a few asterisks#'root for the strike' or 'route for the strike' both make sense just slightly different meaning but joanna loves a homophone#the same with 'him' or 'hymn' and here i think she's done it on purpose meaning in the official lyrics we might see both in different places#so there i wrote them both out#'for I’m putting my own ruin ‘til the end to lure o’er the deed' this one's a tough cookie i also hear 'open moon'#she does sing about the moon in a couple places here so it'd fit but it doesn't make sense so i'm sticking with the version i wrote out#this was fun thanks for indulging me <3#jnew5 lyrics#love joanna#jnew
52 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
