Lyrics How To (hair) - Esperanza Spalding

How To (hair)

Through my hair I’m still picking the hulls
Of Europe rained down in scattered handfuls
Their seed-meat shriveled to a hollow rattling
Striking this already ringing land
Resonance choked by pale tendrils shooting off
From long lost roots once locked in nature
The stubbled senses ingrown now where crusader blades shore
And donned them empty-headed beneath the bishop’s cap
Shameless scratching at the uncombed earth
Raking the godhead righteous
Silence in their wake
Silence in straight lines hanging from settler heads
Straight silence gathered, braided together, in tails
Pony, pig and whip, straight through the rumbling frequencies
Of boat bowels and cramped cabins
The species underneath each scalp identical after all
Night-tone mother and her light newborn
Curling each other flat and tight into our tangled sound
Muted howl
Song of blue flame
The brilliant headed silhouettes
Scuffling candles through a nation’s lightless dawn
Kindling fires, mass I must wake to
Fire for hot irons, pressing big-house finery wearable
Fire for railroad signals, fire in branded skin
Skin like bronze hair like lamb wool
Divisible under God
Who’s image have we been made in?
Composed for?
Orchestrated by?
Our principals eye the concertmaster
Ignore the mumbling audience situating late to their seat
Or standing-room-only stance
In this stately hall built for silence
Bald bulbs blearily focus
On our loudness
Writhing out the glowing dark
Us, a priceless all toned flood rising
To nourish everybody down to the last
Stray strand
I raise my palm in praise of the symphonic nappyness
Haloing your head
I raise my palm in praise of the God-given nappyness
Haloing your head
I raise my palm in praise of the beautiful nappyness
Haloing your head