Lyrics Autumn - Joanna Newsom

Autumn

Driven through by her own sword
Summer died last night, alone
Even the ghosts
Huddled up for warmth
Autumn has come to my hometown
Friendly voices, dead and gone
Singing, Star of the country down…
(Even the ghosts help raise the barn
Here, now, in my hometown)
When, out of the massing
That bodes and bides, in the cold west
Flew a waxwing, who froze
And died against my breast!
All the while, rain
Like a weed in the tide
Swans and lists, down
On the gossiping lawns
Saying tsk tsk tsk
I may have changed.
It’s hard to gauge
Time won’t account for how I’ve aged
Would I could tie your lying tongue
Who says that leaving keeps you young
I have got no control
Over my heart, over my mind
Over the hills, the rainclouds roll
I’ll winter here, wait for a sign
To cast myself
Out, over the water
Riven like a wishbone
You’d hardly guess
I was my own mother’s daughter;
I ain’t naturally given to roam
I lay low, when I return
And I move
Like a gurney
Whose wheels are squeaking
Alone, here in my home
And I laugh
When you speak of my
Pleasure-seeking
Among the tall pines
Along the ley-lines
Here, where the loon keens
There, where the moon leans
There
Where I know my violent love lays down
In a row of silent, dove-gray days
Here, in a row of silent, dove-gray days
Wherever I go, I am snowbound
By thoughts of him
Whom I would sun
I loved them all
One by one
Cannot gain ground
Cannot outrun;
But time marches along
You can’t always stick around
But, when the final count is done
I will be in my hometown
I will be in my hometown