Colleen - Joanna Newsom.mp3

[00:14.70]I'll tell it as I best know how,
[00:17.89]And that's the way it was told to me: I
[00:22.35]Must have been a thief or a whore,
[00:24.82]Then surely was thrown overboard,
[00:28.21]Where, they say,
[00:29.33]I came this way from the deep blue sea.
[00:34.70]It picked me up and tossed me round.
[00:37.87]I lost my shoes and tore my gown,
[00:41.37]I forgot my name,
[00:42.57]And drowned.
[00:44.09]Then woke up with the surf a - pounding;
[00:47.85]It seemed I had been run aground.
[00:53.58]Well they took me in and shod my feet
[00:56.38]And taught me prayers for chastity
[01:00.45]And said my name would be Colleen, and
[01:05.46]I was blessed among all women,
[01:09.47]To have forgotten everything.
[01:22.53]And as the weeks and months ensued
[01:25.92]I tried to make myself of use.
[01:29.27]I tilled and planted, but could not produce -
[01:31.77]not root, nor leaf, nor flower, nor bean; Lord!
[01:35.82]It seemed I overwatered everything.
[01:39.25]And I hate the sight of that empty air,
[01:42.10]like stepping for a missing stair
[01:45.95]and falling forth forever blindly:
[01:50.95]cannot grab hold of anything! No,
[01:54.48]Not I, most blessed among Colleens.
[02:07.91]I dream some nights of a funny sea,
[02:11.33]as soft as a newly born baby.
[02:14.53]It cries for me pitifully!
[02:17.31]And I dive for my child with a wildness in me,
[02:21.91]and am so sweetly there received.
[02:24.73]But last night came a different dream;
[02:27.52]a gray and sloping-shouldered thing
[02:31.36]said "What's cinched 'round your waist, Colleen?
[02:36.15]is that my very own baleen?
[02:39.25]No! Have you forgotten everything?"
[02:52.96]This morning, 'round the cape at dawn,
[02:56.28]some travellers sailed into town
[02:59.70]with scraps for sale and the saddest songs
[03:02.40]and a book of pictures, leather-bound, that
[03:05.49]showed a whale with a tusk a meter long.
[03:09.93]Well, I asked the man who showed it me,
[03:12.52]"What is the name of that strange beast?"
[03:16.29]He said its name translated roughly to
[03:21.36]He-Who-Easily-Can-Curve-Himself-Against-The-Sky.
[03:28.88]And I am without words.
[03:30.46]He said, "My lady looks perturbed.
[03:34.53](the light is in your eyes, Colleen.)"
[03:39.08]I said, "Whatever can you mean?"
[03:42.06]He leaned in and said,
[03:43.87]"You ain't forgotten everything."
[04:08.85]"You dare to speak a lady's name?"
[04:11.95]He said, "My lady is mistaken.
[04:15.53]I would not speak your name in this place;
[04:18.01]and if I were to try then the wind - I swear -
[04:21.01]would rise, to tear you clean from me without a trace."
[04:25.42]"Have you come, then, to rescue me?"
[04:27.98]He laughed and said, "from what, 'Colleen'?"
[04:31.81]You dried and dressed most willingly.
[04:36.79]you corseted, and caught the dread disease
[04:40.60]by which one comes to know such peace."
[04:43.84]Well, it's true that I came to know such things as
[04:46.62]the laws which govern property
[04:50.41]and herbs to feed the babes that wean,
[04:55.57]and the welting weight for every season;
[04:59.03]but still
[04:59.97]I don't know any goddamned "Colleen."
[05:12.14]Then dive down there with the lights to lead
[05:14.68]that seem to shine from everything -
[05:18.90]down to the bottom of the deep blue sea;
[05:23.48]down where your heart beats so slow,
[05:27.85]and you never in your life have felt so free.
[05:30.63]Will you come down there with me?
[05:32.45]Down were our bodies start to seem like
[05:36.77]artifacts of some strange dream,
[05:41.28]which afterwards you can't decipher,
[05:44.29]and so, soon, have forgotten
[05:47.31]Everything.