Songtext No provenance Joanna Newsom

No provenance

Allelu, allelu
I have died happy
And lived to tell the tale to you
I have slept for forty years
And woke to find me gone
I woke safe and warm in your arms
In your arms, your arms, in your arms

Not informed of the natural law
Squatting, lordly, on a stool, in a stall
We spun gold clear out of straw
And, when our bales of bullion were stored
You burned me like a barn
I burned safe and warm in your arms
In your arms, your arms

I'm afraid of the Big Return
There's a certain conversation lost
And that loss incurred
With nobody remaining
To register who had passed this way
In the night, in the middle of the night
Negating their grace and their sight
Till only I remember, or mark
How we had our talk

We took our ride
So that there was no-one home
And the lights of Rome
Flickered and died
And, what's more I believe that you knew it, too
I think you saw their flares
And kept me safely unawares
In your arms, your arms, in your arms

The grass was tall, and strung with burrs
I essayed that high sashay
Which in my mind, was my way
You hung behind, in yours
Anyhow, she did not neigh
I do not know
What drew our eyes to hers
That little black mare did not stir
Till I lay down in your arms

Poor old dirty little dog-size horse
Swaying and wheezing
As a matter of course
Swaying and wheezing
As a matter of pride
That poor old nag
Not four palms wide
Had waited a long time

Coated in salt
Buckled like a ship
Run foul of the fence
In the middle of the night
She'd sprung up
No provenance
Bearing the whites of her eyes
And you, with your 'arrangement' with Fate
Nodded sadly at her lame assault
On that steady old gate
Her faultlessly etiolated fishbelly-face
The muzzle of a ghost
And, pretty Johnny Appleseed
Via satellite feed
Tell us, who was it that you then loved the most
Pretty Johnny Appleseed
Leave a trail that leads
Straight back down to the farm
Lay me down safe and warm in your arms
In your arms