Newsom, Joanna - In California Lyrics

She sounds a little bit like Kate Bush 💛🌻

makes me feel like a child again

"Sometimes I'm so in love with you." ..it's amazing part!

To spend my life in spitting distance of the love that I have known, I must stay here in an endless eventide.

Rio Ferdinand vlog brought me this far

Joanna Newsom is the best female musician of our generation
Fucking shit there are moments in this song alone that make me want to scream outside in the middle of the night

You know shes famous, just unheard. Wild one?!

i listened to "does not suffice" before i listened to the whole album straight through, so when i did, er, that, and came to this song, my jaw dropped

This song is my favourite song ever right now

One of her most stunning songs.

My heart became a drunken runt
On the day I sunk in this shunt
To tap me clean
Of all the wonder
And the sorrow I have seen
Since I left my home:

My home, on the old Milk Lake
Where the darkness does fall so fast
It feels like some kind of mistake
(Just like they told you it would;
Just like the Tulgeywood)

When I came into my land
I did not understand:
Neither dry rot, nor the burn pile
Nor the bark-beetle, nor the dry well
Nor the black bear

But there is another
Who is a little older
When I broke my bone
He carried me up from the riverside

To spend my life
In spitting-distance
Of the love that I have known
I must stay here, in an endless eventide

And if you come and see me
You will upset the order
You cannot come and see me
For I set myself apart
But when you come and see me
In California
You cross the border of my heart

Well, I have sown untidy furrows
Across my soul
But I am still a coward
Content to see my garden grow
So sweet & full
Of someone else's flowers

But sometimes
I can almost feel the power
Sometimes I am so in love with you
(Like a little clock
That trembles on the edge of the hour
Only ever calling out "Cuckoo, cuckoo")

When I called you
You, little one
In a bad way
Did you love me?
Do you spite me?
Time will tell if I can be well
And rise to meet you rightly
While, moving across my land
Brandishing themselves
Like a burning branch
Advance the tallow-colored
Walleyed deer
Quiet as gondoliers
While I wait all night, for you
In California
Watching the fox pick off my goldfish
From their sorry, golden state--
And I am no longer
Afraid of anything, save
The life that, here, awaits

I don't belong to anyone
My heart is heavy as an oil drum
And I don't want to be alone
My heart is yellow as an ear of corn
And I have torn my soul apart, from
Pulling artlessly with fool commands

Some nights
I just never go to sleep at all
And I stand
Shaking in my doorway like a sentinel
All alone
Bracing like the bow upon a ship
And fully abandoning
Any thought of anywhere
But home
My home
Sometimes I can almost feel the power
And I do love you
Is it only timing
That has made it such a dark hour
Only ever chiming out
"Cuckoo, cuckoo"?

My heart, I wear you down, I know
Gotta think straight
Keep a clean plate;
Keep from wearing down
If I lose my head
Just where am I going to lay it?

(For it has half-ruined me
To be hanging around
Here, among the daphne
Blooming out of the big brown;
I am native to it, but I'm overgrown
I have choked my roots
On the earth, as rich as roe
Here
Down in California)

nearly all her songs are much longer than the standard 3 minutes but when you’re really listening to them you can’t even tell

5:05
for personal use, please ignore, thanks.

I haven’t listen this in so long

I will never, ever forget hearing this live in Dublin on her last tour... a completely mind-blowing experience...

some nights i just never go to sleep at all...

why is no one talking about the similarity of this song with does not suffice?

helena maria i think does not suffice is a reprise

I think in certain forms of the release, the song is officially listed as "Does Not Suffice (In California, Refrain") so it's not really unknown

Simulacreage yeah i thought that too

I’m trying to listen but I can’t because I’m in such a state that the beauty of it would break me down

This reminds me of the man i loved with all of my heart

would love to play her vocal part on my violin. anyone have the sheet music?

Frankey Stew and Harvey Gunn - Sometimes - brought me here

Same man (: such a great tune especially thanks to these vocals

i wonder what itd be like to see through joanna's eyes

listen?

this song is perfection and simlutaneously hurts and heals my soul all at once. forever grateful for joanna.

No one is talking about how amazing the last minute or so of this track is

i agree

"But there is another, who is a little older, and when I broke my bone he carried me up from the river side." I love that lyric so much.

the way she says "river side" gives me chills

section beginning at 1:52 makes me cry every time without fail. pure and unbelievably sweet perfection.

I don't belong to anyone, my heart is heavy as an oil drum, and I don't want to be alone, my heart is yellow, as an ear of corn, and I have torn my soul apart, from pulling artlessly with fool commands...

Paul Cassidy 💜💜

These are better lyrics than this chick writes.

Is she singing, "my caca"? 😂😂😂

ha...poo

gang weed

That orchestra swell before the last 'cukoo's gets me every time. My heart gives a leap at the beauty of it.

Fun fact, when she sings:

Sometimes I am so in love with you
(like a little clock
that trembles on the edge of the hour,
only ever calling out "Cuckoo, cuckoo")

She's cuckooing at the one hour mark on the album.

@Ankur Chawla It's a forsaken island to you, because you like this music. I'm fine with the fact that others disagree with me. I think they have poor taste in music, but as they say, there is no accounting for taste, or a lack of it.

@Ankur Chawla BTW, I was responding to your suggestion that I listen to "Monkey and Bear". I listened to that song three times, and it was bad three times, but I'll listen to it again.

@Modern Savage25 we can make some objective claims about subjective mediums like music (or dance, visual art etc) Schopenhauers aesthetics addresses this really well but if you google 'disinterested pleasure' some spark notes on his ideas should suffice. Newsom has been a student of music (her childhood goal was to be a composer) since she was 5. Her music borrows elements from sooo many genres! She uses polyrhythms interesting rhyme schemes and immersive lyrics I dont understand how anyone can not like it, but more importantly in not liking it it might be useful to levy constructive criticisms about the constituent parts you feel fall short. This song in particular sets up a refrain that is revisited/resolved in the albums final song. Try "leaving the city" "soft as chalk" "sapokanikan" or "baby birch" I think they're more approachable and with the exception of baby birch all display objectively unique takes on the musical styles they're derivative of....I was a bug dumb 4loko drinking lax bro when I first heard JN and it grabbed meimmediately, I understand her voice is unconventional but shes so damn talented

Modern Savage25 your long comment about song structures is what I call a lazy pile of convoluted garbage. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense.

@Modern Savage25 you're reading every indicator incorrectly

I have torn my soul apart form pulling artlessly with fool commands

Right?! I can't wait until I can just get buried and lost in her music!

Sounds like she's doing Tim Buckley.

The best song on this album

Tough, with _Baby Birch_ and _Have One on Me._

You and Me Bess and Easy and 81

It Does Not Suffice is the best song on the album. It's the reason for the album. It is album. But it wouldn't work without the other songs on the album, especially the songs Dino and Ash mentioned, so I give due respect to those too.

This is one outstanding and breathtaking composition.

unfortunately, undisciplined hippies dont seem to aprecciate that

@Ungoliant Marauder But I'm an undisciplined hippy and love this

This is one of her songs I just want to study - both musically and lyrically. So beautiful. Her singing has gotten more sophisticated over the years. Anyone who thinks its child-like, needs to listen to other soprano singers. My one critique to her voice is the over-vibrato sometimes. 

Kevin Forgard I am a soprano, and my main goal in life is to sing like either Joanna Newsom or Shara Nova (from My Brightest Diamond)

Brilliant writing

she's the greatest living lyricist

this is a masterpiece

no comment.

+dead chic ...

i dont belong to anyone, my heart is heavy as an oil drum