In California Lyrics - Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom

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.)