Lyrics for Emily as interpreted by delial

Emily Lyrics
The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow
Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh
A little while later the Pharisees dragged comb through the meadow
Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?

There is a rusty light on the pines tonight
Sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow
Down into the bones of the birches
And the spires of the churches
Jutting out from the shadows
The yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks and the bale and the barrow
And everything sloped like it was dragged from a rope
In the mouth of the south below

We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey
We thought our very hearts would up and melt away
From that snow in the nighttime
Just going
And going
And the stirring of wind chimes
In the morning
In the morning
Helps me find my way back in
From the place where I have been

And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror

Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Thoough all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades loosed in December
I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember

That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee

And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee

You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I'm in
Threw the window wide and cried, "Amen! Amen! Amen!"
The whole world stopped to hear you hollering
You looked down and saw now what was happening

The lines are fading in my kingdom
(Though I have never known the way to border them in)
So the muddy mouths of baboons and sows and the grouse and the horse and the hen
Grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen
And the mail is late and the great estates are not lit from within
The talk in town's becoming downright sickening

In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare
I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there
And row through the nighttime
Gone healthy
Gone healthy all of a sudden
In search of the midwife
Who could help me
Who could help me
Help me find my way back in
There are worries where I've been

Say, say, say in the lee of the bay; don't be bothered
Leave your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water
(Flanked by furrows, curling back, like a match held up to a newspaper)
Emily, they'll follow your lead by the letter
And I make this claim, and I'm not ashamed to say I know you better
What they've seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter

Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever
Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning
There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning

Come on home, the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now
Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow
Peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow
With hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up-a their brow

And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour
The butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours
And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines
Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines

Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight
The way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light
Squint skyward and listen
Loving him, we move within his borders
Just asterisms in the stars' set order

We could stand for a century
Staring
With our heads cocked
In the broad daylight at this thing
Joy
Landlocked
In bodies that don't keep
Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being
Until we don't be told
Take this
Eat this

Told
The meteorite is the source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee

And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee



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SylvieRose
02-05-2007

 Rated  0 
Um, I was wondering what you guys make of the references to motherhood and pregnancy in this song. She mentions going in search of a midwife and 'motherlessness'. I'm going to see her on Sunday and I've been listening to Ys a lot. I've got all the songs rattling around in my head but those few references in 'Emily' stood out to me for some reason. Any thoughts?

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Neuron_Chimpsky
02-06-2007

 Rated  0 
Van Dyke Parks is great in this song! But of course not without Joanna Newsom who worked with him for a long time to literally make you feel as if he was painting a picture according to the words. It's such a great effect.
In the only phrases that are repeated in the song, I think of how this life can be decieving. As you're growing up with whatever faith you were brought up in, other beliefs begin to tug at you from all sides. So while life is inviting you to believe that there is so much more besides what you see upfront, she eventually realizes that the old religious dogma of life after death, spirits, God and heaven are all void.

Meteorite is our sense of wonder. We cause the light. The meteor is how we percieve things to be; in the world 'out there'. The meteoroid is the cold hard honest truth. In the end there is only void.

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Neuron_Chimpsky
02-06-2007

 Rated  0 
when she talks about a midwife, i imagine it in the same context as Soctrates being a midwife. Someone to help her in the right direction.

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Poprock_Kiss
02-06-2007

 Rated  0 
I think that Joanna could possibly be discussing the similarities between herself and Emily Dickinson.
One of the main parts that pointed me in this direction was "Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being", as Dickinson often claimed that she enjoyed simply living, and that was enough.

As well, this may explain the parts about "finding her way back in", and the parts discussing the talk in the town, etc, as Dickinson lived alone for large parts of her life, and some even speculated she may've been crazy, which would all fit these lyrics.

Just what I think, anyway.

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emdog
02-12-2007

 Rated  0 
With the midwife part, "In search of the midwife...Help me find my way back in", i thought it might have something to do with going back in the womb, like returning home.

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Annelise
02-13-2007

 Rated  0 
Now that is clever. I would not be surprised if both you and Neuron were right...

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kabl00ey
03-22-2007

 Rated  0 
Simply amazing. As a Kiwi currently living in Germany I find the distance theme, with her sister a sometime resident of New Zealand, curiously familiar. I first heard this on a student radio station back in NZ, and it perpetually reminds me of home.

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kabl00ey
03-22-2007

 Rated  0 
And Annelise: I don't think I've ever quite read so many supportive/positive comments on the interweb. Thank you; it makes for enjoyable reading!

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all/your/friends
03-23-2007

 Rated  0 
"We could stand for a century
Staring
With our heads cocked
In the broad daylight at this thing
Joy
Landlocked
In bodies that don't keep
Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being
Until we don't be told
Take this
Eat this"

There is something about that part of the song that is just too gorgeous, and I think it's power would be diminished if it was part of a 4-minute song. The length provides the space for these little gems of stanzas to surprise us. Its just that feeling when life is so beautiful and you feel so small, that you just want to bask in it. The stars are so large and permanent, whereas the line "in bodies that don't keep" is reminiscent of all of the cycles of life and death she refers to within nature and the harvest. Our bodies betray us, with diesease and death, and somehow we have to reckon with the temporary.

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Superbuggg
03-27-2007

 Rated  0 
The line 'And everything sloped like it was dragged from a rope In the mouth of the south below' is clearly a description of menstruation - I can't quite seed it in to the rest of the lyrics and deivulge the complete meaning though. Maybe just teenage poetry eh?

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holbytla
04-03-2007

 Rated  0 
After listening to "Emily" far too many times I looked up Hydrocephalitic in the dictionary and found the following definition:

"A usually congenital condition in which an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the cerebral ventricles causes enlargement of the skull and compression of the brain, destroying much of the neural tissue."

I marvel at how Joanna A) even knows what that is and (I sure didn't) and B) can actually use it in a song and it be perfect.

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macramebird
04-07-2007

 Rated  0 
this woman is so fascinating to me. one of her best.

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catherine k
04-29-2007

 Rated  0 
This is one of the only songs I've heard that makes me imagine a whole elaborate scene and characters and a mood and... yeah. This is just an amazing song.

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manoskats
06-16-2007

 Rated  0 
i have recently discovered joanna,it took her music some time to reach greece.there are parts in this song so beautiful that bring tears to my eyes.now,since we are at songmeanings,here are my ideas:

the bit about meteors and meteorites must be a symbolism for her relationship with her sister.the meteor is the actual relationship,the time they spent together,which must have been fiery.
the meteorite is the source of their close relationship,the inner connection,the truth they share.
and the meteoroid is the memory that left is now that she is gone,seems like a dead rock devoid from the fire.

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manoskats
06-16-2007

 Rated  0 
the references to motherhood:
'my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines'(DAMN what a lyric)
motherlessness means not that she doesnt have a mother,but that she's feeling like a mother away from her child,now that her younger sister is gone.

'In search of the midwife
Who could help me
Who could help me
Help me find my way back in'

back ''in'' means outside the sweetness of being(the illusion?),so back in the womb,the place of absolute safety and warmth,so...death?anyway,she pictures a midwife as the medium for getting out of this world(and back in),which is a beautiful inversion.

actually,this part as well as the references to water and river reminded me a lot of henry james,but i'm sure thats just me.but in that case,the looming lake would be the place where you come into the world;-)

yeah i know,i went too far...

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manoskats
06-16-2007

 Rated  0 
the part
'Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor'
must mean that ,ok,lets part,since there is nothing else to do.lets go out to the world and try to leave our mark,make our lives worth living,even though we know its hopeless.and so her sister left,sailing her great ship towards the morning.

or perhaps,but less likely,parting with her sister is hopeless,since 'The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever'

anyway,its amazing how smoothly she transfers from sthing so personal,the relationship with her sister,to notions on the 'human condition',common for all people.you can just barely understand this transfer,and this is because we sense a strange familiarity in the lyrics(and of course-her voice),even when shes speaking about her childhood.

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manoskats
06-21-2007

 Rated  0 
i've just reread what i wrote and i was terrified!!
two posts back,instead of 'henry james',i meant 'henry miller.

not that anyone read my posts.i am a few months late it seems.
feels like i'm walking down empty corridors,my only company the ever-repeating ghosts of your conversations.its like i'm in ''the ivention of morel'
:(

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Annelise
07-16-2007

 Rated  0 
Aww. I just read them, if that makes you feel any better...

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The Bandini
07-23-2007

 Rated  0 
I think this song is about shifting "realities" through history, and the final dissolution of any idea of meta-narrative in the postmodern era.

In the end, to find out that you aren't actually looking at the meteorite when you see it, shows us that the names of all the pretty objects through history are transient, and never really what we think they are from our point of view.

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manoskats
07-30-2007

 Rated  0 
Yes it does!
Seems i'm not alone in this universe..

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andyh3930
09-13-2007

 Rated  0 
I think the stanzas:
--------------------------
And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror

Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
-----------------------------
Joanna is thinking back to when they were children. She remembers Emily, the scientist wondering what makes certain stones skim and others sink trying work out a pattern to why this should be and Joanna, the artist is worried about interrupting her sisters contemplations but does anyway and Emily tries to teach where sister about the stars. Which takes us into the beautiful verse about meteors.

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sifellt neytandi
10-06-2007

 Rated  0 
Two things: I think the meteorite/meteor/meteoroid thing is a true mistake -- not done on purpose. I know some have romanticized it by saying that she purposely got it wrong, but that would have defeated the whole point of "put[ting] it to verse so that I'd always remember." It wouldn't rhyme.

Also, what is that instrument being played at the 9:45 mark? It sounds like a spring: boing boing.

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1 Reply  · 
andyh3930
10-10-2007

 Rated  0 
I'm not sure about it being a mistake if you read Ritchell's comment on page 1 it makes more sense.

And the meteorite's just what causes the light.....
The thing we find on the ground, the meteorite caused the light

And the meteor's how it's perceived....
We see the light and call it a meteor

And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee....
This is the state of the stone before it enters the atmosphere lying quiet waiting to be seen.

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awfulatoll
10-13-2007

 Rated  0 
what does "rangily" meam? anyone?

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zoeface
11-06-2007

 Rated  0 
I think the 'boing boing' instrument that sifellt neytandi mentions is used to highlight what she's singing at that time. She uses the word 'pa' which sounds like a very southern kind of slang to me, and she's talking about when she was little. I like it, it makes that little segment sound very childlike and innocent. It adds feeling too.

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