Bridges and Balloons

Artist

Joanna Newsom

Album

The Milk-Eyed Mender

Lyrics

We sailed away on a winter’s day
with fate as malleable as clay;
but ships are fallible, I say,
and the nautical, like all things, fades

And I can recall our caravel:
a little wicker beetle shell
with four fine maste and lateen sails,
its bearings on Cair Paravel

O my love,
O it was a funny little thing
to be the ones to’ve seen.

The sight of bridges and balloons
makes calm canaries irritable;
they caw and claw all afternoon:
“Catenaries and dirigibles
brace and buoy the living-room —
a loom of metal, warp – woof – wimble.”
And a thimbles worth of milky moon
can touch hearts larger than a thimble.

O my love,
O it was a funny little thing
to be the ones to’ve seen

Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
It was a funny, funny little thing
To be the ones to’ve seen