Lyrics Joanna Newsom – Time, As A Symptom

Time passed hard,
and the task was the hardest thing she’d ever do.
But she forgot,
the moment she saw you.

So it would seem to be true:
when cruel birth debases, we forget.
When cruel death debases,
we believe it erases all the rest
that precedes.

But stand brave, life-liver,
bleeding out your days
in the river of time.
Stand brave:
time moves both ways,

in the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
joy of life;
the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
joy of life.

The moment of your greatest joy sustains:
not axe nor hammer,
tumor, tremor,
can take it away, and it remains.
It remains.

And it pains me to say, I was wrong.
Love is not a symptom of time.
Time is just a symptom of love

(and the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
joy of life;
the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
joy of life).

Hardly seen, hardly felt–
deep down where your fight is waiting,
down ’till the light in your eyes is fading:
joy of life.
Where i know that you can yield, when it comes down to it;
bow like the field when the wind combs through it:
joy of life.
And every little gust that chances through
will dance in the dust of me and you,
with joy-of-life.
And in our perfect secret-keeping:
One ear of corn,
in silent, reaping
joy of life.

Joy! Again, around–a pause, a sound–a song:
a way a lone a last a loved a long.
A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend.
(Areion, Rharian, go free and graze. Amen.)

A shore, a tide, unmoored–a sight, abroad:
A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god).
No time. No flock. No chime, no clock. No end.
White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!

White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: trans