Sawdust & Diamonds By Joanna Newsom
Dropped D tuning
Em7 Cadd9
From the top of the flight
Em7 Cadd9
Of the wide white stairs
Em7 Cadd9
Through the rest of my life
Em7 Cadd9
Do you wait for me there?
Em7 Cadd9
There's a bell in my ears
Em7 Cadd9
There's the wide white roar
Em7 Cadd9
Drop a bell down the stairs
Em7 Cadd9
Hear it fall forever more
Em7 Cadd9
Hear it fall forevermore
G/D Em7
G/D Em7
Drop a bell off of the dock
G/D Em7
Blot it out in the sea
G/D Em7
Drowning mute as a rock
G/D Em7
sounding mutiny
G/D
There's a light in the wings, hits this system of strings,
Em7
from the side while they swing;
See the wires, the wires, the wires.
G/D
And the articulation in our elbows and knees
Em7
Makes us buckle and we couple in endless increase
As the audience admires
G/D
And the little white dove
Made with love, made with love
Em7
Made with glue and a glove and some pliers
G/D
Swings a low sickle arc from its perch in the dark
Em7
Settle down, settle down my desire
D
And the moment I slept
C G
I was swept up in a terrible tremor
D C
Though no longer bereft, how I shook
Em7
And i couldn't remember
D
And then the furthermost shake
Am
Drove a murdering stake in
C Em7 G
And cleft me right down through my center
D
And I shouldn't say so
C Em7
But I know that it was then or never
G/D Em7
Push me back into a tree
G/D Em7
Bind my buttons with salt
G/D Em7
Fill my long ears with bees
G/D
Braying 'please, please, please,
Em7
Oh you ought not!
No you ought not!'
G/D
And then the system of strings tugs on the tip of my wings
Em7
Cut from cardboard and old magazines
Makes me warble and rise like a sparrow.
G/D
And in the place where I stood
There is a circle of wood
Em7
A quarter to which you chop and you stack in your barrow
G/D
And it is terribly good
To carry water and chop wood
Em7
Streaked with soot, heavy booted and wild-eyed
G/D
As I crash through the rafters
And the ropes and the pulleys trail after
Em7
And the holiest, holiest belfry burns sky high
D
And then a slow lip of fire
Cadd9 G
Moves across the prairie with precision
D Cadd9
While somewhere with your pliers and glue
Em7
You make your first incision
D Am
And in a moment of almost unbearable vision
Cadd9 Em7 G
Doubled over with the hunger of lions
D
'Hold me close', cooed the dove
Cadd9 Em7
Who was stuffed now with sawdust and diamonds
Em7 D G
Asus Cadd G
I wanted to say 'why the long face?'
Asus Cadd9 G
Sparrow perch and play songs of long face
Asus Cadd9 G
Burro buck and bray songs of long face
Am Cadd9
Sings 'i will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
G
Just to lift your long face
Asus Cadd9
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
G
Your precious long face
Asus Cadd9
& though our bones they may break & our souls separate
G
Why the long face?
Asus Cadd9
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
G
Why the long face?
G/D Em7
In the trough of the waves
G/D Em7
Which are pawing like dogs
G/D Em7
Pitch we, pale-faced and grave
G/D Em7
As I write in my log.
G/D Em7
Then I hear a noise from the hull
G/D Em7
Seven days out to sea
G/D Em7
And it is the damnable bell
G/D
And it tolls, I believe, that it tolls
Em7
It tolls for me!
And it tolls for me!
G/D
And though my wrists and my waist
Seem so easy to break
Em7
Still my dear I would’ve walked you to the edge of the water
G/D
And they will recognize all the lines of your face
Em7
In the face of the daughter, of the daughter, of my daughter
G/D
And darling we will be fine
But what was yours and mine
Em7
Appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes
G/D
But if it's all just the same
Then say my name, say my name,
Em7
in the morning so that i know when the wave breaks
D
I wasn't born of a whistle
C G
Or milked from a thistle at twilight
D
No, i was all horns and thorns
C Em7
Sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright
D Asus
So enough of this terror we deserve to know light
C Em7 G
And grow evermore lighter and lighter
D
You would have seen me through
C Em7
But I could not undo that desire
D C Em7
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
D C Em7
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
D C Em7
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh desire
Em7 Cadd9
From the top of the flight
Em7 Cadd9
Of the wide white stairs
Em7 Cadd9
Through the rest of my life
Em7 Cadd9
Do you wait for me there?