I posted this to Facebook, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Joanna Newsom lately, so I’ll post it here, too. I adore this song, and the first video is an especially nice live performance of it. The second is the Decemberists’ cover, which I also love.
Bridges and Balloons by Joanna Newsom
Bridges and Balloons by The Decemberists
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
Oh my love
Oh 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 thimblesworth of milky moon
Can touch hearts larger than a thimble
Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
To be the ones to’ve seen
red paper boat 