Joanna Newsom - In California lyrics

My heart became a drunken runt
On the day I sunk in this
Shunt to tap me clean
Of all the wonder and the sorrow I have seen
Since I left my home:

My home on the old Milk Lake
Where the darkness does fall so fast it
Feels like some kind of mistake
Just like they told you it would
Just like the Tulgey Wood

When I came into my land
I did not understand
Neither dry rot, nor the burn pile
Nor the bark-beetle, nor the dry well
Nor the black bear

But there is another who is a little older
When I broke my bone
He carried me up from the riverside
To spend my life in spitting distance of
The love that I have known
I must stay here in an endless eventide
And if you come and see me
You will upset the order
You cannot come and see me
For I set myself apart
But when you come and see me in California
You cross the border of my heart
Well, I have sown untidy
Furrows across my soul
But, I am still a coward
Content to see my garden grow so sweet
And full of someone else's flowers
Sometimes I can almost feel the power
Sometimes I am so in love with you
Like a little clock that trembles on
The edge of the hour
Only ever calling out, "Cuckoo, cuckoo"

When I called you, you little one
In a bad way
Did you love me, do you spite me?
Time will tell if I can be well
And rise to meet you rightly

While moving across my land
Brandishing themselves like a burning branch
Advance the tallow-colored, walleyed deer
Quiet as gondoliers

While I wait all night for you in California
Watching the fox pick off my
Goldfish from their sorry, golden state
And I am no longer afraid of anything
Save the life that, here, await's
I don't belong to anyone
My heart is heavy as an oil drum
And I don't want to be alone
My heart is yellow as an ear of corn
And I have torn my soul apart
From pulling artlessly with fool commands
Some nights I just never go to sleep at all
And I stand
Shaking in my doorway like a sentinel
All alone bracing like the bow upon a
Ship and fully abandoning
Any thought of anywhere but home, my home
Sometimes I can almost feel the power
And I do love you
Is it only timing that has made
It such a dark hour

Only ever chiming out, "Cuckoo, cuckoo"?
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo-koo
My cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo-koo
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo-koo
My cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo-koo

My heart, I wear you down, I know
Gotta think straight, keep a clean plate
Keep from wearing down, if I lose my head
Just where am I going to lay it?
For it has half-ruined me
To be hanging around
Here among the daphne blooming out
Of the big brown
I am native to it, but I'm overgrown
I have choked my roots on the
Earth as rich as roe
Here, down in California