Esperanza Spalding - How To (Hair) lyrics

Through my hair I'm still picking the hulls
Of Europe rained down in scattered handfuls
Their seed-meat shriveled to
A hollow rattling
Striking this already ringing land

Resonance choked by pale
Tendrils shooting off
From long lost roots once locked in nature
The stubbled senses ingrown now
Where crusader blades shore
And donned them empty headed
Beneath the bishop's cap
Shameless scratching at the uncombed earth
Raking the godhead righteous
Silence in their wake
Silence in straight lines hanging
From settler heads
Straight silence gathered, braided together
In tails pony, pig and whip
Straight through the rumbling frequencies
Of boat bowels and cramped cabins
The species underneath each scalp
Identical after all
Night-tone mother and her light newborn
Curling each other flat and tight
Into our tangled sound

Muted howl song of blue flame
The brilliant headed silhouettes
Scuffling candles through a
Nation's lightless dawn
Kindling fires, mass I must wake to

Fire for hot irons
Pressing big-house finery wearable
Fire for railroad signals
Fire in branded skin
Skin like bronze hair like lamb wool
Divisible under God

Who's image have we been made in?
Composed for? Orchestrated by?
Our principals eye the concertmaster
Ignore the mumbling audience situating
Late to their seat
Or standing-room-only stance
In this stately hall built for silence
Bald bulbs blearily focus on our loudness
Writhing out the glowing dark
Us, a priceless all toned flood rising
To nourish everybody down to the last
Stray strand

I raise my palm in praise
Of the symphonic nappyness haloing your head
I raise my palm in praise
Of the God-given nappyness haloing your head
I raise my palm in praise
Of the beautiful nappyness haloing your head