Sawdust And Diamonds chords by Joanna Newsom

Chords with lyrics

Verse 1:
        C majorC
From the top of the flight
E minorEm       C majorC
Of the wide white stairs
E minorEm       C majorC
Through the rest of my life
E minorEm       C majorC
Do you wait for me there?
E minorEm       C majorC
There's a bell in my ears
E minorEm       C majorC
There's the wide white roar
E minorEm       C majorC
Drop a bell down the stairs
E minorEm       C majorC
Hear it fall forever mor
E minorEm       C majorC
Hear it fall forevermore

Chorus:
G+G        E minorEm
G+G        E minorEm
Drop a bell off of the dock
G+G        E minorEm
Blot it out in the sea
G+G        E minorEm
Drowning mute as a rock
G+G        E minorEm
sounding mutiny
G+G
There's a light in the wings, hits this system of strings,
              E minorEm
from the side while they swing;
See the wires, the wires, the wires.

Verse:
G+G
And the articulation in our elbows and knees
E minorEm
Makes us buckle and we couple in endless increase
As the audience admires
G+G
And the little white dove
Made with love, made with love
E minorEm
Made with glue and a glove and some pliers
G+G
Swings a low sickle arc from its perch in the dark
E minorEm
Settle down, settle down my desire

Chorus:
D MajorD
And the moment I slept
C majorC            G+G
I was swept up in a terrible tremor
D MajorD                C majorC
Though no longer bereft, how I shook
         E minorEm
And i couldn't remember
D MajorD
And then the furthermost shake
A minorAm
Drove a murdering stake in
C majorC        E minorEm       G+G
And cleft me right down through my center
D MajorD
And I shouldn't say so
C majorC            E minorEm
But I know that it was then or never
G+G        E minorEm
Push me back into a tree
G+G        E minorEm
Bind my buttons with salt
G+G        E minorEm
Fill my long ears with bees
G+G
Braying 'please, please, please,
        E minorEm
Oh you ought not!
No you ought not!'
G+G
And then the system of strings tugs on the tip of my wings
               E minorEm
Cut from cardboard and old magazines
Makes me warble and rise like a sparrow.
G+G
And in the place where I stood
There is a circle of wood
             E minorEm
A augmentedA quarter to which you chop and you stack in your barrow
G+G
And it is terribly good
To carry water and chop wood
             E minorEm
Streaked with soot, heavy booted and wild-eyed
G+G
As I crash through the rafters
And the ropes and the pulleys trail after
                    E minorEm
And the holiest, holiest belfry burns sky high

Verse:
D MajorD
And then a slow lip of fire
C majorC            G+G
Moves across the prairie with precision
                    C majorC
While somewhere with your pliers and glue
                   E minorEm
You make your first incision
D MajorD            A augmentedA
And in a moment of almost unbearable vision
C majorC            E minorEm           G+G
Doubled over with the hunger of lions
D MajorD
'Hold me close', cooed the dove
     C majorC               E minorEm
Who was stuffed now with sawdust and diamonds

Chorus:
E minorEm       D MajorD               G+G
A augmentedA    C majorC   G+G
I wanted to say 'why the long face?'
A augmentedA      C majorC             G+G
Sparrow perch and play songs of long face
A augmentedA    C majorC       G+G
Burro buck and bray songs of long face
           A minorAm         C majorC
Sings 'i will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
G+G
Just to lift your long face
A augmentedA                C majorC
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
G+G
Your precious long face
A augmentedA                    C majorC
& though our bones they may break & our souls separate
G+G
Why the long face?
            A augmentedA        C majorC
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
G+G
Why the long face?

Bridge:
G+G               E minorEm
In the trough of the waves
G+G               E minorEm
Which are pawing like dogs
G+G               E minorEm
Pitch we, pale-faced and grave
G+G               E minorEm
As I write in my log.
G+G               E minorEm
Then I hear a noise from the hull
G+G               E minorEm
Seven days out to sea
G+G               E minorEm
And it is the damnable bell
G+G
And it tolls, I believe, that it tolls
       E minorEm
It tolls for me!
And it tolls for me!
G+G
And though my wrists and my waist
Seem so easy to break
       E minorEm
Still my dear I would've walked you to the edge of the water
G+G
And they will recognize all the lines of your face
       E minorEm
In the face of the daughter, of the daughter, of my daughter
G+G
And darling we will be fine
But what was yours and mine
E minorEm
Appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes
G+G
But if it's all just the same
Then say my name, say my name,
E minorEm
in the morning so that i know when the wave breaks

Chorus:
D MajorD
I wasn't born of a whistle
C majorC            G+G
Or milked from a thistle at twilight
D MajorD
No, i was all horns and thorns
          C majorC                  E minorEm
Sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright
D MajorD            A augmentedA
So enough of this terror we deserve to know light
C majorC        E minorEm       G+G
And grow evermore lighter and lighter
D MajorD
You would have seen me through
C majorC        E minorEm
But I could not undo that desire

Coda:
D MajorD    C majorC   E minorEm
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
D MajorD    C majorC   E minorEm
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
D MajorD    C majorC   E minorEm
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh desire
E minorEm       C majorC
From the top of the flight
E minorEm       C majorC
Of the wide white stairs
E minorEm       C majorC
Through the rest of my life
E minorEm       C majorC