Song Share: The Sprout and the Bean

By Jake Parker

Here's one: The Sprout and the Bean by Joanna Newsom from her first album: The Milk Eye'd Mender.

A bit about her from Wikipedia:
Newsom's vocal style (in the November 2006 issue of The Wire she described her voice as "untrainable") has shadings of folk and appalachian shaped-note timbres. Newsom has, however, expressed disappointment at comments that her singing is "child-like." Some reviewers have stated that her voice is distracting in juxtaposition to her harp playing.

I say it's a sublime juxtaposition. I love all of her songs as they make for great drawing music. I must have listened to The Sprout and the Bean half a hundred times while making my comic The Robot and the Sparrow. I think it's the bedtime story quality to her songs that I love so much.



Lyrics:
I slept all day
awoke with distaste
and I railed,
and I raved

That the difference between
the sprout and the bean
is a golden ring,
it is a twisted string.
And you can ask the counsellor;
you can ask the king;
and they'll say the same thing;
and it's a funny thing:

Should we go outside?
Should we go outside?
Should we break some bread?
Are y'interested?

And as I said,
I slept as though dead
dreaming seamless dreams of lead.

When you go away,
I am big-boned and fey
in the dust of the day,
in the dirt of the day.

and Danger! Danger! Drawing near them was a white coat,
and Danger! Danger! drawing near them was a broad boat,
And the water! water! running clear beneath a white throat,
and the hollow chatter of the talking of the Tadpoles,

who know th'outside!
Should we go outside?
Should we break some bread?
Are y'interested?