Joanna Newsom – Waltz Of The 101St Lightborne (Guitar)

  Am                Bb            Gm   Bb
I believed they had got what they came for;

    F          Bb        Dm       
I believed our peril was done

       Am         Bb          Gm    Bb
On the eve of the last of the Great Wars

      F            Bb       Dm
After three we had narrowly won

         F             Bb         F
(But the fourth It was carelessly done.)

  F   Am  Dm          Gm           C D#
I saw his ship in its whistling ascension

        G#                F       G7
As they launched from the Capitol seat–

        Bb         E
Swear I saw our mistake

         A      Dm            Bb
When the clouds draped like a flag

           D#           F
Across the backs of the fleet

       Bb            D#         F
Of the Hundred-First Lightborne Elite

       Am     Bb
As the day is long

       Dm        F
So the well runs dry

       D#                  Bb
And we came to see Time is taller

     F        C
Than Space is wide

       Am      Bb
And we bade goodbye

       Dm    F
To the Great Divide:

        D#           Bb         F   C
Found unlimited simulacreage to colonize!

                Am           Bb            Gm  Bb
But there was a time we were lashed to the prow

     F            Bb             Dm
Of a ship you may board, but not steer

       Am        Bb        Gm   Bb 
Before you and I ceased to mean now

      F           Bb         Dm
And began to mean only right Here

        F          Bb             F
To mean Inches and Miles, but not Years

F Am   Dm          Gm           C D#
Before Space has a taste of its limits

      G#            F          G7
And a new sort of coordinate awoke

        Bb         E           A Dm
Leaving Time just another poor tenant:

       Bb             D#             F
Bearing weight, taking fire, trading smokes

       Bb          D#         F
In the war between us and our ghosts

              Am     Bb            Dm      F
But I saw the Bering Strait and the Golden Gate

   D#        Bb               F      C
In silent suspension of their golden age!

            Am     Bb         Dm       F
And you can barely tell, if I guard it well

      D#      Bb                F       C
Where I have been, and seen Pristine, unfelled.

        Am           Bb            Gm Bb
I had a dream that I walked in the garden

      F              Bb        Dm
Of Chabot, and those telescope ruins

       Am           Bb           Gm   Bb
It was there that I called to my true love

        F          Bb      Dm
Who was pale as millennial moons

       F             Bb           F
Honey, where did you come by that wound?

F   Am Dm           Gm
When I woke, he was gone

        C       D#
And the War had begun

   G#        F          G7
In eternal return and repeat

         Bb           E            A        Dm
Calling, Where in the hell are the rest of your fellow

    Bb          D#         F
One Hundred-One Lightborne Elite?

               Bb           D#         F
Stormed in the New Highland Light Infantry

        Am       Bb
Make it stop, my love!

        Dm       F
We were wrong to try

      D#                Bb
Never saw what we could unravel

   F         C
In traveling light

            Am   Bb
Nor how the trip debrides–

       Dm       F
Like a stack of slides!

       D#                   Bb          F        C
All we saw was that Time is taller than Space is wide

                  Am         Bb          Gm Bb
That's why we are bound to a round desert island

           F             Bb           Dm
'neath the sky where our sailors have gone

          Am                Bb    Gm  Bb
Have they drowned, in those windy highlands?

F          Bb      F
Highlands away, my John

F          Bb      Dm
Highlands away, my John

D#        Bb       F 
Highlands away, my John