JOANNA NEWSON AND JAMES JOYCE

Joanna Newsom’s song “Time, a Symptom” on her Divers album contains reference to the closing passage of the Wake: “Joy! Again, around–a pause, a sound–a song: a way a lone a last a loved a long“.

ime passed hard
And the task was the hardest thing she'd ever do
But she forgot
The moment she saw you

So it would seem to be true
When cruel birth debases, we forget
When cruel death debases
We believe it erases all the rest
that precedes

But stand brave, life-liver
Bleeding out your days
In the river of time
Stand brave
Time moves both ways

In the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
Joy of life
The nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
Joy of life

The moment of your greatest joy sustains
Not axe nor hammer
Tumor, tremor
Can take it away, and it remains
It remains

And it pains me to say, I was wrong
Love is not a symptom of time
Time is just a symptom of love

(And the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
Joy of life
The nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
Joy of life)

Hardly seen, hardly felt
Deep down where your fight is waiting
Down 'till the light in your eyes is fading
Joy of life
Where I know that you can yield, when it comes down to it
Bow like the field when the combs through it
Joy of life
And every little gust that chances through
Will dance in the dust of me and you
With joy of life
And in our perfect secret-keeping
One ear of corn
In silent, reaping
Joy of life

Joy
Again, around–a pause, a sound–a song
A way a lone a last a loved a long
A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend
(Areion, Rharian, go free and graze
Amen)

A shore, a tide, unmoored–a sight, abroad
A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god)
No time, no flock, no chime, no clock, no end
White star, white ship nightjar, transmit, transcend

White star, white ship–nightjar, transmit, transcend
White star, white ship–nightjar, transmit, transcend
White star, white ship–nightjar, transmit, trans