Coats of bouclé, jacquard and cashmere; cartouche and tweed, all silver shot — and everything that could remind you of how easy I was not. - Joanna Newsom

Have you come, then, to rescue me?"
He laughed and said, "from what, 'Colleen'?" You dried and dressed most willingly.
You corseted, and caught the dread disease
by which one comes to know such peace.

In martial wind, and in clarion rain, we minced into battle, wincing in pain; not meant for walking, backs bound in twine:
not angel or devil,
but level, in time.

I don't necessarily see the elements that I invoke on the cover and in the songs as being in binary opposition. I know certain binary tensions emerge between these elements, but a lot of times they're more like archetypal elements; these free-standing, huge forces. Mortality, standing alone, as a thing; as opposed to, "Over here's life; over here's death. Here's bad luck, but here's blessing and redemption. Here's water; here's fire." Certainly those things come up again and again in the songs, but it's not intentional, and probably has more to do with the fact that those things emerge in real life, without any effort on our part whatsoever, than they are derived from any classical tradition. I think classicism in general might reflect more closely the natural order of human life, while postmodernism is somehow removed from the natural order, more cerebral and sterile, removed from real life on some level. So what seems like classicism in some of these songs might be just what I view as an accurate reflection of real life on this planet.