[Intro: A plucked gut-string guitar establishes a repetitive, descending minor-key motif. After four bars, an accordion joins in.] [Verse 1: The nasally urgent vocals enter, direct, emphatic, and confessional.] I built this goddamned canoe, just to row away from you. From the camphor and velvet settee, and the arsenic green of your tapestry. That accursed tapestry. [Verse 2: ] I carved the thwarts from the cabinetry, From the remodeled bath you said was necessary I sealed the hull with the blackest pitch, to silence the tongue of my porcelain witch. [Instrumental Break: fiddle and accordion play a duet.] [Verse 3: The fiddle drops out entirely, leaving only the upset vocals.] Your whalebone stays and your laudanum haze, are the ticking clocks of my rotting days. I’d rather drink the brine from the muddy Thames, than suffer the weight of your awful gaze… That ignorant, self-righteous poisonous gaze. [Bridge: The acoustic guitar shifts to a major key, plucking out a chilling, simplistic nursery rhyme melody. The vocals shift into a fragile melody breaking at the edges of emotion.] Penny for the boatman! a shilling for the sea! bury the silver beneath the yew tree. One for the rook! and two for the crow! down to the muddy dark… down I go. down, down, down I go. [Chorus/Outro: All instruments crash back in] Let the river take the timber! let the salt take the skin! I'm trading my vows for the water’s din. mmm... the wave’s sweet din. … I built this goddamned canoe. just to row away... Row away! away from you...
