Only Skin Lyrics - Ys - Joanna Newsom

Only Skin 

And there was a booming above you 

That night, black airplanes flew over the sea 

And they were lowing and shifting like 

Beached whales 

Shelled snails 

As you strained and you squinted to see 

The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry 

You froze in your sand shoal 

Prayed for your poor soul 

Sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl 

And when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke 

My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke 

And there was a silence you took to mean something: 

Run, sing 

For alive you will evermore be 

And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin' 

Has gone east 

While you're left to explain them to me 

Released from their hairless and blind cavalry 

With your hands in your pockets, stubbily running 

To where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning 

Well, what is this craziness? This crazy talking? 

You caught some small death when you were sleepwalking 

It was a dark dream, darlin', it's over 

The firebreather is beneath the clover 

Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever 

A toothless hound-dog choking on a feather 

But I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever) 

Down to the swimminghole, where there grows bitter herb 

That blooms but one day a year by the riverside - i'd bring it here: 

Apply it gently 

To the love you've lent me 

While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed 

And the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze 

And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly 

Gone treacly 

Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat 

- in a frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath 

Press on me: we are restless things 

Webs of seaweed are swaddling 

And you call upon the dusk 

Of the musk of a squid 

Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib 

Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes 

I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it! 

Smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened 

Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking 

And when the fire moves away 

Fire moves away, son 

Why would you say 

I was the last one? 

Scrape your knee; it is only skin 

Makes the sound of violins 

And when I cut your hair, and leave the birds all of the trimmings 

I am the happiest woman among all women 

And the shallow 

Water 

Stretches as far as I can see 

Knee-deep, trudging along 

The seagull weeps; "so long" 

I'm humming a threshing song 

Until the night is over 

Hold on! 

Hold on! 

Hold your horses back from the fickle dawn 

I have got some business out at the edge of town 

Candy weighing both of my pockets down 

'Til I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them 

(and knowing how the common-folk condemn 

What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm 

Being a woman, being a woman) 

But always up the mountainside you're clambering 

Groping blindly, hungry for anything: 

Picking through your pocket linings - well, what is this? 

Scrap of sassafras, eh sisyphus? 

I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain 

Little sister, he will be back again 

I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain 

Spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangelin' 

Silently from all the blooming cherry trees 

In tiny nooses, safe from everyone 

- nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done 

Be a woman, be a woman! 

Though we felt the spray of the waves 

We decided to stay till the tide rose too far 

We weren't afraid, cause we know what you are 

And you know that we know what you are 

Awful atoll 

O, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow! 

Bawl, bellow: 

Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow 

Toddle and roll; 

Teeth an impalpable bit of leather 

While yarrow, heather and hollyhock 

Awkwardly molt along the shore 

Are you mine? 

My heart? 

Mine anymore? 

Stay with me for awhile 

That's an awfully real gun 

I know life will lay you down 

As the lightning has lately done 

Failing this, failing this, 

Follow me, my sweetest friend 

To see what you anointed in pointing your gun there 

Lay it down! Nice and slow! 

There is nowhere to go, save up 

Up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream 

At the sight of my baby, out back: 

Back on the patio watching the bats bring night in 

- while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white 

Wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped 

Last week our picture window produced a half-word 

Heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird 

We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake 

And pant and labour over every intake 

I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace 

Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place 

Said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you 

And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view" 

Then in my hot hand 

She slumped her sick weight 

We tramped through the poison oak 

Heartbroke and inchoate 

The dogs were snapping 

And you cuffed their collars 

While I climbed the tree-house 

Then how I hollered! 

Well she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two 

Then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew 

(while, back in the world that moves, often 

According to the hoarding of these clues 

Dogs still run roughly around 

Little tufts of finch-down) 

And the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland 

But his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless 

While down in the lowlands the crops are all coming; 

We have everything 

Life is thundering blissful towards death 

In a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness 

You stopped by, I was all alive 

In my doorway, we shucked and jived 

And when you wept, I was gone: 

See, I got gone when I got wise 

But I can't with certainty say we survived 

Then down, and down 

And down, and down 

And down, and deeper 

Stoke without sound 

The blameless flames 

You endless sleeper 

Through fire below, and fire above, and fire within 

Sleeped through the things that couldn't have been if you hadn't have been 

And when the fire moves away 

Fire moves away, son 

And why would you say 

I was the last one? 

All my bones they are gone, gone, gone 

Take my bones, I don't need none 

Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on! 

Suck all day on a cherry stone 

Dig a little hole, not three inches round 

Spit your pit in a hole in the ground 

Weep upon the spot for the starving of me! 

Till up grow a fine young cherry tree 

Well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me? 

A little willow cabin to rest on your knee 

What'll I do with a trinket such as this? 

Think of your woman, who's gone to the west 

But I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed! 

Then i'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head 

Come across the desert with no shoes on! 

I love you truly, or I love no-one 

Fire 

Moves 

Away 

Fire moves away, son 

Why would you say 

That I was the last one? 

Last one 

Clear the room! There's a fire, a fire, a fire 

Get going, and I'm going to be right behind you 

And if the love of a woman or two, dear, 

Couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do 

Is do, my darling, right by you