Only Skin - Joanna Newsom.mp3

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[00:06.570]And there was a booming above you
[00:11.690]That night black airplanes flew over the sea
[00:19.135]And they were lowing and shifting like
[00:22.844]Beached whales
[00:24.725]Shelled snails
[00:26.684]As you strained and you squinted to see
[00:30.576]The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry
[00:37.368]You froze in your sand shoal
[00:41.260]Prayed for your poor soul
[00:45.283]Sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl
[00:50.011]And when the bread broke
[00:52.911]Fell in bricks of wet smoke
[00:57.091]My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke
[01:03.386]Then there was a silence you took to mean something
[01:08.402]Run, sing
[01:10.335]For alive you will evermore be
[01:15.402]And the plague of the greasy black engines a skulking has gone east
[01:22.821]While you're left to explain them to me
[01:26.139]Released
[01:28.385]From their hairless and blind cavalry
[01:31.990]With your hands in your pockets
[01:35.752]Stubbily running
[01:39.644]To where I'm unfresh
[01:41.838]Undressed and yawning
[01:43.954]Well, what is this craziness?
[01:46.932]This crazy talking?
[01:50.615]You caught some small death
[01:53.358]When you were sleepwalking
[01:55.448]It was a dark dream, darlin
[01:59.105]It's over
[02:00.803]The firebreather is beneath the clover
[02:05.819]Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever
[02:10.965]A toothless hound-dog choking on a feather
[02:15.928]But I took my fishing pole (fearing your fever)
[02:21.362]Down to the swimming hole, where there grows a bitter herb
[02:26.664]That blooms but one day a year, by the riverside
[02:29.956]I'd bring it here
[02:32.855]Apply it gently
[02:36.199]To the love you've lent me
[02:41.502]While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed
[02:47.014]And the string sobbed
[02:49.469]As it cut through the hustling breeze
[02:54.197]And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly
[02:59.579]Gone treacly
[03:01.695]Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat
[03:05.561]In a frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath
[03:13.842]Press on me
[03:17.237]We are restless things
[03:24.944]Webs of seaweed are swaddling
[03:32.754]And you call upon the dusk of the musk of a squid
[03:43.073]Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
[03:54.044]Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes
[04:01.123]I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!
[04:08.516]Smell of a stonefruit being cut and being opened
[04:15.830]Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
[04:23.484]And when the fire moves away
[04:31.922]Fire moves away, son
[04:40.594]Why would you say
[04:47.882]I was the last one?
[04:54.100]
[05:00.134]Scrape your knee, it is only skin
[05:08.911]Makes the sound of violins
[05:16.408]And when I cut your hair and leave the birds all the trimmings
[05:24.480]I am the happiest woman among all women
[05:33.257]And the shallow water stretches as far as I can see
[05:48.016]Knee deep, trudging along
[05:52.901]The seagull weeps 'so long'
[06:00.842]I'm a threshing song
[06:03.298]Until the night is over, hold on
[06:08.601]Hold on
[06:10.116]Hold your horses back from the fickle dawn
[06:15.105]I have got some business out at the edge of town
[06:20.722]Candy weighing both of my pockets down
[06:25.424]Till I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them
[06:30.387](and knowing how the commonfolk condemn
[06:35.167]What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm
[06:40.470]Being a woman. Being a woman.)
[06:44.493]But always up the mountainside you're clambering
[06:49.561]Groping blindly, hungry for anything
[06:53.819]Picking through your pocket linings
[06:56.797]Well, what is this?
[06:58.338]Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?
[07:02.178]I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain
[07:06.932]Little sister, he will be back again
[07:10.197]I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
[07:14.926]Spiders' ghosts hang, soaked and dangling
[07:18.661]Silently from all the blooming cherry trees
[07:22.762]In tiny nooses, safe from everyone
[07:26.759]Nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done
[07:31.017]Be a woman. Be a woman
[07:35.197]Though we felt the spray of the waves
[07:37.835]We decided to stay, 'till the tide rose too far
[07:43.869]We weren't afraid, cause we know what you are
[07:46.847]And you know that we know what you are
[07:52.490]Awful atoll
[07:53.691]O, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!
[07:57.166]Bawl bellow
[07:58.002]Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow
[08:00.300]Toddle and roll
[08:02.103]Teethe an impalpable bit of leather
[08:04.349]While yarrow, heather and hollyhock
[08:06.465]Awkwardly molt along the shore
[08:10.227]Are you mine?
[08:16.966]My heart?
[08:21.538]Mine anymore?
[08:25.195]Stay with me for a while
[08:30.994]That's an awfully real gun
[08:34.599]I know life will lay you down
[08:38.909]As the lightning has lately done
[08:43.037]Failing this, failing this
[08:49.463]Follow me, my sweetest friend
[08:57.091]To see what you anointed
[09:01.192]In pointing your gun there
[09:06.416]Lay it down! Nice and slow!
[09:09.682]There is nowhere to go
[09:13.574]Save up
[09:15.089]Up where the light, undiluted, is
[09:18.537]Weaving, in a drunk dream
[09:24.232]At the sight of my baby, out back
[09:31.651]Back on the patio
[09:33.949]Watching the bats bring night in
[09:39.801]While, elsewhere
[09:40.976]Estuaries of wax-white
[09:45.156]Wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped
[09:51.530]Last week, our picture window
[09:55.317]Produced a half-word
[09:58.896]Heavy and hollow
[10:01.482]Hit by a brown bird
[10:04.486]We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
[10:10.756]And pant and labor over every intake
[10:15.771]I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace
[10:20.891]Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
[10:25.463]Said, "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
[10:31.001]And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view."
[10:35.964]Then in my hot hand, she slumped her sick weight
[10:40.953]We tramped through the poison oak, heartbroke and inchoate
[10:46.152]The dogs were snapping and you cuffed their collars
[10:51.350]While I climbed the tree-house. Then how I hollered!
[10:56.313]Well, she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two
[11:03.157]Then saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew
[11:08.486]When back in the world that moves, often, according to the hoarding of these clues
[11:15.487]Dogs still run roughly around
[11:19.327]Little tufts of finch-down
[11:24.578]And the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland
[11:29.933]But his hand, in my hand, made them hale and harmless
[11:37.482]While down in the lowlands, the crops are all coming
[11:42.785]We have everything
[11:45.084]Life is thundering blissful towards death in a stampede
[11:51.301]Of his fumbling green gentleness
[11:56.839]You stopped by
[12:00.209]I was all alive
[12:07.340]In my doorway, we shucked and jived
[12:14.890]And when you wept, I was gone
[12:19.513]See, I got gone when I got wise
[12:23.876]But I can't with certainty say we survived
[12:34.403]Then down and down
[12:37.433]And down and down
[12:39.210]And down and deeper
[12:41.717]Stoke without sound
[12:44.382]The blameless flames
[12:46.393]You endless sleeper
[12:48.640]Through fire below
[12:51.775]And fire above
[12:53.237]And fire within
[12:55.588]Sleep through the things that couldn't have been
[12:59.873]If you hadn't have been
[13:03.007]And when the fire moves away
[13:11.445]Fire moves away, son
[13:18.837]And why would you say
[13:26.909]I was the last one?
[13:33.988]
[13:38.769]All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone
[13:45.038]Take my bones, I don't need none
[13:50.890]Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on!
[13:57.081]Suck all day on a cherry stone
[14:03.324]Dig a little hole not three inches round
[14:08.862]Spit your pit in a hole in the ground
[14:14.086]Weep upon the spot for the starving of me!
[14:19.729]Till up grows a fine young cherry tree
[14:25.894]When the bough breaks, what'll you make for me?
[14:30.935]A little willow cabin to rest on your knee
[14:35.873]Well, what'll I do with a trinket such as this?
[14:41.724]Think of your woman, who's gone to the west
[14:46.504]But I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed!
[14:52.042]Then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head
[14:57.868]Come across the desert with no shoes on!
[15:03.380]I love you truly
[15:06.044]Or I love no one
[15:09.100]
[15:27.647]Fire moves away
[15:34.622]Fire moves away, son
[15:41.806]Why would you say that I was the last one, last one?
[16:04.088]Clear the room! There's a fire, a fire, a fire get going
[16:11.350]And I'm going to be right behind you
[16:17.019]And if the love of a woman or two, dear
[16:22.922]Could move you to such heights then
[16:27.180]All I can do is do
[16:31.595]My darling, right by you
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