Only Skin.
F Am
and there was a booming above you
G F Am
that night, black airplanes flew over the sea
F Am
and they were lowing and shifting like
beached whales
G F
shelled snails
Am
as you strained and you squinted to see
G F Am
the retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry
G Em7 D
you froze in your sand shoal
C Bb
prayed for your poor soul
F C Bb Dm
sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl
Em7 D C Bb
and when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke
F C Bb Dm
my sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke
F Am
then there was a silence you took to mean something:
G F
mean, run, sing
Am G
for alive you will evermore be
F Am
and the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin'
G F
has gone east
G Am
while you're left to explain them to me
G F Am
released from their hairless and blind cavalry
G Em7 D C Bb
with your hands in your pockets, stubbily running
F C Bb Dm
to where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning
Em7 D C Bb
well, what is this craziness? this crazy talking?
F C Bb Dm
you caught some small death when you were sleepwalking
A Em D A
it was a dark dream, darlin', it's over
F C Bb Dm
the firebreather is beneath the clover
A Em D A
beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever
F C Bb Dm
a toothless hound-dog choking on a feather
F#m A Bm D
but I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever)
F#m A Bm D
down to the swimminghole, where there grows a bitter herb
F#m A Bm Bbadd6
that blooms but one day a year by the riverside - I'd bring it here:
F C
apply it gently
Bb Dm
to the love you've lent me
F Am
while the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed
G F Am G
and the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze
F Am
and I watched how the water was kneading so neatly
G F
gone treacly
Am
nearly slowed to a stop in this heat
G F Am G
- frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath
Am C Em G
press on me: we are restless things
Am C Em G
webs of seaweed are swaddling
Am C
you call upon the dusk
Em G
of the musk of a squid
Am C Em G
shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
Dm F Am C
rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes
Dm F C Am7
I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!
Dm F Am C
smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened
Dm F C Am7
smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
C G C G/B
and when the fire moves away
Am G F
fire moves away, son
C G C G/B
why would you say
Am G F
I was the last one?
Fm7
Am C Em G
scrape your knee; it is only skin
Am C Em G
makes the sound of violins
Am C Em G
when I cut your hair, and leave the birds all of the trimmings
Am C Em G
I'm the happiest woman among all women!
Db
and the shallow
Fm
water
Dbm7 Fm
stretches as far as I can see
Db Eb/Db
knee-deep, trudging along
Db Fm
a seagull weeps; "so long"
Db Fm
humming a threshing song
Fm
until the night is over
hold on!
hold on!
Db
hold your horses back from the fickle dawn
Fm
I have got some business out at the edge of town
Db
candy weighing both of my pockets down
Fm
'til I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them
Db
(and knowing how the common-folk condemn
Fm
what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm
Db
being a woman, being a woman)
Bbm
but always up the mountainside you're clambering
Db
groping blindly, hungry for anything
Bbm
picking through your pocket linings - well, what is this?
Db Eb
scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?
Fm
I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain
Db
little sister, he will be back again
Fm
I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
Db
spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangeling
Bbm
silently from all the blooming cherry trees
Db
in tiny nooses, safe from everyone
Bbm
- nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done
Db Eb
be a woman, be a woman!
Fm
though we felt the spray of the waves
Bbm Ab Gmdim
we decided to stay 'til the tide rose too far
Fm Bbm
we weren't afraid, 'cause we know what you are
Am Bmb Cmadd6
and you know that we know what you are
awful atoll
Eb Dbm7add11
- o, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow
bawl, bellow:
Fm Cmadd6
Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow
toddle and roll;
Eb
teeth an impalpable bit of leather
Dbm7add11
while yarrow, heather and hollyhock
Fm Eb Fm
awkwardly molt along the shore
[ Tab from: https://www.guitartabs.cc/tabs/j/joanna_newsom/only_skin_crd_ver_3.html ]
Db
are you mine?
Fm Db
my heart?
mine anymore?
F Db
stay with me for a while
F
that's an awfully real gun
Db
I know life will lay you down
F
as the lightning has lately done
Am
failing this, failing this,
C G
follow me, my sweetest friend
F G/F Am
to see what you anointed in pointing your gun there
C
lay it down! nice and slow!
G F
there is nowhere to go, save up
Am G F
up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream
Am G F
at the sight of my baby, out back
Am G F
back on the patio watching the bats bring night in
Am G
while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white
F Am G
wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped
Em7 D C Bb
last week our picture window produced a half-word
F C Bb Dm
heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird
Em7 D C Bb
we stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
F C Bb Dm
and pant and labour over every intake
A Em D A
I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace
F C Bb Dm
then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
A Em D A
said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
F C Bb Dm
and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"
F#m A
then in my hot hand
Bm D
she slumped her sick weight
F#m A
we tramped through the poison oak
Bm D
heartbroke and inchoate
F#m A
the dogs were snapping
Bm D
so you cuffed their collars
F#m A
while I climbed the tree-house
Bm D
then how I hollered!
F#m A Bm Bbadd6
cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two
F C Bb Dm
then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew away and
F#m A
back in the world that moves, often
Bb Bbadd6
according to the hoarding of these clues
Fm7 C
dogs still run roughly around
Bb Dm
little tufts of finch-down)
F Am
and the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland
G F Am G F
but his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless
Am
while down in the lowlands the crops are all coming
F
we have everything
Am
life is thundering blissful towards death
G F Am G
in a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness
Am C Em G
you stopped by, I was all alive
Am C Em G
in my doorway, we shucked and jived
Am C
and when you wept, I was gone:
Em G
see, I got gone when I got wise
Am C Em G
but I can't with certainty say we survived
Dm F
then down, and down
Am
and down, and down
C
and down, and deeper
Dm F
stoke without sound
C
the blameless flames
Am7
you endless sleeper
Dm F Am C
through fire below, and fire above, and fire within
Dm F C Am7
sleeped through the things that couldn't have been if you hadn't have been
C G C
and when the fire moves away
Am G F
fire moves away, son
G C G G/B
why would you say
Am G F
I was the last one?
Am C Em G
all my bones they are gone, gone, gone
Am C G Dm
take my bones, I don't need none
Am C Em G
cold, cold cupboard, Lord, nothing to chew on!
Am C G F
suck all day on a cherry stone
Am C Em G
dig a little hole, not three inches round
Am C G Dm
spit your pit in the hole in the ground
Am C Em G
weep upon the spot for the starving of me!
Am C G F
till up grow a fine young cherry tree
Am C Em G
well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me?
Am C G Dm
a little willow cabin to rest on your knee
Am C Em G
what'll I do with a trinket such as this?
Am C G F
think of your woman, who's gone to the west
Am C Em G
but I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed!
Am C G Dm
then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head
Am C Em G
come across the desert with no shoes on!
Am C G F
I love you truly, or I love no-one
Fm7 Am
fire
moves
away
Fm7
fire moves away, son
why would you say
Fm7
I was the last one?
Am G
Last one..
clear the room! there's a fire, a fire, a fire
Am G
get going, and I'm going to be right behind you
F Am G
and if the love of a woman or two, dear,
F Am
couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do
G F Am
is do, my darling, right by you
