only skin - joanna newsom

What an incredibly daunting song. First off, it's seventeen minutes long. It's epic in more ways than simple length: fires, outdoor sex, dysfunctional lover, caring for birds, dancing, sickness, death, romance, terror; the song's narrative is chockfull of remarkably outlandish and yet thrillingly heartbreaking plot points and motifs that somehow mesh incredibly into one unique and mind-boggingly coherent thread.

Newsom's new record Ys boasts five songs (some reviews have called the record a "song cycle" or the songs themselves "suites," which strikes me as really pedantic) and clocks in at nearly an hour. Obvs it's not an easy listen, and the first time I tried way back in September (thanks Pitchfork!) I was knocked out by the opening track "Emily" while also laughing at the ludicriousness of it all (because really, that voice/her lyrics can be awesomely preposterous, and this coming from a guy whose favorite record of 2004 was Newsom's own The Milk-Eyed Mender), eventually to lose focus/interest somewhere in the middle of "Sawdust & Diamonds." Roughly 384 listens later (estimate), I've become faggily enchanted with this record, its expansiveness, Van Dyke Parks's swooping orchestration, Newsom's leap as a songwriter and the less-abrasive (though still wacky) vocalizing. Maybe record of the decade, depending on how I feel about Sleater-Kinney's ferocious The Woods next time I listen to it. These records represent the big dichotomy of my listening life: ass-kicking or heartbreaking/mind-bending. Really it depends on which persona has the better stamina.

"Only Skin" begins ominously: a repeated note plucked on the harp, undulating strings, and Newsom squeaking before the opening line "And there was a booming above you/That night." What follows is breathtaking dread and romanticism.  What the fuck is happening? Why are these characters fucking near a river, watching as airplanes crash and fall around them?

Newsom then casts her narrator as the musical equivalent of Emily Watson in either Breaking The Waves or Punch-Drunk Love:

But I took my fishing pole (fearing your fever)
Down to the swimminghole, where there grows a 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

What a hapless guy! Earlier he's terrorized by a dream while sleepwalking (he also "[catches] some small death," which apparently is a French euphemism for "orgasm") and now he's ill? And the price she pays for caring for this guy, for loving him, is nearly drowning (or perhaps, she does drown?). She doesn't know it, but the cry of the seagull ("So long!") is her warning. Unfair trade-off; she even compares him to Sisyphus, so at least she's aware. Why put up with it? Same reason everyone else does. Check the breathtaking end of the song:

And if the love of a woman or two, dear, could move
You to such heights then all I can do is do
My darling, right by you

Tremendous dedication to the cause. And in spite of all the death and dread that looms in the song, these final lines seem to sum up Newsom's MO: an everlasting hope that springs forth from your spirit (yeah I know man, but c'mon--this is Newsom we're talking about; I had to go and get drippy there), elucidated not only by the soaring strings but also by her perceptive outlook on the myth of corporeal confines.

Take my bones
I don't need none.

This may be portrayed best when the lovers' intimacy is sidetracked in a wondrous, seeming non-sequitir wherein the narrator attempts to save a bird from death, but assumes its inevitability. She wants the bird to die at a height similar to flying, so while being chased by dogs through the forest (cue: that scene in Beauty and the Beast where the wolves chase Belle and the horse), they "tramped through the poison oak/Heartbroke and inchoate" and somehow, while she climbs a tree, the bird flies from her hand. This same hand then holds the hand of her lover. This same hand had earlier "washed a thousand spiders down the drain/Spiders' ghosts hang soaked and danglin'." Even in death, the dead's presence is there. In fact, the narrator may herself be dead.

I don't know if Newsom will ever write a better song than "Only Skin," the only seventeen-minute song that feels much too short. This post also is much too long, so here are things that I haven't even begun to touch:

• Much like the cyclical/interrelated lyrics, the melodies here are arresting, flowing in such a way that somehow makes you focus for the entire song.

• Newsom's paramour Bill Callahan, who has a fucking hilarious appearance somewhere near the 14-minute mark (Eric once stated, "He sounds like a fat dude.")

• The incredible vocal acrobatics during the following:

Awful atoll!
O incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!
Bawl, bellow:
Sibyl sea-cow all down up in a bow!
Toddle and roll!
Teeth an impalpable bit of leather
While yarrow, heather, and hollyhock
Awkwardly molt along the shore!

Apologies for the length of this post, which I will try to rationalize as being in respect to the length of the song. Scary thing is, it could've been much longer. So if nothing else, my Lit/Writing UCSD degree has enabled me to parse Joanna Newsom lyrics. I wonder what that says.

Oh, also: PLUG ALERT.

Comments

[Billicatons]

I just came across this via google ... Cracking write-up of a fantastic song. You describe it very well, and (for my taste, anyhow) this post ain't too long ...

[Pedram]

beautiful song!