[phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead ¤ milky moon ¤ • View topic - "Only Skin" as the amalgamation of "Ys"
Hello all, I am very new here, this is my first actual post, and I thought I'd share something that's been running through my mind lately. "Only Skin" is an incredibly dense work that's been analyzed to death by minds greater than my own, but I still feel the need to write something that's been running through my head lately, and I've yet to see documented in my readings of various interpretations.
I assume we all know how Joanna has stated that "Ys" was based around four life changing events that occurred over the course of a year and "Only Skin" was an attempt to connect all of these incidents, and in relation to this I keep noticing words or phrases in the aforementioned song present somewhere in the other four songs on the album, such as:
"beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever"(Harkens back to "sing: I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay, just to lift your long face" from Sawdust and Diamonds).
"last week our picture window produced a half-word" (Harkens back to "Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?" from Emily)
Both "that blooms but one day a year by the riverside - I'd bring it here:" and "while the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed" (Harkens back to "And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river" from Emily, and potentially foreshadows the "all those lonely nights down by the river" motif from Cosmia)
Anyway, there's probably a few I missed, and I apologize for possibly beating a dead horse, but I thought it was sort of interesting and decided to share.
yes, those are very interesting connections. of course the presence of water has been discussed at length at well. what i love about joanna is that she is able to explore a bunch of unifying themes/events without producing albums that necessarily fall under the "concept album" label.
On the subject of "cold clay", it appears in a Robert Burns poem/Scottish folk song, Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes, which Joanna's covered (live at Bottletree, for example) as "While waters wimple to the sea,/While day blinks in the lift sae hie/Till clay-cauld death sall blin’ my e’e,/Ye sall be my dearie." It also appears elsewhere in literature. I imagine it's ultimately Biblical, if not quoted then at least inspired by the idea that "warm" man came from cold clay and will ultimately return to it.
It might be nitpicky, but I don't think the picture window in Only Skin and the window in Emily are analogous - the picture window in Only Skin is crucially impossible to open, since it nearly kills the finch that flies into it; while the window in Emily is crucially possible to open, since it's the medium through which Emily and the narrator hear the complaints of the pharisees and through which Emily announces her healing of the narrator to the world outside. One blocks transmission from inside to outside, the other allows it.
The river in Cosmia and in Emily is the same one, I'm fairly sure, and maybe in Only Skin too, though I think Only Skin's is more metaphorical. She's spoken before in interviews about the river that runs through her garden at home, and the amount of time she spent by it when she was young. The line from Cosmia refers to the subject of the poem (which she's said was her friend who died suddenly, I believe, or hinted at least) bringing her a little food and water while she was sleeping when she fasted by the river, while the line from Emily presumably reflects her memories of playing by the river with her sister, who has now departed their childhood home.
Incidentally, I've always thought of the river in Only Skin as being part of a large, swampy wetlands. A lot of the 'action' in the song seems to occur in shallow water - the river seems to be quite shallow, trickling and "nearly slowed to a stop in this heat", the narrator rows through a reed bed and wades through knee-deep water stretching as far as she can see, there's the scene with the disappearing islet a little out from the shore, etc. I imagine it to be the mouth of a river, for some reason - maybe because I live near one and I'm reminded of that.
Edit 34¾/50: I like your username, by the way - that line makes me think of Eliot's Waste Land. And welcome to the forum!
Very interesting about the "Cold Clay", my copy of Live at Bottletree lists "Ca' the Yowes to the Knowe" as "(Traditional Scottish Song)". I'll have to give it another listen sometime.
You make a very good argument about the windows, but I still think they're interlocked somehow. I just think "produced a half word" could be an aberrant way of reprising the line about the Pharisees calling into the window. Even the way the window in "Emily" is open and the one in "Only Skin" is closed to me suggests something of a duality that could imply them being related.
We're pretty much in agreement about the rivers, I've read the story about Joanna sitting by the river and the epiphanic impact it had on her, and I'm pretty sure that's what she's detailing in the river section of "Cosmia".
And thank you very much for your warm welcome. I haven't read Eliot's Waste Land, but I shall make a mental note of it. I take it your screen name is your actual moniker?
You should read . I can't remember where I read it and I've not been able to find it since, but I'm almost certain that Joanna listed Eliot as an influence. Certainly it seems like he might be. Yeah, Jordan's my actual name, but it doesn't have a tilde after it in real life. Incidentally, I'm thinking of changing it to Alexander, my middle name, because I don't like Jordan at all.