Uh. Mazed.
Sep. 4th, 2008 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
profundisImagine if Bjork was not some kind of alien android and actually had a soul. Better yet imagine Sam Beam from Iron & Wine died and his spirit was reincarnated into Bjork's body. That person's music would sound a lot like Joanna Newsom's.
Her epic 17 minute "Only Skin" from her album "Ys" (pronounced "wise") is staggering - chaotic, sweet, poignant, intricate, poetic, tangential, sunny and haunting...all rolled together, just like life.
Samples of her lyrics:
"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"
"I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
Spiders' ghosts hang soaked and dangling
Silently from all the blooming cherry trees
In tiny nooses, safe from everyone"
"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"
<3
Oh, BTW don't bother with the YouTube live versions, they don't have the full orchestration or the sound quality the studio version does.
Her epic 17 minute "Only Skin" from her album "Ys" (pronounced "wise") is staggering - chaotic, sweet, poignant, intricate, poetic, tangential, sunny and haunting...all rolled together, just like life.
Samples of her lyrics:
"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"
"I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
Spiders' ghosts hang soaked and dangling
Silently from all the blooming cherry trees
In tiny nooses, safe from everyone"
"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"
<3
Oh, BTW don't bother with the YouTube live versions, they don't have the full orchestration or the sound quality the studio version does.
