only skin chords by 
Joanna Newsom 
Key: A minor•
Verse 1
F
G
Am
And there was a booming above you
F
That night,
G
Am
black airplanes flew over the sea
F
And they were lowing
Am
and shifting like
Beached whales
C
F
Shelled snails
Am
As you strained and you squinted to see
F
The retreat of their hairless
Am
and blind cavalry
Verse 2
Em
D
You froze in your sand shoal
C
Am
Bb
Prayed for your poor soul
F
C
Sky was a bread roll,
Bb
Dm
soaking in a milk- bowl
Em
D
And when the bread broke,
C
Bb
fell in bricks of wet smoke
F
C
Bb
My sleeping heart woke,
Dm
and my waking heart spoke
F
And there was a silence you took
Verse 3
Am
to mean something
F
Run, sing
Am
G
For alive you will evermore be
F
And the plague of the greasy
Am
black engines a- skulkin'
Em
F
Has gone east
While you're left to ex
Am
plain them to me
F
Released from their hairless
Am
and blind cavalry
Verse 4
Em
Am
D
With your hands in your pockets,
C
Bb
stubbily running
F
C
Bb
To where I'm unfresh, undressed
and yawning
Em
D
Well, what is this craziness?
C
Bb
This crazy talking?
F
C
You caught some small death
Bb
Dm
when you were sleepwalking
Verse 5
A
Em
Am
It was a dark dream,
D
A
Am
darlin', it's over
F
C
Bb
The firebreather is
beneath the clover
A
Am
D
Beneath his breathing there is cold clay,
A
forever
F
C
A toothless hound- dog
Bb
Dm
choking on a feather
F#m
A
But I took my
Verse 6
Bm
fishingpole, fearing
D
your fever
F#m
A
Bm
Down to the swimminghole, where there grows
D
bitter herb
F#m
A
D
That blooms but one day a year by the riverside,
Gm
I'd bring it here
F
Am
Apply it gently
Bb
Dm
To the love you've lent me
F
While the river was twisting and braid
Verse 7
Am
ing, the bait bobbed
G
F
An d the string sobbed,
Am
as it cut through the hustling breeze
F
And I watched how the water
Am
was kneading so neatly
G
Gone treacly
F
Am
Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat
F
In a frenzy coiling flush along the
Am
G
muscles beneath
Verse 8
Am
Em
G
Press on me, we are restless things
Am
C
Em
Webs of seaweed are swaddling
G
Am
And you call upon the dusk
C
Em
G
Of the musk of a squid
Am
Shot full of ink,
Em
G
until you sink into your crib
Dm
Rowing
Verse 9
F
Am
along, among the reeds,
C
among the rushes
Dm
F
I heard your song,
C
Am
before my heart had time to hush it
Dm
F
Smell of a stone fruit being
Am
cut and being opened
Dm
F
C
Smell of a low and of a lazy
Am
cinder smoking
Verse 10
Am
C
G
C
Em
And when the fire moves away
Am
G
F
Fire moves away, son
C
G
C
Why would you say
Am
G
Am
F
I was the last one?
Verse 11
F
Am
Em
G
Scrape your knee, it is only skin
Am
Em
Makes the sound of violins
G
Am
And when I cut your hair,
Em
G
and leave the birds all of the trimmings
Am
I am the happiest woman
Em
G
among all women
Verse 12
Db
Fm
And the shallow water
Db
Fm
Stretches as far as I can see
Db
Knee- deep, trudging along
Fm
Db
Fm
The seagull weeps "so long"
Verse 13
Db
Humming a threshing song
Fm
Until the night is over
Db
Hold on, hold on
Hold your horses back
from the fickle dawn
Fm
I have got some business
Verse 14
Fm
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
An d knowing how the common-
Fm
folk condemn
What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm
Db
Being a woman, being a woman
Bbm
But always up the mountainside
Verse 15
Bbm
you're clambering
Groping blindly, hungry for anything
Picking through your pocket linings,
well, what is this?
Db
Ebsus4
Eb
Scrap of sassa fras, eh Sisyphus?
Fm
I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain
Verse 16
Db
Little sister,
he will be back again
Fm
I have washed a thousand
spiders down the drain
Db
Spiders ghosts hang soaked
Bbm
and dangelin'
Silently from all the blooming
cherry trees
Db
Bbm
In tiny nooses, safe from everyone
Nothing but a nuisance gone now,
dead and done
Db
Ebsus4
Be a woman, be a woman
Fm
Though
Verse 17
we felt the spray
of the waves
Bbm
We decided to stay till the tide
Bb
Ab
Fm
rose too far
We weren't afraid,
'cause we know what you are
Bbm
And you know that we know
Ab
Eb
what you are
Verse 18
Cm
Awful atoll
Eb
Oh, incalculable
Db
indiscreetness and sorrow
Bawl, bellow
Fm
Sibyl sea- cow, all done up in a bow
Cm
Toddle
Verse 19
and roll
Eb
Teeth an im palpable bit of leather
Db
While yarrow,
Fm
heather and hollyhock
Eb
Fm
Awkwardly molt along the shore
Verse 20
Fm
Db
Are you mine?
Fm
My heart?
Db
Mine anymore?
Eb
Fm
F
Stay
Verse 21
Fm
Db
with me for awhile
Fm
That's an awfully real gun
F
Fm
Db
I know life will lay you down
F
As the lightning has lately done
Fm
Failing this,
Verse 22
F
Am
fail ing this
C
G
Follow me, my sweetest friend
F
To see what you anointed
Am
in pointing your gun there
C
Lay it down, nice and slow There is
Verse 23
G
F
nowhere to go, save up
Up where the light, undiluted,
Am
C
Fm
is weaving in a drunk dream
F
Am
At the sight of my baby, out back
F
Am
Back on the patio watching
G
F
the bats bring night in
While, elsewhere,
Am
estuaries of wax- white
F
Wend, endlessly,
Am
towards sea shores unmapped
Em
D
Last week our picture window
Verse 24
C
Bb
produced a half- word
F
C
Heavy and hollow,
Bb
Dm
hit by a brown bird
Em
D
We stood and watched her
C
Bb
gape like a rattlesnake
F
C
Bb
Dm
And paint an d labour over every in take
A
Am
I said a sort of pray
Verse 25
D
er for
A
some sort of rare grace
F
C
Bb
Then thought I ought to take
Dm
her to a higher place
A
Said "dog nor vulture nor cat
D
A
Am
shall toy with you
F
C
And though you die, bird,
Bb
Dm
D
you will have a fine view"
F#m
Then in my hot
Verse 26
A
hand
Bm
D
She slumped her sick weight
F#m
We tramped through the
A
Bm
poison oak
D
Heartbroke and inchoate
Verse 27
F#m
A
The dogs were snapping
Bm
D
And you cuffed their collars
F#m
A
While I climbed the tree- house
Bm
D
Then how I hollered
F#m
A
Well, she'd lain, as still as a stone,
D
Gm
in my palm, for a lifetime or two
F
Verse 28
C
Then, saw the treetops,
Bb
Dm
cocked her head and up and flew
F#m
A
While, back in the world
that moves, often
D
Gm
According to the hoarding of these clues
F
C
Dogs still run roughly around
Bb
Dm
Little tufts of finch- down
F
And the cities
Verse 29
we passed were
Am
a flickering wasteland
G
F
But his hand in my hand made them
Am
G
hale and harmless
F
While down in the lowlands
Am
the crops are all coming
F
We have everything
Am
Life is thundering blissful towards death
F
In a stampede of his fumbling
Am
G
green gentleness
Am
C
Am
C
You stopped by, I was
Verse 30
Em
G
all alive
Am
C
In my doorway,
Em
G
we shucked and jived
Am
And when you wept, I was gone
C
Em
See, I got gone when I got wise
G
Am
C
But I can't with certainty
Em
G
say we survived
Dm
Then down, and
Verse 31
F
down
Am
And down, and down
C
And down, and deeper
Dm
Stoke without sound
F
C
The blameless flames
Am
You endless sleeper
Dm
F
Through fire below, and fire
Verse 32
Am
above,
C
and fire within
Dm
F
Sleeped through the things that couldn't
C
Am
have been if you hadn't have been
Verse 33
G
C
And when the fire moves away
Am
G
Am
F
Fire moves away, son
C
G
C
And why would you say
Am
G
F
I was the last one?
Verse 34
Am
C
Em
Am
Em
All my bones they are gone, gone, gone
Am
C
Am
G
Dm
Take my bones, I don't need none
Am
C
Cold, cold cupboard, lord,
Em
G
nothing to chew on
Am
C
G
F
Suck all day on a cherry stone
Verse 35
Am
C
Dig a little hole,
Em
Am
Em
G
not three inches round
Am
C
G
Spit your pit in a hole in
Am
G
Dm
the ground
Am
C
Am
Weep upon the spot for the
G
starving of me
Am
F
Am
'Till up grow a fine young
G
F
cherry tree
Verse 36
Am
C
Well when the bough break
Am
Em
G
s, what'll you make for me?
Am
C
G
A little willow cabin to rest
Dm
Am
on your knee
C
Am
Em
G
What'll I do with a trinket such as this?
Am
C
Think of your woman,
G
F
who's gone to the west
Verse 37
Am
But I'm starving and freezing
Em
G
in my measly old bed
Am
C
Then I'll crawl across the salt flats
G
Dm
to stroke your sweet head
Am
C
Come across the desert
Am
Em
G
with no shoes on
Am
C
I love you truly,
Am
G
Am
G
F
or I love no one
Interlude 1
F
Am
C
Am
Verse 38
Dm
Am
Fire moves away
G
F
Fire moves away, son
Why would you say
Am
F
That I was the last one
Am
Last one
F
Clear the room There's a fire, a
Verse 39
Am
fire, a fire
F
Get going, and I'm going
Am
to be right be hind you
F
Am
And if the love of a woman or two,
dear
G
F
Couldn't move you to such heights,
Am
then all I can do
F
Is do, my darling, right by you
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Frequently asked questions
The original key of only skin by Joanna Newsom is A minor.
The primary chords used in only skin are F, G, Am, C, Em, D.
No capo is required for this song.
Yes, this version uses open chords like F, G, Am, C, making it a great song for beginner guitarists.
The tempo of only skin is approximately 46 beats per minute.
You can easily change the key of only skin using our Transpose button located in the toolbar. This will automatically update all chord diagrams on the page to match your new key.
Yes! Click the Print icon to generate a clean, one-page version of the chords and lyrics for only skin. This is perfect for practicing offline or adding to a physical songbook.
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