Joanna Newsom, Only Skin (live), Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, CA, Nov. 25, 2019 (HD)

Joanna Newsom plays her song "Only Skin" live in concert at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, California on November 25, 2019. Only Skin was released on Newsom's second studio album, Ys (2006). Newsom performed as part of her "Strings/Keys Incident" tour, an intimate set of shows with just her singing and playing piano and harp, and marking her first return to touring since 2016.
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The Strings/Keys Incident: An Evening With Joanna Newsom Dates:
Sept. 6-7 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Kimmel Center
Sept. 9-15 - New York, NY @ El Teatro at El Museo del Barrio
Oct. 7-10 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
Oct. 12-13 - Milwaukee, WI @ Irish Cultural and Heritage Center
Nov. 22 - Carmel, CA @ Sunset Cultural Center
Nov. 25-26 - San Francisco, CA @ Herbst Theatre
Dec. 10-14 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Legion Theater (CANCELLED)
Jan. 15-16 - Austin, TX @ Bates Recital Hall
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Joanna Newsom official bio:
Avant-garde multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom will embark on a national tour. The String/Keys Incident - An Evening with Joanna Newsom will feature her emotively beautiful songs in a rare and intimate concert experience by Joanna alone: solo voice, harp, and piano!
Newsom was classically-trained on the harp at a young age and began her professional musical career as a keyboardist in the San Francisco-based indie band The Pleased. After self-releasing two EPs in 2002, she signed to the independent label Drag City where she released her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender in 2004. The album released to critical-acclaim, named “The 12th best folk album of all time” by NME, and secured Newsom a dedicated underground following.
In 2006, she released Ys, which charted at Number 134 on Billboard 200 and received a 2007 Shortlist Music Prize nomination. She followed with the release of Have One on Me in 2010 and Divers in 2015. Her song “Sapokanikan” on Divers earned her a spot on NPR’s “The 200 greatest songs by 21st century women.”
No stranger to critical-acclaim, she is often noted for her unique musical style, sometimes characterized as psychedelic folk, and her prominent use of harp instrumentation. In addition to her solo success in the music industry, Newsom has provided additional vocals for The Lonely Island’s songs “Ras Trent” and “We Are A Crowd.” She has appeared in MGMT’s music video for hit song, “Kids,” and has appeared as an actress in the popular television show Portlandia and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice.
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Only Skin lyrics:
And there was a booming above you
That night black airplanes flew over the sea
And they were lowing and shifting like
Beached whales
Shelled snails
As you strained and you squinted to see
The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry
You froze in your sand shoal
Prayed for your poor soul;
Sky seemed a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl
And when the bread broke -
Fell in bricks of wet smoke -
My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke
Then there was a silence you took to mean something:
Mean, Run, sing
For alive you will evermore be
And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulking
Has gone east
While you’re left to explain them to me -
Released
From their hairless and blind cavalry
With your hands in your pockets
Stubbily running
To where I’m unfresh
Undressed and yawning -
Well, what is this craziness?
This crazy talking?
You caught some small death
When you were sleepwalking
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
But I took my fishing pole (fearing your fever)
Down to the swimming hole, 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
While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed
And the string sobbed
As it cut through the hustling breeze
And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly
Gone treacly
Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat;
Frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath
Press on me
We are restless things
Webs of seaweed are swaddling
You call upon the dusk of the
Musk of a squid:
Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes
I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!
Smell of a stonefruit being cut and being opened
Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
And when the fire moves away
Fire moves away, son
Why would you say
I was the last one?
Scrape your knee: it is only skin
Makes the sound of violins
When I cut your hair, and leave the birds all the trimmings
I am the happiest woman among all women
And the shallow water stretches as far as I can see
Knee deep, trudging along -
The seagull weeps ‘so long’ -
I’m humming a threshing song -

[@TimBracken]

Thanks for watching my video. I gathered all the videos I shot at this concert in a KZbin playlist:

[@impendio]

This song is 1286 words long with no repeating lines, she’s inhumanly good. It’s mind boggling.

[@pakyum1]

This entire performance is a work of art, as well as athleticism. It's a real achievement. I will spend my whole life reading into the beauty of these lyrics. This song always blows me away and brings me to tears; it evokes memories of childhood, and all the emotions life has to offer. She's a true gem, and we must protect her! Songs like this are rare.

[@rayankiyohiro3676]

this might be the greatest song of all time

[@worldtradeandstockunlimite9829]

in the most entirely non-romantic, non-sexual way, Joanna Newsom is one of the most beautiful human beings to have ever existed. The way she plays the harp is like a god literally pulling at the heart strings. There simply isn't a word or words to describe this sensation.

[@jamieleethomson9065]

sometimes i think life is pointless, and then i listen to joanna

[@pheebles101]

I tried to put this on in the background while doing something; but ended up enthralled watching and listening for the entire duration.

[@nathang4682]

Man her voice sounds so good here...It's got the intensity of what her voice was when she originally did the song but presumably she's not shredding her vocal cords lol. Hate that she did this tour to get herself back to where she can play all these ridiculously difficult songs and then the pandemic happened...gimmie that new album and tour announcement with the full band for 2022 JN come on lol

[@Elwyn_the_Weird]

she plays the first notes and I get choked up...

[@MossCoffin]

The fact that she can perform this live is astounding. Truly one of the greatest composers and musicians ever

[@GrobbingThistle0]

the unbroken silence of the audience for 16 minutes says it all!

[@rowanbassman540]

At

[@ColLuvsFred]

This song structure is ridiculously amazing

[@kidsmoked]

There are so many brilliant lines but the ones that especially give me the feels by the way she sings it are:

[@zarataylor3190]

So beautiful, so powerful. Her lyrics are literally transcendental poetry.

[@jackfox7566]

she is so abundant and her artistry is so large

[@mattstalker4084]

The whole thing is awe inspiring, but the two hands so close playing that pattern from

[@n0twist1]

6:00

[@nomart4888]

A truly complex and robust piece of music. From beginning to end, to even grasp what each of the verses represent to her during the time she was writing this, to connect them and figure out what was intended through the song as a whole and the instrumentation guiding you through an endless path of lushness filled with tragedy. I cannot express how important this song is to the humankind and there´s still a lot to be discussed and discovered from it.

[@synchrogenesis]

One of the few singular musical geniuses of our time.