how do you interpret that line, leave the birds all the trimmings ?
It’s hard to analyze or succinctly say what aspecific lyric means without taking into consideration the whole song or thewhole album. This particular part of “Only Skin”, however, feelsincredibly intimate to me. If we consider this part of the song as a woman’sretelling of her relationship with her lover, this lyric invokes a sense ofdomesticity between the two lovers. Looking at the lyric just superficially andliterally, cutting someone’s hair is an intimate act. There’s closenessinvolved, love, caring and also risk and danger. But I find that to be aperfect definition of what love or what an amorous relationship between twoindividuals is. You have to be vulnerable, to let the other person touch you.Cutting hair in this metaphor then becomes an image of giving part ofyourself to your lover. And look how happy she (when I say she here and later, I mean the character of the song, not literally Joanna; it’s just easier to refer to her as ‘she’) seems then: “I am the happiestwoman among all women”. In that loving moment, it doesn’t matter how much the“common folk” of the song judge her for her womanly ways. No,she’s happy because you’re open with her, because you trust her, because yousacrifice a part of yourself for love.
If you’re interested in old testament or just “oldreadings” in general (that’s not a term, I just don’t know what to name it),look into the story of Samson and Delilah. It’s hard to know (if even possibleat all) whether Joanna references the religious story of these characters (Ithink you could get a stronger sense of some similarity, not necessarilystraightforward but in the underlining narrative, if you analyzed the wholesong) but the motif of cutting hair is there and even if that’s not the mainpoint of the narrative of the song, it still opens up your mind to morepossibilities of interpretation and that’s always nice.
Another part of this line “leave the birds all thetrimmings” refers back to the birds mentioned throughout the song. I see the birdor birds associated with death in this song, so in my mind it creates somewhata juxtaposition of the ecstasy of happiness and love and the demise of thatlove. In the earlier version of the song (or, well, part of the song) “Be awoman” she sings about blessing all the birds that died so she could live.There’s a brown bird that hit her window and appears to her to die in her hands (though later is reborn in a way). Even if thebird itself isn’t the sign of death, it is truly associated with it. So, itmakes me think that maybe the birds who would take “all the trimmings” are there totake that love or what’s left of it when it fades eventually as the two lovers break apart.Besides, the theme of love being associated with death, as Joanna herself saidit, is prevalent in her work at large not just this song. Love becomes acombination of a kind of new life and death.
Ihope my interpretation was at least somewhat interesting to read. It’s a weakattempt at trying to capture the meaning of this lyric (at least in my eyes), soI’m sorry. There are obviously various ways to interpret this song or this lyric. And I think it’s possible to see other interpretations here too. I just didn’t want to expand too much. I think it’s important to know that interpreting any kind of art ismostly highly subjective. So, by no means do I attempt here to say that this isthe only possible way to analyze this part. Once I press “post” I’ll probablysuddenly realize that I could have said dozens of other things too. But I’llleave this for today. Maybe if someone wants, we could come back to this lateror to any other Joanna song too. I love thinking about her songs and readingother people’s thoughts on her work too. I’d love to know your interpretationof this line too. And if anyone else has any thoughts regarding this lyric orthis song or any of her other songs, I’d love to enlighten myself about that too. Just be kind toeach other. Opening your mind to a different point of view is a lovely thing.
I’msorry for waxing lyrical so extensively about one line. I find it a littledifficult to analyze just one line or one part of a song. Especially since I see not just this line but the whole song interconnected with the whole album.
P.S. Thank you for your question. I enjoyed thinking about this immensely. Have a beautiful day! :)
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