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.