Tunes On My Playlist: Skin

Skin is a single from Sixx AM’s album This Is Gonna Hurt.  Sixx AM was formed in 2007 and is a side project of Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx.  While most, though not all, of Motley Crue’s music is probably what many would describe as ‘dark and heavy’ I find Sixx AM’s music to be more poetic and mellow. Skin is a wonderful song with thought-provoking lyrics. A recurrent phrase in the song is ‘you are not your skin’. I have written about  Nikki Sixx and his addictions in my review of his first book The Heroin Diaries. This year Nikki launched a new book entitled This Is Gonna Hurt which showcases his photography and more of his journal entries. I have not read the book yet but I have listened to several tracks from the album that was released to promote the book. Skin is about the homeless, the drug addicts, the disabled, the prostitutes. It is about the marginalized members of our society. Those whom we see but render invisible. Those we do our best to ignore.

Skin is a powerful song – it is an invitation to look beyond the physical and search instead for the beauty inside. I could write so much about how evocative I find the words of this song. I could write so very much … But I won’t. At least, not today. I’ll just say that the subject matter is very close to my heart.

I am including the lyrics to Skin because, even if you do not care for the music that comes with them, they are beautiful in their own right and deserve to be read like you would read any other poem.

"Skin"

Paint yourself a picture
Of what you wish you looked like
Maybe then they just might
Feel an ounce of your pain

Come into focus
Step out of the shadows
It's a losing battle
There's no need to be ashamed

Cause they don't even know you
All they see is scars
They don't see the angel
Living in your heart

Let them find the real you
Buried deep within
Let them know with all you've got
That you are not your skin

Oh [X2]

When they start to judge you
Show them your true colors
And do onto others
As you'd have done to you

Just rise above this
Kill them with your kindness
Ignorance is blindness
They're the ones that stand to lose

'Cause they don't even know you
All they see is scars
They don't see the angel
Living in your heart

Let them find the real you
Buried deep within
Let them know with all you got
That you are not your skin

OHHHHHHHHHH

Well they don't even know you
All they see is scars
They don't see the angel
Living in your heart

Let them find the real you
Buried deep within
Let them know with all you've got
That you are not
That you are not your skin

Oh [X2]

Words by Nikki Sixx via A-Z Lyrics