Last night, on Later with Jools Holland, Joanna Newsom performed “81,” the lead single from her ambitious and inspired triple-LP, Have One On Me.
(Via Prefix)I’ve been making my way, slowly and delightedly, through the album. This thing takes time. It takes time because there is so much going on in Joanna Newsom’s music, and because what is going on is all so refreshingly other. I read somewhere something like, “Once the music leaves your mind, it’s already been compromised.” I understand that idea and, most often, agree. I go walking around with songs in my mind all the time, but when I try to communicate those songs through my guitar, they are lost, turned into something else. Compromised. My fingers on the guitar cannot faithfully recreate the sounds I hear in my mind. I’ve heard many musicians describe similar frustrations. Listening to Joanna Newsom, however, you sense that the music she brings to this shared world is exactly that which she hears in her own private world. It is, in fact, the music of her mind—uncompromised, beautiful, and strange.
(Via Prefix)I’ve been making my way, slowly and delightedly, through the album. This thing takes time. It takes time because there is so much going on in Joanna Newsom’s music, and because what is going on is all so refreshingly other. I read somewhere something like, “Once the music leaves your mind, it’s already been compromised.” I understand that idea and, most often, agree. I go walking around with songs in my mind all the time, but when I try to communicate those songs through my guitar, they are lost, turned into something else. Compromised. My fingers on the guitar cannot faithfully recreate the sounds I hear in my mind. I’ve heard many musicians describe similar frustrations. Listening to Joanna Newsom, however, you sense that the music she brings to this shared world is exactly that which she hears in her own private world. It is, in fact, the music of her mind—uncompromised, beautiful, and strange.
