There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to share your passion
with those you love only to have them tell you that your passion is
bullshit. Here’s the conversation between my mom and me after 30
seconds of listening to The Milk-Eyed Mender.
MOM: God. This is awful. Turn it off now.
ME: [Giving her the stink eye] This is amazing, just listen
to it.
MOM: I can’t stand her voice! She sounds like… she sounds
like….
ME: [Sighing] Lisa Simpson?
MOM: Yes! Now turn it off.
I don’t take it personally—for the most part, my mom listens
to shitty music. But I am disappointed I can’t share with her the
profound impact Joanna Newsom has had on me. I’m compelled to share her
albums with everyone I care about, like her music is gospel or a
miraculous cure for a hangover. My mom’s reaction isn’t uncommon; I too
unfairly judged Newsom on my first impression of her voice. My brother
gave me a copy of The Milk-Eyed Mender around its release in
2004, and on first listen I said the same damnable thing:
“How old is this lady, 8 or 80? She sounds like Lisa Simpson…
ugh.”
And away the album went for a year or so, lost on my shelf, until I
happened to find myself in an infernally long noodle line at the 2005
Sasquatch! Festival. I had nothing to do but wait, for two damn hours,
trying to get some bland, overpriced, life-sustaining noodles in my
gullet. As I waited, Joanna Newsom performed on the stage a stone’s
throw away. Her elfin songs caressed and bathed my starving, sunburned
carcass, and I vowed to give her album another chance. I listened to
Mender virtually every day for the next nine months straight.
When Ys came out last year, it completely altered what I
thought an album could be, musically, emotionally, and lyrically,
cementing itself in my mind as one of the greatest albums ever
written.
Joanna Newsom is a polarizing figure. Of those who’ve heard her
inimitable brand of harp folk, few merely “tolerate” it: Either you
embrace her fully or wish her harp would capsize and crush her tiny
body. Clearly, the principle factor in this rift is the sound of her
voice. Its development between Mender and Ys is
noticeable, losing much of the nasal “Lisa Simpsonesque” quality;
still, Newsom’s singing probably needs time to soak in for new ears.
There simply isn’t another singer in popular music who sounds the same.
Once that initial hurdle is crossed and the listener is willing to
accept that something worthwhile lies ahead, great pleasure and
fulfillment await.
I heard it remarked somewhere: “Joanna Newsom is music for English
majors.” As an English major myself, my first response is
“Duh”—unless it’s meant as a dis, in which my response is “Fuck
off.” Either way, I agree with the statement. Newsom’s are not so much
songs but stories—sprawling pages of verse peppered with clever
rhyme schemes. The lyrics touch on beautiful sentiments of love and
loss that are universal, staying oblique enough to live differently in
the mind of each listener. Her writing, both musically and lyrically,
tells tales and evokes emotions that at once are dreamily beautiful and
drearily sad: “Let us go! Though we know it’s a hopeless endeavor/The
ties that bind, they are barbed and spined, and hold us close
forever/Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with/a sky
that is gaping and yawning/There is a song I woke with on my lips/as
you sailed your great ship towards the morning.”
The language and mythology of Newsom’s songs are no less fantastic
than the prog-rock epics of the ’70s, and both share the same disregard
for brevity (the average song length on Ys is around 10
minutes). Both also share a tinge of medieval flavoring, but where prog
fantasy usually involved dragons, Newsom sings of beautiful simplicity.
Her landscapes are wooded countrysides and mountain homes, her
characters searching for understanding and release in their loves and
times of hardship. It’s not fantasy prog, it’s pastoral prog, and it’s
brilliant.
On Ys, Newsom’s harp is perfectly backed by strings
arranged by Van Dyke Parks. For her first U.S. tour in support of the
album, Newsom chose a different angle for her backing band, opting for
instruments like banjo, glockenspiel, and accordion. On this trip to
Seattle she’s performing at Benaroya Hall with a 29-piece chamber
orchestra. This is the context in which the brilliance of her album was
created, and it is the perfect setting to see it performed live.
Remember when Metallica played with the San Francisco Symphony? That
was stupid. This show is no gimmick—part of the brilliance of
Ys is the orchestration, not easily duplicated on the road.
Newsom’s Orchestral Tour only hits a few select cities: Seattle
is
blessed. 