SONG OF THE DAY
“Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie” by Joanna Newsom (The Milk-Eyed Mender, Drag City Records, 2004).
WHERE I HEARD IT + My O.P.INION
This weird harp-plus-Kate-Bush-like vocals song was featured during the credits of the 2007 PBS documentary Following Sean. The vocals can get really grating when she strains her voice to hit some of the higher notes (Dad you’ll probably be annoyed by this song, since you hated “This Woman’s Work”), but the harp is so lovely, and the “woh, woh, woh’s” seem to float out of another time and place from 2010 city life, that it’s definitely safe to say it’s at least a well-written song. I think of the mountains and the 1960’s, but that’s just me. If you can get past the occasional fingernails-on-a chalkboard vocals (2:47 is for me when it gets almost unbearably shrill), I think this is a great song. Let me put it this way: someone with a better voice needs to cover this song. Diamond in the rough, ready for re-do. Primed. Waiting. Not youtube.com hack singers, but someone legit. Dar Williams. Someone. Some female singer with vocal chops who can do a slow song right, and someone with a folk pedigree. =
P.S. Ugh, I wish I had time today to make a collage of this girl, she is gorgeous and takes a great indie/ artsy photo with that harp! I mean, FOR REALS. P.P.S. LOVING Google image’s new display mode!
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
- Joanna Newsom (born January 18, 1982) is an American harpist, pianist, and singer-songwriter from Nevada City, California.
- Her father played the guitar and her mother was a classically trained pianist who played the hammered dulcimer, the autoharp and conga drums.
- She attended a Waldorf school where she studied theater and learned to memorize and recite long poems. This skill helps her to remember lyrics while on tour.
- From a young age Newsom wanted to play the harp. Her parents eventually agreed to sign her up for harp lessons, but the local harp teacher did not want to take on such a young student and suggested that she learn to play the piano first. Starting at the age of four, she began playing the piano and later the harp which she “loved from the first lesson onward.”
- She learned to play on larger Celtic harps until her parents bought her a full-size pedal harp in the seventh grade.
- She studied composition and creative writing at Mills College in Oakland, California.
- In 2002 and 2003, respectively, Newsom recorded two EPs, Walnut Whales and Yarn and Glue. These homemade recordings were intended to serve as a document of her early work that she recorded on a Fisher-Price tape recorder.
- A friend of Newsom’s passed one of these CDs on to Will Oldham at a show in Nevada City. Oldham was impressed with Newsom’s music and asked her to tour with him. He also gave a copy of the CD to the owner of Drag City, his record label. Drag City signed Newsom and released her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender in 2004.
- Shortly thereafter, Newsom toured with Devendra Banhart and Vetiver and made an early UK appearance at the Green Man Festival in Wales, returning to headline in 2005, 2007 and 2010.
- Joanna is known to debut songs impromptu at her concerts. On March 28, 2009, she performed over two hours of new material at a ‘secret’ concert in Big Sur, California with fellow Nevada City singer-songwriter Mariee Sioux under the pseudonym ‘The Beatles’s’. Those in attendance reported that about one-third of her new material was played primarily on piano, with a backing arrangement of banjo, violin, guitar and drums.
- Since late 2006, Joanna has performed a solo harp version of the Robert Burns poem “Ca the yowes tae the knowes”. These tactics have given her notoriety among poets and artistic types.
- Several of the songs on The Milk-Eyed Mender have been covered by her peers. “Bridges and Balloons” was covered by The Decemberists on their 2005 EP Picaresqueties. “Sprout and the Bean” has been covered by The Moscow Coup Attempt and Sholi. “Peach, Plum, Pear” has been covered by Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett) on the 2006 EP Young Canadian Mothers, as well as by Straylight Run. M Ward has played “Sadie” on his live shows.
– On February 11, 2010, Pitchfork Media reported that Newsom would be the subject of a tribute book titled Visions of Joanna Newsom. The book will be published by Roan Press. The book is now available via Roan Press’s website.
- Newsom’s earlier work was strongly influenced by polyrhythms. Her harp teacher, Diana Stork, taught her the basic pattern of four beats against three which creates an interlocking, shifting pattern that can be heard on Ys, particularly in the middle section of “Sawdust & Diamonds.” After Ys, Newsom said that she has lost interest in polyrhythms. They “stopped being fascinating to me and started feeling wanky.”
- The media have sometimes labeled her as one of the most prominent members of the modern psych folk movement. Joanna, however, makes no ties to any particular music scene. Her songwriting incorporates elements of Appalachian music and avant-garde modernism.
- Newsom’s vocal style (in the November 2006 issue of The Wire she described her voice as “untrainable”) has shadings of folk and Appalachian shaped-note timbres. Newsom has, however, expressed disappointment at comments that her singing is “child-like.”
- Critics noticed a change in Newsom’s voice on her latest album. In the spring of 2009, Newsom developed vocal chord nodules and couldn’t speak, sing or cry for two months. The recovery from the nodules and further “vocal modifications” changed her voice.
- In addition to her solo work, Newsom has played on records by Smog, Vetiver, Nervous Cop, The Year Zero, Vashti Bunyan, Moore Brothers, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Golden Shoulders and The Roots and played keyboards for The Pleased.