The Literary Lyricism of Joanna Newsom | Berkeley Fiction Review

The Literary Lyricism of Joanna Newsom

This article was originally written for the Berkeley Fiction Review’s blog.

In my 17th to mid-19th century lit class, our teaching assistant mentioned in passing, before starting our discussion of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” if anyone had heard of Joanna Newsom. The sound that escaped my mouth (a cross between a goat yodel and Meg Ryan’s infamous scene from When Harry Met Sally) was met with a mortifyingly long silence. After mine and everyone else’s embarrassment eventually subsided, our teaching assistant confessed that no matter how much he appreciated her lyric craftsmanship, he could not “get into it” because of her voice. Fair enough; after all, no matter how much I want to appreciate the band Joy Division, I can’t quite get past frontman Ian Curtis’ unintelligible moaning. Yet he was a grad student specializing in 18^th and 19^th century literature, had barreled through countless Dickensian tomes, was a scholar of Wordsworth, and no doubt had spent years poring over esoteric texts and impenetrable works. Would this indie folk songstress prove to be too abstruse?

Joanna Newsom has been baffling and enrapturing listeners alike for over a decade. Her debut studio album, 2004’s The Milk-Eyed Mender, along with 2006’s follow-up, the epic Ys, appeared frequently in many end-of-year and end-of-decade Top Album lists. Yet acclaim has never been universal, and Newsom has encountered her fair share of critics. Though her tone has softened over the years, critics often cite her “shrill and child-like” voice as the major deterrent, exacerbated by the fact that her everyday speaking voice contains none of the sharpness her signature music is known for. Despite this, Newsom amassed a cult-like following, even inspiring a tributary book. So what exactly accrues this level of fanfare? To those who can appreciate her tone, it’s her lyricism.

“The cause is Ozymandian,” begins Joanna Newsom’s latest single “Sapokanikan,” from her much anticipated fourth album, Divers. From the opening line, Newsom lets you know who she is and where she comes from, referencing and using language from Lord Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the lesser known Horace Smith’s “Ozymandias” poems – she is a lyric Romanticist. In a little over five minutes, Newsom tackles the nature of impermanence and what it means to truly remember and honor, covering a slew of disparate topics from obscure art history discoveries to the 95^th mayor of New York City. The music video, directed by husband Paul Thomas Anderson, has Newsom singing toward the camera, following her as she strolls through Greenwich Village and adjacent areas. The title is a reference to the Lenape tribe’s (the original residents of Manhattan) name for a tobacco farm-turned burial ground-turned parade ground-turned Washington Square Park.

Newsom also makes reference to Van Gogh, Titian, and Australian impressionist Arthur Streeton, all of whom have paintings that were recently x-rayed to reveal obscured figures or portraits painted over. All this builds, in part, a commentary on the ever-changing nature of the city, and our ever-forgetful relationship to who and what came before us. Simultaneously, Newsom frames the song and borrow slanguage from the “Ozymandias” poems, exploring themes of legacy and ephemerality. As the music swells and begins to ebb, Newsom ends with the titular character’s imperative, “Look and despair,” and you’re left in the wake of the crescendoing orchestra and her incredibly allusion-dense lyrics with only one thought on your mind: “huh?”

If that seems like a ridiculous amount of historic, artistic, and literary allusions, that’s because it is. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’d understand every line from the first listen, or even by the fourth or fifth. Numerous articles have already appeared explaining the song’s vast array of references, and every line has already been annotated on Genius.com. But more than the barrage of obscure references, the lyrics demands us to pay attention; they require from us to do the work of reserach, of connecting the dots, of thinking. More than anything, the song forces us to slow down, to consider closely it’s words in conversation with a historically wide panorama of art and history and time and literature.

Newsom’s latest single is definitely the densest of her œuvre so far (perhaps not including Ys). Her lyrics are always carefully constructed, incorporating extended metaphors, frequent wordplay, and literary allusions. Newsom’s music needs to be read just as much as it needs to be listened.

Although not all her music is as metaphor-heavy as this particular song. Take 2010’s Have One on Me, a three-disc album, for example–what she describes as her Blue, in reference to Joni Mitchell’s classic of singer-songwriting. The album is lush with some of her most accessible work to date. The song “Good Intentions Paving Company,” for example—a rollicking seven-minute suite whose lyrics revolve around the conceit of the road: a couple on the road, their relationship as the road, etc. at one point singing out her desperation: “And I did not mean to shout. Just drive / just get us out dead or alive. / A road to long to mention / –Lord it’s something to see!– /  Laid down by the Good Intentions / Paving Company,” referencing the oft-quoted proverb, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Though some might consider Newsom’s songwriting approach as inaccessible, the songs never really feel anything more than grounded and deeply intimate. Have One on Me‘s closer “Does Not Suffice,” for example, is brilliant and deceptive in it’s simplicity. At it’s core, the song is about moving out of an ex-boyfriend’s apartment. Newsom describes in detail the clothes and various accoutrements she’s packing, emptying out his closets, and drawers that tap with the sway of loose hangers. Every line emphasizes mine versus his, accumulating these details of emptiness and alienation from a once all-too familiar place until she drops that heart-shattering conclusion: “And everywhere I tried to love you/ is yours again and only yours.” Damn, Joanna.

So much of Joanna Newsom’s music seems almost anachronistic; her foremost instrument is a harp for god’s sake (talk about lyric music!), and her lyric antecedents are more Coleridge than J.Cole. Yet with a growing and dedicated fanbase, an upcoming major release (her first in five years), and over a million views on her most recently released single, there doesn’t seem to be a question that there is a space for her more traditional musical sensibilities that at times seem closer to Renaissance Ballads than our current pop-driven sound landscape. Yet as un-contemporary as her music might seem, it never feels dated. Always, there’s a sense of urgency in it’s sincerity of expression, that, despite all the esotericism, despite all its complexities–it feels honest (perhaps because of that same complexity). It seems that when it comes down to it, all we really want from our music is that it feels real.