Blog after an evening tumble

Tonight, after a long day at work, I walked the 15 minutes back to my car in bitterly cold weather, shivering and stamping all the way. I got to my car, misty-windowed in the empty carpark, but I found that I wasn't yet ready for the noise and bustle of driving back home again. So I walked to a nearby patch of grass, already dew-damp, and I lay on there, listening to Joanna Newsom, and stared at the stars. I found the Southern Cross, and the Pointers, and made faces at the moon. I sang along to the music, laughing at the idea that someone might hear me, or might think I'd fallen over and hurt myself. I wasn't sure how I'd tell them that sometimes, I just needed to fall over and stare at the night sky.

It was only about ten minutes, but I found that the cold was no longer biting, and I felt clear and free and full of wonder.

Incidentally, that brings me neatly to Joanna Newsom. She and I have had a tempestuous relationship. My first exposure to her was at a party at The House, the famous residence of years of student theatre students. Years later, I was to move in myself, but at the time, the place, and the people who frequented it, were strange and new to me. Two people I'd never met, both called Nick, had come home early from overseas and surprised all of my friends. I had felt shy and naive in the face of the laughter and squealing and hugging. The night developed into an impromptu party, and I found myself very late at night with my head on one of the Nick's knees, listening to the music that had just been put on, chosen as appropriate going-to-sleep-music.

I found it very odd. A women who sounded like a cross between a three year old and a very displeased cat was wailing all maudlin and high-pitched over a confused muddle of harp music. I frowned slightly and fell asleep. The album had been put on loop, and so I woke up four hours later, having had dream-skeins constantly torn by some dim awareness of that woman screeching away, I desperately lunged at the sound system and silenced it, and determined to never, ever listen to Joanna Newsom again.

Four years later, I'd expressed my undying hatred for her at some party or other, when I got an email from Tom Doman, who I'd known for years, but never really spoken to at length. He was working a job that afforded him a fair bit of free time, which he was spending trawling the internet for entertainment, and sending regular emails to people he knew. This particular message had the distinct air of one of those emails that has been brewing for some time, and has just been finally dashed out during a work break. I'll paste it nearly in full because it's entertaining:

'Swalker. Giving me your email was the worst move ever because now like everyone else I have the email of I can hassle you during my mundane working hours. THE PURPOSE OF MY EMAIL IS SUCH:

Not liking Joanna Newsom is a bizarre stance for someone who likes indie / martin martini-esque bizarre music. I have recently come to the speculation that this might be because you’ve started listening to the wrong Newsom songs. The acquired taste ones. Therefore I’m programming a remote play list you can plug into your itunes to give her a second chance.

Emily
Sprout and the Bean
Monkey and Bear
Peach, Plum, Pear
The Book of Right-On

I’m never going to bring this up again and certainly don’t want to force you to like music but I guess it struck me as odd that you don’t like her. I mean after all she’s really just a mix of Deerhoof, Lykkie Li, a muppet, Malvina Reynolds and Regina Spektor (if she played a harp). I can totally relate to why you wouldn’t like her as I didn’t at first until I heard Peach, Plum, Pear.'

And so I begrudgingly listened to all the songs he'd suggested, and suddenly remembered particular parts where I was trying to kill her with my mind ('Oh...my...love!' in 'Bridges and Balloons', especially), but also had to admit that the girl had skillz. I quite liked 'This Side of the Blue', and some of her others songs I found entertaining, but she was still hardly my idea of a good time.

I found her voice baffling. I really couldn't see how such a brilliant musician could have so little control over her tone. Over the next few months, I put her on now and then for kicks, but that voice still got in the way. And then, suddenly, I stopped listening to how she sounded, and started paying attention to what she was singing. And fuck, can that woman write lyrics. Holy shit.

In 'Bridges and Balloons', she rhymes caravel with Cair Paravel, for god's sake, and makes it sound entirely reasonable.
In 'The Book of Right On', she sings 'I killed my dinner with karate, kick 'em in the face', and I burst out laughing every time.
The entirety of 'Sadie' gives me goosebumps.
The last verse of 'Cassiopeia' is just glorious.
'Peach, Plum, Pear' says 'You were knocking me down with the palm of your eye,' which makes no sense and perfect sense simultaneously.
The image of freight trains pawing at the night in 'Swansea' is so damn evocative.

Literally every one of her songs has a line that just blows me away. That she can compose such succinct, poignant, hilarious lines of poetry itself is amazing. That she can have them sit nonchalant among rhythm and harmony is just astounding.

I read a review of her recently by a woman who said that she couldn't get over the honesty in her voice, and suddenly everything fell into place for me. The childishness I'd previously found churlish suddenly attained this wonderful grace. Her voice comes out without measurement or confines, and it allows the emotion of her words full reign. Her songs are full of such unbridled life that everything else I hear seems dull and forced.

I'd had a similar epiphany with Colin Meloy a year or so earlier. I'd heard a few of his songs, but found his singing voice raw and grating, until suddenly I found myself listening to Decemberists albums on repeat for weeks on end, and getting goosebumps at regular intervals, until I couldn't bear the idea of those loaded, passionate lyrics being delivered by any voice other than his. He has the same spontaneous element in his singing (as well as a similarly disarming gift with words) that beguiles me endlessly.

And so Tom is now calling me a dirty Newsom lover, and I have a new reason to fall on the grass and be filled up with the world.

It's good.