¤ milky moon ¤

madpawn wrote:When considering the relationship between "excess" and Joanna Newsom's music, I think it's important to pay special attention to the theme of excess in the albums—in both Ys and Have One On Me, the notion of excess is a major theme/motif, as well as a word that many use to describe them. It's about the medium reflecting the message.

Ys was about one kind of excess, as she's mentioned several times in interviews—overabundance, overripeness to the point of decay. The album is bursting with lyrics about water, flooding, submersion, and also a direct nod to excess itself: "The hills are groaning with excess/Like a table ceaselessly being set." The songs themselves reflect this theme, by their sheer length, by their being full-to-bursting with words and musical ideas, by the near-vanity of a full symphony orchestra swelling behind the stark sound of the harp. The album is excessive, and is also about excess.

Have On On Me is about a different kind of excess—as the title/title track indicates (as well as Newsom in several interviews), it's about the excess of extravagant and decadent living, but also about how this kind of abundance can only come from diminishment of others. The phrase "Have One On Me" reflects this: by giving to someone else, you are reducing yourself. To take an example from each of the three discs, you can see this theme in the relationship between Lola and Ludwig in the title track, in Go Long's "terrible room" gilded with the gold teeth of the man's previous lovers and the palanquin "made of the many bodies of beautiful women," and in Does Not Suffice's list of fabrics and clothes which has made the narrator's lover think that she is less than she really is, which are revealed to be hollow finery and are taken away to leave only "The tap of hangers swinging in the closet." Once again, the theme is reflected in the structure of the album as well; in an act of almost ludicrous generosity, it's a triple album of over two hours in length—mightily appropriate for an album in which Newsom was dealing with the idea of being a woman/female performer and how "giving" also means "giving up" and "taking away from one's self."

My point? Yes, these albums are excessive—but they had to be.

I loved this. It makes me feel better about HOOM.

Eureka wrote:I was never aggressive nor upset.

I just wanted to discuss the album.

Please refer to my past posts because I have covered a lot of ground.

Thanks.

i red every post of this thread before posting, not find any objective answer to my post. as always you avoid anything against your point of view. you act like a parent upset with his child, i'm not a child, and certainly not yours.

thank you dwaink to attempt to a real interpretation ot the topic. even if i not agree with the "she try to be more mainstream", why when you compose happy melody you're forced to be mainstream, it's an other style. she's certainly not into britney spears production, so we have time before she's wairing glitter clothes on stage...


apart your post, to me this conversation is over.

It is rather hard to speak about aesthetics in an objective fashion. So to try and pin point who was being more objective is useless because we are speaking on how we responded to the album personally.

Granted, certain individuals used the lyrics to help them engage in the music within their point of view, but are still responding subjectively.

I am interested in discussing different points of view because it helps us either confirm or change our perspective of what is being discussed.

exactly Eureaka, its like the blind men all describing which part of the elephant they have hold of, personal perception is so powerful in a debate like this. that being said, for now this blind man has hold of this part:

On A Good Day

Hey hey hey, the end is near!
On a good day,
you can see the end from here.
But I won't turn back, now,
though the way is clear;
I will stay for the remainder.

I saw a life, and I called it mine.
I saw it, drawn so sweet and fine,
and I had begun to fill in all the lines,
right down to what we'd name her.

Our nature does not change by will.
In the winter, 'round the ruined mill,
the creek is lying, flat and still;
it is water,
though it's frozen.

So, 'cross the years,
and miles, and through,
on a good day,
you can feel my love for you.
Will you leave me be,
so that we can stay true
to the path that you have chosen?

To me this short(read that ultra non excessive ) song is a synopsis of the whole album, the cliff notes if u will. And yet it encompases all of Joanna's skill and effort. To me it is a "where we are now" song in her artistic career. And i like where she is now To me it looks to the past, with song structures that could have easily been on MEM, and yet contains dense poetics straight from the depths of Y's. It says it all sweet and short and movingly beautifuly too. This is not a dirge for lost love, this is the straight animal, evoking exactly that love and the sad state of affairs that has caused her to berate her ex love to "leave her be" so that they can go their seperate ways. she knows if they keep bumping into each other, or talking on and on, she will keep falling back into love with this guy and never be free. this person with whom she had such love as to "see' their future together:

I saw a life, and I called it mine.
I saw it, drawn so sweet and fine,
and I had begun to fill in all the lines,
right down to what we'd name her.

"drawn so sweet and fine" is so full of love and expectation, it hurts me to hear it, my heart aches with her loss and i can see how she could "name her". but this is not some jilted lover scorned and brooding, this is a realization of the water of life still flowing under a cold frozen surface that lost love gives us as a face:

the creek is lying, flat and still;
it is water,
though it's frozen.

she understands, more so feels our/her "natures" and recognizes in this bit of poetics, that the sun will shine warm and new, yet again, the frozen surface of her love will melt again into her true nature. this is a song of disentagnling oneself from someone so desired and the stunning realization that it is over. no melodramatics, no sloppy crying, just life as it is...no baby girl speaking here this is a woman.
Not less better said by those Beatles(s) in Here Comes The Sun:

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right
It's all right


Hey hey the end is near...perhaps not soon enough for u my friend Eureaka, but this song is a glittering gem among (perhaps) less polished sisters. Find it!

dwain

a little adendum here because i have been scouring other reviews trying to get a handle on deconstructing HOOM, so that i can make some sense of debating it being excessive. The guy that reviewed it from slate, Joey R(i think) who had access to the interviews Ryan did with Joanna about the songs that make up this album(so Ryan could wrap his head around what the songs were telling and write the accompanying music) says the album is loosely based on a 24 hr period in Joanna's life.(musta been a rough eventful day ) So we have three sections of a day that started with them being together still, and ended with them being apart(narrator-significant other). And the second thing i learned/finnaly understood that makes this album different from her others is that the polyrhythms so vital to the other albums are gone here(or mostly gone). Joanna stated in an interview that she "tired of them" which can explain how this album sounds so different, perhaps even sadder and less 'controled' than her other albums. Might even speak to it coming off as sounding more excessive. No 4/5 time to ground it all in.
Guess it speaks to my inability to realize what i am listening to, that i didn't grok this till now, but it makes sense, i still stand by my statement that "time" is important in this work, and the excessiveness of its feel is grounded in Joanna's experience of that time in a 24 hour/4 year sense. It is one complex bit of work!

dwain

dwain, you are the godfather of this forum!

nah just another fan

dwain

Nice insights Dwain.

I really found her exploration in poly rhythms really engaging, because it was rather reminiscent of West African Kora music. Certainly one of the most beautiful forms of music.

But her recent claim of poly rhythms being too "proggy" or "wanky" is utterly ridiculous because it seems to suggest that poly rhythms themselves can only exist in the sphere or space of "prog" music or that it is too self-involved or indulgent, but I wouldn't come close to describing Kora music as prog or self-indulgent in any way.

Granted, she is speaking about it in terms of her music, but doesn't make it all that clear in the interview:

http://www.laweekly.com/2007-11-15/music/mending-the-gap/

i think that autumn is unnecessary, but other than that, most of the others work.

i had that first impression of 'autumn', but she had performed it at her new york city date that i saw her at and it made me realize something. obviously, she was playing it for a reason -- it must really mean something important to her. i started giving the song more of a listen, because it really is a subtle one.

within a few weeks time 'autumn' became the only song i listened to on the record for about a week straight. listening to the words and really getting into how they work together is really eye-opening. i love the song, i completely feel what she's getting at.

ursulabear wrote:i think that autumn is unnecessary, but other than that, most of the others work.

+1

yeah, i also agree with that. and i used to also include "no provenance" and "go long" on that list as well, but lately i've been able to pick them apart and enjoy them. i'm still having difficulty with "autumn," but i bet hearing it live would shape my opinion in another fashion

I really enjoyed Autumn and No Provenance on first listen. There are some great lines in both - the opening lines of Autumn ("Driven through by her own sword, summer died last night, alone. Even the ghosts huddled up for warmth. Autumn has come to my hometown.") for example, and in No Provenance I think there's horrible power in the lines, "You burned me like a barn. I burned safe and warm in your arms."

lol look, she could have gotten rid of a few songs and cut it down to a single disk..... personally, im really glad she didn't.
i get the feeling that she was getting it all out too.... we're lucky she even shares it with us. i mean, as such a shy person she seems to be, and even though she avoids things in interviews, her songs are often unbearably vulnerable. i have a feeling that if some of these songs hadn't been released, they never would be. she wrote em, and gave em to us. i am happy about this. YEA YEA

people on the mars volta message boards often complain about how excessive omar is. he has like 10000 albums a year released.... and personally, it still bugs me to read interviews and hear that he has other albums and films sitting in a back room that will never see the light of day. take what you can get; she won't be around forever

and if you don't like some of the songs, just delete em. theres 2 or 3 i dont care for on the album as much, and i dunno, i don' t get annoyed that they're on there. ALTHOUGH... i did get annoyed kinda when she played you and me bess on tv. was hoping for, you know. a better song. still. i try not to be greedy.

lol but come on you guys. COME ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNn. excessive??? my ass. watch her read this and stop releasing albums publicly. it will be UR FAULT YEA YEA

I've never noticed any flaws in the production. Maybe my speakers are too shit.

I agree that it's a lot to take in, and she could have refined it a bit more, since it seems sort of incomplete to me.
Like if it was a drawing she just put in all the dark values frantically and paid all this attention to the shadows and contours but hung it up without taking the time to go in and pull out the highlights.
But, hey, at least nobody will get bored of it anytime soon.

ah mishu that's a whole nother thread

look further we have dissected it quite a bit

dwain

I very genuinely love and adore every song on the album.

The mere notion that someone would want to remove a song or two for brevity just makes me panic.

I admit there were songs I didn't click with instantly, these were 'No Provenance' and 'Go Long' -- but after a few repeated listens Go Long has come to be one of my favourites.

I just can't imagine the album without either of them, or any others for that matter.

I think it's length is part of the point, and from the title track 'Have One On Me', these lovers frantically indulge in excess to their end. It's always 'Just have one on me', to consume more, have another. Perhaps the album is indulgent, then, just as Joanna is pictured on the cover of the album with an absurd amount of antiques, she's lost among them, you don't even notice her immediately. Yet it doesn't feel at all "bloated", we're not overeating cake here-- we're working our way through bottle after bottle of expensive wine.

but we can keep the cake right? no need to get rid of good cake....

I agree I love everything about the album.

I like to imagine that opulence was what she was going for. Her voice has this laid back serenity, love it!

Gammonize wrote ...

The mere notion that someone would want to remove a song or two for brevity just makes me panic.

Likewise, there were some songs that didn't 'click' with me right away. These included Kingfisher, which has now become one of my favourites and probably my most-listened-to song on the album. The others were Autumn (which I am now enjoying, though it's taken a while), plus No Provenance, You And Me, Bess, Jackrabbits, and Occident.

The point is, that I know many others would have Jackrabbits and YAMB among their favourites, whilst there are others who didn't much care for Soft As Chalk, Ribbon Bows, Baby Birch, or - as in Gammonize's case - Go Long, all of which I consider key tracks on HOOM.

If she'd have cut some of the songs, and I reckon around a third would have to go to get it down to one CD's worth of material, then nearly all of us would lose a favourite or two. CDs aren't like LPs where - if you present a really short album you can record at a slightly higher quality, and/or better durability: with a CD it's just empty capacity, so I am grateful that she recorded 2 hours' worth of material, because it means that none of my preferred songs were omitted, and because even now - nearly 3 years after it came out - it is still growing with and on me.