Q&A
Joanna Newsom
By Claire Suddath Monday, Mar. 01, 2010
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0 ... z0pJb0V0CO
Philip Ryalls / Redferns / Getty Images
Joanna Newsom plays the harp, writes esoteric songs that contain words like Tulgeywood and sings in a high-pitched warble that manages to sound both beautiful and pained at the same time. It took the 28-year-old songwriter four years to release Have One on Me, the three-disc follow-up to her critically acclaimed sophomore album Ys. Newsom talks to TIME about the process of creating a monstrous album, why she wishes she was a better composer and what happened when she lost her voice. (Watch "Out Now: Spoon, Vampire Weekend and VV Brown.")
Why did you keep your new album, Have One on Me, such a secret? No one even knew it was coming until about a month ago.
I didn't want to announce it and have it be delayed. There'd been so many setbacks along the way that I wanted to make sure the album was in the can and completely ready to go. Also, we were trying to prevent it from being leaked.
The album's over two hours long and spread out over three discs. It seems designed to be listened to as one complete product and not as a series of separate songs. Why did you make something in this format?
I tried to sequence it so that it could be listened to in its entirety and had a progression that felt thematically logical and natural. In a way, the three records are like chapters in a book. Unless you're serializing a book you wouldn't separate the chapters, but they're also meant to be these little self-contained segments within the narrative.
My favorite song on there is "Good Intentions Paving Co." but it feels a little bit poppier than your other work. Actually, a lot of the album does.
I think part of it was a reaction to the previous record, Ys. The experience of making Ys was quite intense and formal for me. I paid such close attention to every tiny little detail — the syntax, the lyrics, the distribution of syllabic entropies, the interior and exterior rhyme patterns — there was a lot of activity and it felt a little frenetic. When I was done with it all, I was pretty tired. I really wanted to allow my brain to approach music a little differently. When making this record, I had the feeling of being a little kid coming home from church. I was in my tight, scratchy sailor dress and my tight, scratchy patent-leather shoes. It was the feeling of tearing it all off and running around outside in my underwear.
This album is the underwear?
This album is me running around in my underwear, more or less.
As a musician you straddle two music communities, the indie scene and the more traditional orchestral symphony scene. Where do you see yourself when it comes to those two worlds? Do you think they should interact more?
I sometimes feel like they should interact less! Or if they interact as much as they do, it should maybe be planned better. I'm not going to name names, but I see things from time to time that feel like arbitrary collaborations.
I would place myself squarely on the nonclassical side. As a composer, I require assistance. I have ideas and I have an album in mind but I'm limited, I need help making the record. I'm a very poor composer. I really am. That may change over the years, but right now I have such a huge gap between what's in my mind and what I'm able to notate. I think it would be disingenuous for me to claim to be part of the classical world.
You self-produced this album, but you worked very closely with Ryan Francesconi, who arranged the songs, and Neal Morgan who did the percussion. How much input did they have?
They were there from the beginning. Ryan and Neal came to my house and we crawled through the songs bar by bar. We talked a lot about meaning and mood and thematic stuff, going into some awkward realms of discussions. I find it awkward to talk about song meaning. The way we got around that awkwardness was for Ryan to interview me. Somewhere he must have some very incriminating piles of notes for things I'd never talk about in a real interview but it was important to me that he and Neal understood the spirit of the songs.
We all went our separate ways and worked on our parts for a few months. Then we all went to this cabin in Big Sur to play together. I always regret how much better songs sound after I tour them. You play them for six months and then wish you could make the album again cause they sound so much better. I wanted to get a little of that effect for the record.
But when I went to lay the basic vocal tracks, I discovered that I had no voice. All of the singing in the dusty woods of Big Sur with the wood smoke and the cabin we were staying in, drinking too much whiskey in the kitchen and doing all of these horrible things for my voice had really hurt it. I had to not talk for two months. That obviously put a huge freeze on making the record.
What did you do for those two months?
It was completely bizarre. I'd recorded all of the piano and the harp. I wanted to finish the album. It was like, "Oh, come on." It was really scary for me — also bizarre and depressing. This is definitely stating the obvious here, but you feel very isolated when you can't talk to people.
Did you write notes to people?
I had a dry-erase board I'd take around but I didn't use it much. It made me avoid social interactions more than I already do. I just turned into a shut-in who dreaded going grocery shopping.
But you had to go out in public eventually, right?
I ended up wearing a sign pinned to my lapel to explain my inability to speak, but I couldn't figure out the right wording. I'd change it, like, every day. If the wording was too soft, people would think I was doing an art project, like, "Hey, I'm trying to do this not-speaking thing. Please support me in this." But then on the other end if I got too extreme with it, people would be like, "Oh my God, are you O.K.?" I couldn't quite figure it out.
One nice thing was that I live in a small town, so people got used to it. It was only if I saw a stranger would I have to go through the whole rigmarole of pointing to the sign and writing on the dry-erase board. Usually people would say, "Still no voice?" and I'd nod and they'd be like, "Sorry, man!" I kept to limited circles.
I know you don't like to talk about your relationship with Andy Samberg, but I have to ask. Do you ever contribute ideas for his Saturday Night Live raps?
[Laughs.] No, I don't. But I am a big fan of them.