Have One On Me, Joanna Newsom

If there is a person who could single-handedly change what it means for someone to be “easy”, that person is Joanna Newsom, with her opening song “Easy” of her album Have One On Me. “Easy, easy/My man and me,” Newsom sings in her beautiful song about dedicating yourself completely to the service of loving an other. And to convey the strength of the emotions evoked, Newsom solicits the symbolic power of nature: we hear the frog who courts until the day he croaks, the life of the river  in the tickle of flutes.

It is rare now a day to find a recourse to Nature so prominent in music – a theme that was inspiration to so many classical composers (Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony,” Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”). It would make sense that Joanna Newsom, who has been playing the harp since she was five years old, be influenced by classical music. But Newsom is anything but classic. Everything, down to her voice (reminiscent of a more sober Kate Bush in “Wuthering Heights”) is unconventional.

While Nature, often embodied in animals, runs through Newsom's imagery, it does so in the form of, “a brace of jackrabbits with their necks all broke,” “[doling] out hurt like a puking bird,” and “swans and lisps down on the gossiping lawn saying, ‘tsk’,’tsk’,’tsk’.” Just as powerful as her lyrics is Newsom’s use of instruments. In “Easy,” the violin sweeps us into romantic fantasies while the minimal touches of the piano reveal the simple message of a love song one dedicates to their beloved. There are trumpets that take the place of vocals and hum along to the ending of “Good Intentions Paving Company”, and reproachful piano chords in “In California”. The result is that Have One On Me feels like the confessions of a modern-day nymph – one that gets drunk and barges through her ex’s door (“Jackrabbits”).

“Not informed of the natural law,” Newsom sings in “No Provenance,” and it’s almost impossible to believe her. For Newsom’s songs so lyrically and musically poignant, speak of emotions around love and loss in such a universal way, they seemed to be offered to us as a cautionary tales. Joanna Newsom not only has intuitive insight into the human condition, but also a distinctive way of communicating it.