Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (Disc One)

I’ve posted about Joanna Newsom before, twice actually. Starters and bias out of the way, I think she’s an absolutely beautiful woman and I always love being reminded to listen to her music. Whether it’s just another excuse to drool all over her gorgeously unique voice and then, in turn, to be able to look for some images to drool of…well, she’s pretty bad-ass right?

I was recently reminded of her when reading a thread on a forum I post on. Basically, the gist of the thread was to put up some kind of mix tape – called Frankenstein’s mix tape – and in it, you could be a master DJ of some sort and come up with an album of songs off your favorite albums of the year. The point being that although they could be diverse, the songs needed to be placed at their original track order at least. Here is the one I came up with for fun’s sake:

1.Dance Yrself Clean – LCD Soundsystem
2. Love Cry – Four Tet
3. XXXO – M.I.A.
4. Locked Inside – Janelle Monáe
5. Gone Baby, Don't Be Long – Erykah Badu
6. I Saw the Light – Spoon
7. Empire Ants – Gorillaz
8. Djohariah – Sufjan Stevens
9. I Want to Be Well – Sufjan Stevens
10. The Undoing – Interpol
11. Animals – Bonobo
12. I’m Not the One – The Black Keys
13. Half-State – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
14. Sprawl I (Flatland) – Arcade Fire
15. Back Up Plan – Big Boi

So anyway, I noticed that a lot of people had the same Joanna Newsom song on their mixes, the fourth song off her triple disc of an album, Have One On Me. If you ever get a chance to see the photos she took for each LP of the vinyl edition, WOW. The first disc is probably my least favorite of all the discs only because of how slow moving the songs are. But “Good Intentions Paving Company” is beyond remarkable, in my opinion. Her voice cracks as she sings but with the piano’s rolling melody and the percussion’s timely touches, the sheer chug of the song is what really gets me moving. The words are especially stirring, “Like I’m in a fist fight with a fog, baby” and to end everything, “When I only want for you to pull over and hold me, ‘til I can’t remember my own name.” I almost feel tired trying to describe it because I would hope that people would click on the video and just listen to the 7-minute song. Not because I’m lazy or it’s not worth it but there’s not really anything adequate enough to say about Ms. Newsom that DOESN’T over-hype it but for whatever it is, she’s a tremendous artist and this song showcases all of her strengths: creative songwriting, her singular voice and her impeccable musicianship. – Bryan