Joanna Newsom Quotes & Sayings

I don't think I'm abnormal and I think that lets people down. — Joanna Newsom

I have a recording that I did of instrumental songs. — Joanna Newsom

My voice in combination with the harp - which, by the way, I use because I've played it my entire life, not to make some statement about the harp - somehow has ... coloured people's interpretations of the music and projected an idea of childlike or fairytale quality or innocence. Which sometimes prevents people from listening to the songs the way I would like them to be listened to. — Joanna Newsom

I fought angrily against seeing particular types of poetic organization because it seemed awful to see my own life and these actual events in that way. But when you put forth an intention into the universe to speak a certain truth and narrate a certain period of your life, you start to see the sorts of symmetries that you are not usually supposed to be able to see until you are on your deathbed and your life flashes before your eyes. And you see exactly why everything happened. And even the most painful things you've ever been through can seem unbearably beautiful. — Joanna Newsom

If I ever met Dolly Parton for sure, I would just not be able to say anything. I love her. — Joanna Newsom

I want to make music that somehow connects to the things that I love in America music. — Joanna Newsom

I have a deep rooted folk sensibility that I can't get away from completely. — Joanna Newsom

You should listen to a lot of different music. — Joanna Newsom

I can understand someone not liking the voice or the songs. — Joanna Newsom

I played piano for about two years when I was a kid. I didn't play long enough to be really great. — Joanna Newsom

People in San Francisco and the East Bay have shown interest, done interviews, and have come to shows. I guess that the news travels fast out of this island that we are on. — Joanna Newsom

I didn't sing for years and years, but I started playing harp when I was maybe 9 or 10. I had actually wanted to play for years leading up to that, but no teacher in our little town would take me on as a student, because I was too young. — Joanna Newsom

And all that we built, and all that we breathed And all that we spilled or pulled up like weeds Is piled up in back and it burns irrevocably And we spoke up in turns 'til the silence crept over me. — Joanna Newsom

The so-called positive press has in some ways been more difficult to swallow than the negative. — Joanna Newsom

I've been unaware of how people react to the instrument. People have ideas of what a harp is supposed to sound like, and a lot of them are negative ideas. — Joanna Newsom

I can't play my songs on the smaller harp. I have a Celtic harp. I can't do the key changes. — Joanna Newsom

I am always trying to write. — Joanna Newsom

I recorded harp first or singing first. I recorded it all together. Part of the reason is that I don't know how to play the songs without also singing. I forget how they progress. I don't think that any of them are verse, chorus, verse, and so on. They are not simple. — Joanna Newsom

Last week, our picture window
Produced a half-word,
Heavy and hollow,
Hit by a brown bird.
We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
And pant and labor over every intake.
I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace,
Then thought i ought to take her to a higher place.
Said, dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you,
And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view. — Joanna Newsom

Families of privilege and money would have harps in their parlors, and their cultured daughters would learn to play. It's got such a strange history. But that wasn't the context that I learned it in, so the inherent friction between that history and the more humanist folk-y history wasn't in my conscience at all. — Joanna Newsom

I did spend a year in high school being obsessed with Fleetwood Mac. — Joanna Newsom

There's something fundamental to the harp that has retained its appeal my whole life. It's an instrument I am just in love with. — Joanna Newsom

It's totally different. I usually don't tell people about the Pleased if they know me from the harp. And if they are there to see the Pleased, I usually don't tell them about the harp. I am nervous that these people will expect something similar. — Joanna Newsom

I would happy for someone to download my music. — Joanna Newsom

The signifieds butt-heads with the signifiers
and we all fall down slackjawed to marvel at words
while across the sky sheet impossible birds
in a steady illiterate movement homewards. — Joanna Newsom

The very first Walnut Whales recording was recorded just a few weeks after I had started singing, out of the blue, started singing. And the voice, you can hear how uncomfortable I am with it, and how terrified I am with it. — Joanna Newsom

I have writing songs on my own for about six years. — Joanna Newsom

I definitely don't subscribe to the theory that more instruments, or more vocal tracks, harmony, or double tracking the voice, is a good thing. People do their early albums very stripped down, then each album becomes bloated. — Joanna Newsom

I am producing sounds that people are not used to hearing from the harp. — Joanna Newsom

I didn't really know a lot of the history when I was younger. I didn't realize that the harp is coded in such a specific way in musical circles. It's kind of this society instrument because of its history as a young woman's parlor instrument. — Joanna Newsom

There are some mornings when the sky looks like a road. — Joanna Newsom

I am not doing something that it is experimental music in relation to classical music. — Joanna Newsom

People are often afraid for me. They think that I am going to break. I can make it through a set. — Joanna Newsom

Among the responsibilities of any writer is that, no matter what else, they know what they mean. So, even if no one else knows what you're talking about, you do. The listener can sense that, even if they don't get the literal meaning. The faith that they place in the clues and the connections and the secrets of the lyrics is of the utmost importance. — Joanna Newsom

The fire breather is beneath the clover, and beneath his breathing there is cold clay forever — Joanna Newsom

Maybe a good goal would be to just at least always try to create something good. Like something that is connected to love in some way. Like the [musical] equivalent of ... you can make a decision to be kind. You can make a decision to greet people kindly and make jokes with people and connect. — Joanna Newsom

I have a voice that's obviously untrained - and I think untrainable - so I kind of secreted it away for a long time. Actually, I would write songs with lyrics when I was younger, but I would just sing in my head. — Joanna Newsom

In high school, we studied a lot of poetical forms. I was really interested in the math that was involved and the strange live break ups. That gave me a great amount of respect for a rhymed stanza. — Joanna Newsom

I started playing harp about fourteen years ago. — Joanna Newsom

We deserve to know light. And grow evermore lighter and lighter. — Joanna Newsom

The way that words fit together is always interesting to me. I love words. — Joanna Newsom

I don't look at people's expressions, because I still get nervous when I play, especially when I first put the harp up there. I just try to tune - it takes me a half-hour to tune, and I get nervous if I look at anybody when I do it. — Joanna Newsom

I wanted to write songs which I think is a different thing. I wanted to write music that is informed by folk music. The chord progressions are obvious references. — Joanna Newsom

I never thought people would be mortally offended by the sounds I was making. — Joanna Newsom

In the sinking sand,
where we've come to rest,
have I had a hand in your loneliness? — Joanna Newsom

Lyrics are very different. There is a clear line between that and a poem. Something that has been a source of great excitement and delight for me is this idea that I get to rhyme. — Joanna Newsom

I am consciously not trying to bring in World Music elements. The ways that I work and feel are completely different in how they sound than someone playing the Kora in Africa would play it. — Joanna Newsom

It broke my heart when I learned the moon had been passing the sun's light off as its own. — Joanna Newsom

Never get so attached to a poem that you forget truth that lacks lyricism. — Joanna Newsom

It's valid that the Strokes and the Pleased have been influenced by some of the same bands. But it's invalid in the sense that we listen to the Strokes and try to sounds like them. I think that they are a good band. — Joanna Newsom

I wasn't born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilight
No I was all horns and thorns sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright. — Joanna Newsom

We are blessed and sustained by what is not said — Joanna Newsom

The moment of your greatest joy sustains:
Not axe nor hammer
Tumor, tremor
Can take it away, and it remains
It remains — Joanna Newsom

I wasn't interested in writing music that wasn't beautiful for me to listen to. — Joanna Newsom

I am consciously trying not to make it sound Celtic or African. — Joanna Newsom

Well, yeah, I wanted to resist the urge to thicken everything up with instrumentation, because I just felt like I was interested in seeing how the songs did on their own. — Joanna Newsom

I had known that people would probably have strange reactions to my voice, because I have kind of an unwieldy, difficult voice, but I never thought that anybody would have a problem with the harp. I just assumed ... C'mon, it's a beautiful instrument. — Joanna Newsom

What a woman does is open doors. And it is not a question of locking or unlocking. — Joanna Newsom

Around eighth grade I decided I wanted to be a composer and that's what I went to college for. Just a few years back, I switched out of composition and into creative writing so I could work with words. — Joanna Newsom

I give away CDs at shows if someone wants a CD but doesn't have any money. I wouldn't want to do that forever. — Joanna Newsom