First thoughts on Have One On Me

Very first thoughts? Drag City, I love you. I think I pre-ordered this pretty much as soon as the option was available, because of course I was getting the vinyl set, but it kind of bummed me out because I figured that my having it on the day it came out would be an impossibility. Figured I'd have to wait until close to the weekend if it shipped on Tuesday. But nope, got it on the Monday before it hits stores. I love that. THAT is how you do things, Drag City! I wish I liked more of your artists! What was even better was that it was a surprise right up until the very moment I opened the box, because I recently also ordered the new book Visions of Joanna Newsom, and that's supposed to be coming any day now. So when I saw that box sitting on my steps, I assumed it was the book. Wrong! Elation!

So, I'll take my initial thoughts (and they are sooooooooooo cursory at this point) from this angle. I have literally been waiting for years to hear a studio version of "Esme." I have listened to that youtube video of the live version more times than I'd care to realize. It came out at a time when there were no rumblings of her working on a new album, or songs for a new album. The story that circulated on it was that it was written about a friend of Joanna's's baby, or actually written for the baby. Who knows if that story is true or not, but if you buy into it, the whole situation makes it a perfect candidate for a song that would never end up on an album, just left to be sung for whoever Esme was, while Joanna moved on to a larger project. So I've always thought of that song as a singular piece. It never really occurred to me that it would end up as a section of a larger album. If it did end up on an album, I assumed that would mean Joanna had retreated from something that seems conceptual like Ys (though she denies there's a concept or one vision running through that record, it's hard to believe because the five songs just sound too much like they belong together) back to a collection of songs like The Milk-Eyed Mender. In fact, that's kind of what I was expecting, an album that took the lessons learned writing Ys but applying them in several different directions. And the advance release tracks seemed to be pointing in that direction too. 81, Good Intentions Paving Company, and Kingfisher are pretty radically different, so I thought we were going to get a record that was all over the place. I didn't realize "Esme" was going to be on the record until I got it, didn't look at the tracklisting before it was in my hands. So even when I started listening, I thought I was going to be listening to her basically playing with sounds that were new to her and seeing what she could do with them, but not necessarily trying to make a whole out of them.

I'm pretty sure I'm wrong. It's true that there's new sounds for Joanna on this record. There's a lot of For The Roses-era Joni Mitchell in here. And if people finally start forgiving her voice on this record (FOOLS!) they're going to find faults this time around with the way she often abandons meter in her vocals. Sometimes, actually many times, she sounds way more interested in singing what she's written than making a tune out of it. Especially on the second of the three records. My guess would be that if people try to split it up, they're going to harp on the second record being unmemorable and declare the third record as the triumph, and because of that call the whole thing overlong. But to split them up would definitely be their first mistake. Even starting into the second record, I still hadn't made my mind up as to whether or not what I was listening to was one whole or a bunch of songs, partially just not being able to believe she could sustain one story over three records. I was wrong. It's painfully obvious to me now. Things just keep popping up as clues. There's spiders and rabbits and horses all over it, attention to dainty clothes, a decent amount of murder, all running throughout. And just reading the lyrics, the first song relates directly to the last in ways I didn't get on the first listen. And the refrain from the middle of the second record that appears at the end of the third. Plus just musically there's a commonality between several songs, though not monotony. It could be that I'm just letting Lost color my view of all media now, but I think there's a lot to pick apart here. So...triumph. It's really rare that I get excited for the first listen of a new album anymore. It never happens that I'm even MORE stoked for the imminent multiple listenings.

And it came with a poster.