Have One On Me, Joanna Newsom

BEST OF 2010

For the past two weeks I have been listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell. Mostly her first two albums, Song to a Seagull and Clouds. There is a simplicity. An innocence. A beautiful mixing of love, nature, and the feminine. As I listened to these records spin I thought to myself how there will never be another Joni Mitchell. The voice and the message comes from a period in history so far behind us…

This weekend I found the early leak of Joanna Newsom’s Have One On Me. And, I realized it isn’t always about the present. Some of us are capable of climbing back into the past. Ms. Newsom has done just that in her new release.

Her first album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, is a lovely harp filled music fest and a fragile voice singing from the edge of a sharp piece of glass. At times, too much for everyone to find comforting. The second album, Ys, is a complex and long-winded exploration. An incredible journey. One I didn’t think could be topped.

On Have One On Me, Joanna Newsom has re-created the pop/folk fusion. She has copy and pasted the Mitchell history into her harp strings. She has found a happy medium of pixie and pleasantry on her vocal chords. No one can listen to ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’ and tell me Joni Mitchell isn’t still very much alive.

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