Winsome Newsom

On several people’s recommendation, I bought Joanna Newsom’s The Milk-Eyed Mender CD. It is quite remarkable. Her lyrics remind me of Mervyn Peake‘s nonsense poems (… Even mollusks have weddings, / though solemn and leaden / but you dirge for the dead, / take no jam on your bread …). She sings of catenaries and dirigibles, rephrasing words into unfamiliar shapes. It’s not the most common act, a harpist with a fey wee voice who can also raise up a real backwoods caterwaul, but it works for me.

Here’s a video of one of her songs: Sprout and the Bean.

(Norvin, you’d hate it. In fact, you’d hate it so much that I’d advise you listen to it, just so folks around you can experience the ‘neitzen’ effect.)