TITTWW continue to laud, debate, discredit, and dismiss Joanna Newsom's Ys

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ok, way to read book.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Monday, 4 December 2006 14:20 (seventeen years ago) link

i love this album but i wouldn't mind a cliffnotes to accompany it. the first song is about watching stars with her sister (and about writing down in verse the things her sister, an astrophysicist, teaches her), and the second is a weird fable about a monkey and a bear who escape from a farm and then the monkey makes the bear dance to make money until the bear goes down to a beach and literally steps out of her skin into the night which i think is too cool for words.

the others im still trying to figure out.

― max (maxreax), Monday, 4 December 2006 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm just not able to discover the structure or whatever else it is that's supposed to guide me through and thus it all sounds like she's completely randomly improvising and plucking at strings all the time.

i haven't 'discovered' the structure of the songs on ys either (apart from 'cosmia' which is relatively straightforward), though i've no doubt there are structures; i kind of enjoy it as an improvised listening experience.

are you people retarded? you just might be.

― Tyrone Slothrop (Tyrone Slothrop), Monday, 4 December 2006 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link

i love this album but i wouldn't mind a cliffnotes to accompany it.

I started one on the old ILX thread (or at least blathered at length about "Emily" until people started slowly backing out of the thread without taking their eyes off me):
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:j9nl7SOut1EJ:ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php%3Fmsgid%3D7225866

― Nu-Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 4 December 2006 18:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Structure really matters that much to you?

well just think of each song as having several choruses that she comes back to rather than verse/chorus/verse/chorus/blah/blah/blah.

thats not a hard and fast rule, though. "Sawdust and Diamonds" is more like a series of long and crescendo'd verses. "Only Skin" is ambulatory but works in several cycles with random phrasing in between.

Its better to think of the structure of the songs like poems than linear prose: lots of self-referencing, weaving of meaning, rhymes and slant rhymes. Go read some Whitman or Yevtushenko and then come back to it.

― Cap'n Guthrie (retardo1), Monday, 4 December 2006 18:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Y'know what's fun? Emptying a helium balloon into my cat's mouth and kicking her in the gut till she squeals like a child's slide whistle. One time I swear she cried out "OH-OH OH-OH-OH DESIRE!" but she was probably just caterwauling in feline agony.

I wouldn't call my cat an acquired taste.

― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Monday, 4 December 2006 23:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I ♥ Joanna Newsom

― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Monday, 4 December 2006 23:58 (seventeen years ago) link

Here's a video of the entire Philly show. DivX format.

http://files.filefront.com/Joanna_Newsom_Live__The_Fdivx/;6254877;;/fileinfo.htmlhttp://files.filefront.com/Joanna_Newsom_Live__The_Fdivx/;6254877;;/fileinfo.html

― Nu-Edward III (edward iii), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 18:27 (seventeen years ago) link

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