Have One on Joanna Newsom

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Joanna Newsom
Have One On Me
Drag City

Joanna Newsom’s new triple (!) disc has been shrouded in secrecy for the past two years, and now that it’s finally out, well, it was worth the wait.

The northern California musician has been playing the same old harp since age 12, and sees herself as the musical offspring of home-state artists CSNY, Joni Mitchell, and the Byrds. But Have One On Me is a departure from her past work. Newsom’s nasally voice, so off-putting to some listeners of her first albums, is now mostly angelic—due ironically to a vocal injury last year. There’s also more percussion and a deeper cache of instrumental layers here. She wrote her own harp and vocal arrangements, while Ryan Francesconi, who plays guitar, long-necked lute, banjo, mandolin, and soprano recorder on the album, arranged and engineered the recordings.

Each of these 18 songs—only three of them clock in at under five minutes; six are eight-plus—is a leg of her musical trip through the Golden State. The nice parts of it, that is: black bears and beetles and all that. When you come and see me in California / You cross the border of my heart, she croons.

This album can function as background music if you want it to, but what’s most intrusive—and interesting—is the multiplicity of texture. From lutes and harps to horns and electric guitars, it unfurls surprises on the first few listens: Check out “Soft As Chalk,” “Easy,” and the title track. Newsom describes Have One On Me as “more direct and more open” than past records. Which might be true, but her seraphic vibrato is still there if you listen for it. 
 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate