A Hopeless Endeavor: A Joanna Newsom Podcast

Okay, listen. This episode is a bit off the rails. We don’t know how to analyze fine art, but we gave it a go, and here is what we came up with. We dive into (and possibly drown in) Benjamin Vierling’s gorgeous, intricate masterpiece that is the Ys album art. I am pretty sure we mispronounce something several times a minute. WE TRIED. Please let us know if you have any thoughts or theories. We need your help, especially on this stuff. Good luck with this one. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to David Pizarro for the lovely music.

The last part of the last episode of the last song on Ys. (Except we’re doing an episode on the album art next week so as to cling to this album as long as possible.) We hope you all enjoy! Special thanks to Av for his ridiculously helpful and informative video on Ys and music. Thank you, as always, to David Pizarro for the beautiful beat. Send us your thoughts on literally any Joanna song ([email protected]). We would love to hear them. After the album art episode next week, we are going to cover Colleen before diving into Have One On Me. Thank you so much for listening. “Wild Cosmia, what have you seen?”

We start our discussion on the last song from (what is probably) the greatest album of all time. We are sad about that, so you should email us ([email protected]) theories and questions about anything Ys related so that we can revisit it one more time. In the meantime, buckle in for some moth-talk. Thank you, as always, to David Pizarro for the beautiful Cosmia beat. Thank you also to the people who contributed to this episode! We appreciate you so much.

The final episode on Only Skin. What a trip. Thank you all for listening, and thank you to David Pizarro for his Cosmia beat. “All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone. Take my bones, I don’t need none.”

We get confused about lights, undiluted and weaving, babies out back, and anointing guns. Thank you so much to you all for listening. Thank you so much, too, to David Pizarro for the music. “Stay with me for a while. That’s an awfully real gun. I know life will lay you down, as the lightning has lately done.”

We continue our discussion on Only Skin! We talk about sex, drugs, birds, Sisyphus, and the Bible, hitting a bunch of the usual Joanna themes. Thank you so much to Blessing All the Birds, to David Pizarro for the Cosmia beat, and to Rachana for her absolutely gorgeous and impressive cover of Only Skin. Thanks also to everyone who contributed their theories. “I have got some business out at the edge of town, candy weighing both of my pockets down till I can hardly stay afloat from the weight of them (and knowing how the common folk condemn what it is I do to you to keep you warm: Being a woman).”

We talk a lot about nurturing. Thank you so much to everyone for listening. Thank you, too, to David Pizarro, aka Peez, for his Cosmia beat (“Framed Your Eyes”). “Press on me, we are restless things. Webs of seaweed are swaddling. And you call upon the dusk of the musk of a squid: shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib.”

We’ve done it. We have attempted to tackle the enormity of Only Skin. It took us a long time, but come on, it *should* take a long time to talk about this modern, masterpiece of an epic. I don’t even know how to write this preamble. It’s all just too good. Thank you so much to Alexis and Av for their supportive and insightful contributions. Thank you as well to Rachel Hottle for her incredible (over our heads with its brilliance) essay, “Unconventional Formal Structures and Function in the music of Joanna Newsom”. Thank you, as ALWAYS, to Melissa Marturano and Rachel Parent for the complete genius (and blood, and sweat, and tears) that is Blessing All the Birds. Thank you so much to David Pizarro, aka Peez for his Cosmia beat, which is called “Framed Your Eyes”. David also does all sorts of producing/mastering sorcery on our audio that we would be lost without, so thank you so much, David. And thank you all for listening. Buckle in, because our Only Skin journey is about to get wild. “My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke.”

It’s the last episode on this gorgeous song. We finish up our discussion of Sawdust & Diamonds. Nikki goes on a wild tangent about Lolita. Thank you so much to everyone who listens! Thank you to David Pizarro for the music (this beat is called “Framed Your Eyes”, and you can find more here: https://m.soundcloud.com/peezismyname ). “Darling, we will be fine, but what was yours and mine appears to me a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes.”

The penultimate part of our discussion on the gorgeous, moving, earth-shattering Sawdust & Diamonds. Sam is completely brilliant on this episode (and always) so I just also want to thank her for her brains and her sweet heart. Thank you so much, too, to David Pizarro, aka Peez for his beat, “Framed Your Eyes”. Find more of his stuff at www.SoundCloud.com/peezismyname . Thank you, especially, so much to everyone who listens. Email us at [email protected]. “Push me back into a tree. Bind my buttons with salt. Fill my long ears with bees, praying please, please, please, love, you ought not! No, you ought not!”