Gotye – Somebody You Used to Know

Ladytron – Destroy Everything You Touch

Pepper Rabbit – Rose Mary Stretch

Ryan Gosling – You Always Hurt the Ones You Love

The New Pornographers – Letter from an Occupant

St Vincent – Cheerleader

Kimbra – Settle Down

Girls – Honey Bunny

Hilltop Hoods – Nosebleed Section

Dengue Fever – Thank You Goodbye

We could stand for a century—staring—
With our heads cocked
In the broad daylight at this thing.
Joy, landlocked,
In bodies that don’t keep,
Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being
Until we don’t be told
“Take this,” and “Eat this”

Told:
“The meteorite is the source of the light,
And the meteor’s just what we see,
And the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire
that propelled it to thee;

And the meteorite’s just what causes the light
And the meteor’s how it’s perceived
And the meteoroid’s a bone thrown from the void that lies
quiet in offering to thee.”

—Joanna Newsom, Emily

You know how I adjusted to that problem of the radio in the environment? Very much as the primitive people adjusted to the animals which frightened them, and which probably, as you say, were intrusions. They drew pictures of them, on their caves. And so I simply made a piece using radios. Now, whenever I hear radios—even a single one not just twelve at a time, as you must have heard on the beach, at least—I think “Well, they’re just playing my piece.”

—John Cage, in conversation with Morton Feldman, 1967

Lord, I ain’t goin’ down to no race track
See no sports car run
I don’t have no sports car
And I don’t even care to have one
I can walk anytime around the block

—Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan’s Blues

what makes you think that it won’t grow back
in a day or two?
husbands in winter, they know the truth
but what can they do?

i don’t like girls the way they are
so shave their legs, and make them look like movie stars
then we can pretend it’s natural

put on whatever makes you attractive
if it’s not you, then do it for the sake of fashion
if your friends like a certain you, that’s who you’ve got to be

junior high legs; blond hair gone brown
from removing it
waxing since thirteen
wisdom from a beauty queen
her tiara digging deep in her head

put on whatever makes you attractive
if it’s not you, then do it for the sake of fashion
if your friends like a certain you, that’s who you have to be
that’s who you’ve got to be

i’m starting to think that i’m kinda shy
or at least i’d like to be

winter legs give me heart attacks
so take it off with laser, so it never comes back
so we can pretend it’s natural

Ah, Pedro The Lion. A bit of nostalgia on this tiring Tuesday.

the tortoise in the wheelchair wrapped his forehead in a bandage
with a cast they made from plaster for his phony broken leg
so he’d get pushed around the sidewalk by the zookeeper’s assistant
with the hummingbird observing from behind the yellow flower
and he flapped his tiny wings they moved so fast you couldn’t see them
with resentment for the tortoise which was clear by his expression
but the tortoise turned and smiled with a peacefulness which proved
that there’s a movement in our stillness and however much we move

we’re bound to stand completely still.

— mewithoutYou, Goodbye, I!

Set-list:

A Holiday in Cottingley
The Mary Celeste
A Song For Clarice
To My Mother, Who Waits Above
God Sees The Truth But Waits
A Bawdy Lament For Our Setting Sun
Plastic Jesus
La Fin de Siécle
A Father’s Instruction
Good News From A Far Away Land

Proud Valletta with Ghost Cats, 10/28/09 at The Cave in Chapel Hill.

Set-list:

A Bawdy Lament for Our Setting Sun
A Father’s Instruction
A Song for Clarice
To My Mother, Who Waits Above
Mary Celeste
God Knows the Truth, But Waits
A Holiday in Cottingley
Good News From a Far Away Land

Tofer drew my quill tattoo as well. Everything he does is magic.

And if you haven’t already, listen to our music.

At first, her voice turned me off. I had a crappy bootleg of Yarn and Glue. Or are all versions like that? Mine was recorded in some sort of drive-me-mad stereo mode. It oscillates from left to right and buzzes like crazy, sounds like it was recorded underwater, on an electrified platform. I gave her another chance with Milk-Eyed Mender, and now her voice is one of the main reasons I listen to her music. Recently, I’ve been more interested in distinctive, raw, low-fi vocals that convey honest emotion rather than a produced, clear sound. I guess it’s not quite fair to say that polished vocals are less genuine. That’s like assuming all decent people are disingenuous because they’re not as bad as me. Even so, I’d rather hear Tom Waits than Frank Sinatra, though that’s due to subject matter as well.

More than anything else, I love Joanna Newsom’s poetry. I’m functionally illiterate when it comes to music, so I try to latch on to the one thing musicians do that I understand even a little: lyrics. A few samples from Ys, which speak very well for themselves:

It was a dark dream, darlin’, it’s over
The fire-breather is beneath the clover
Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever
A toothless hound-dog choking on a feather.

– Only Skin

and

When you ate I saw your eyelashes
Saw them shake like wind on rushes
In the corn field when she called me
Moths surround me – thought they’d drown me

And I miss your precious heart
And I miss your precious heart

Can you hear me, will you listen milkymoon
Don’t go near me, don’t go missing
In the lissome light of evenin’
Help me, Cosmia – I’m grievin’

– Cosmia

and one more:

Let us go! Though we know it’s a hopeless endeavor
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever
Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning
There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning

– Emily

And it helps that she’s unbearably beautiful. Proof:

[youtube VcsBGR9uHmc nolink]

I love her unassuming, completely comfortable presence. She’s poised, but not cold; self-assured without seeming arrogant. When she talks, it’s like she’s found a treasure she wants to share, and that is so wonderful. There are few objects in the universe more beautiful than an intelligent, passionate woman. Ok, I’ll stop now.

So I suppose I didn’t say much about Ys itself. It’s more orchestral than Milk-Eyed Mender. Conceptually, it deals loosely with an ancient, sea-drowned city, though Newsom doesn’t go down the crass or operatic trails of concept albums; she loosely fits the music around various themes, leaving a lot of room for metaphor (her harp is the sea, etc), and for melodic experimentation. All of these are worth points on my scale.