Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Better Late Than Never


















"There's a bell in my ears,
There's a wide white roar,
Drop a bell down the stairs,
Hear it fall forevermore..."

The coin suddenly dropped. People had been telling me for ages I´d love Joanna Newsom´s Ys album, but I never quite got it. And I honestly don´t know why, but yesterday night I easily connected the dots from Memphis Minnie to Billie Holiday to Karen Dalton to Sandy Denny to Patti Smith to Lydia Lunch to... Joanna Newsom, and it all made sense somehow.

"Then I hear a noise from the hull,
Seven days out to sea,
And it is the damnable bell!
And it tolls - well, I believe, that it tolls - it tolls for me!
And it tolls for me!"

Joanna Newsom - Sawdust & Diamonds MP3

2 comments:

Paul said...

It's funny how quickly the light can come on. I'm going to have to give that album another spin now. You're progression from Memphis Minnie makes sense (and would make a great post too).

ib said...

Interesting. I downloaded "Emily" from somewhere a while back and liked it enough that it's still lurking there in my iTunes library.

Your comments here make me want to check this album out some more. Thanks for the prompt.

Nice line that, "Drop a bell down the stairs..."