It has taken me 2 solid weeks of almost-constant listening to digest this album and I finally feel like I have words to express what I think about it and how it makes me feel. The reason I find Newsom so captivating is that her music has a unique ability to capture an atmosphere and hold it in the music and lyrics throughout the album, despite changes in tempo, style, instruments and vocal pitch. This album has an overwhelming sense of melancholy in the charting of a relationship from the beginning, so easy and open-hearted as Newsom sings in Easy “Easy easy/My man and me/We could rest and remain here/Easily…” to the final song “Do not suffice” which describes her packing up her belongings and moving out of her lover’s apartment “The tap of hangers swaying in the closet/Unburdened hooks and empty drawers/And everywhere I tried to love you is yours again and only yours.”

It is a much quieter album than “Ys” but no less magestic in scale or scope. In fact, I find it much more meaningful: less plainly evocative and more tangible. Whereas “Ys” was abstract in its musical flourishes and lyrical poetry, “Have One On Me” tells stories I can relate to. It also contains experiments such as “Good Intentions Paving Company” which starts upbeat, with a joyful piano-accompaniment, and ends in a longing drawn-out plea for love which Newsom does like no other.

This is music to live with, devour, accompany your day, your evening, your morning shower, your afternoon-tea, your walks in the park and gazes out of the window. It is more than the sum of its parts. If I was ever going to get spiritual about anything it would be this.

That’s all I have to say. I need to listen again.

Advertisement