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'Have One on Me' by Joanna Newsom

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Newsom is hard work. Well, Have One On Me is a map of the heart, and you shouldn’t expect those to offer themselves lightly. The album covers the forms of love: divine or agape (tracks (3, 7, 14); filial (track 9, 14); courtly (track 2); obsessional (tracks 1, 5, 10); maternal (track 6! but touches in 1, 5, 11, 14); platonic (passionate friendship: track 8 and maybe 11); panicked (track 4); dependent (track 5, 10, 16); wilful (track 1, 16); of place (track 9); destructive (2, 8, 10, 15, 16?, 17?); forbidden (track 2); unrequited (track 18 above all, but 1, 7, 10, 15) and love of self (track 3, 4, 13). It exalts, despairs, casts about in the land. Rock reviews miss the point in territory like this. There was a great deal written about it being a triple!! album!!!, which obscures the real way it’s ambitious; this 123-minute thing requires patience because of its richness, not its length. The length (songs 6 mins on average), her vocabulary, voice, caesura, unfamiliar instruments slow us

... do her words really need to be broken down like formulae? I think not. Simply to escape into the world of Joanna and be incapsulated into it and applauding it is enough. And maybe not understanding completely is the more beautiful act of musical appreciation, lack of total understanding leaves the listener with a humbled nice sense of ignorant awe . ― Guardian commenter (Forgive me; I am not satisfied by ignorant awe.) Give love a little shove and it becomes terror Newsom is hard work. Well, Have One On Me is a map of the heart, and you shouldn’t expect those to offer themselves ligh

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