7. Joanna NewsomYs
What’s happening, why aren’t they making a statue of her somewhere?! Her lyrics are absolutely beautiful, she’s a little genius. Her statue should be right in Hyde Park! She’s something that I’ve never seen before. Completely her own. She just sprouted! She could belong to another time but she’s still very much in the now – I don’t find her pagan or anything!
I have a book I make when I’m on tour, and it’s called The Book of Right-On after her song. I collect everything into it that I love and things I experience, I staple it all in there, like pictures or cards of restaurants, and people that I meet will design pages. There’s an amazing Jewish lady called Marilyn who lives in L.A. but still has this strong New York accent, and I asked her to design me a page of everything I should do in her New York, how she sees New York. She designed me this beautiful page of everything that’s still there that she experienced as a child in the Bronx, then when I went to New York, I had to complete everything on that page. I have another page filled with everything I have to do in Argentina – people can write anything they want. Their favourite perfumes, lots of recipes, lots of photos, it’s just a crazy book! And that was inspired by Joanna Newsom.
I don’t like dissecting her work, I start sounding mad, but she is just incredible. I saw her play on the same line-up as Bill Callahan and that was too much. One after the other, my brain was pixelated throughout the whole thing. It was my dream concert!
