This is the page I've left last because it's the one I find hardest to write. I feel like I'm expected to write a more researched, in-depth analysis of Newsom's songs. But when it comes to music, I'm basically Marge Simpson...
I'm sure there are plenty of dedicated fans out there who have written amazing essays about Joanna's influences and what philosophy or archaic American literature she's referencing in her lyrics. That's not gonna be me. This is all gonna be a personal ramble about my fave Joanna Newsom songs, and what they mean to me.
Enjoy!
Easy, In California & Does Not Suffice
18/12/22Ok, so I'm looking at these 3 separate songs in one section, because they all link throughout 'Have One on Me'. 'Does Not Suffice' (the album closer) reprises melodies from 'In California', and also lyrically calls back to 'Easy' (the album opener). And together, they tell the story of the start, middle and end of an intimate relationship...
Love is easy...
'Easy' starts off pretty straightforward...
Easy, easy. My man and me,
we could rest and remain here, easily.
There is this common idea of romance - that it's easy, a place where we can rest. But very soon, Newsom turns that trope on its head and shows that it's a little more complicated...
We are tested and pained by what's beyond our bed.
We are blessed and sustained by what is not said.
'Tested and pained'... that makes it sound like there are outer forces, which could cause strain on the relationship - but the narrator feels like it is 'beyond our bed', as if they see the bed as a safe space where they can forget their troubles. And saying 'we are blessed and sustained by what is not said' means they avoid speaking about things to keep that space safe.
As the song goes on, Joanna sings sweet imagery about being 'your little life-giver' and about how she was 'born to love and I intend to love you'. But there is also suggestions that it still isn't as 'easy' as she implies...
Watch my luck turn, fro and to;
pluck every last daisy clean,
till only I may love you.
When we were kids sometimes we would pluck daisy petals, saying "He loves me/loves me not". If the last petal declared, "He loves me", we would see this as a sign that our love is fated and true. And if it declared, "He loves me not", we'd just keep plucking more and more daisies until we could say, "Well, MOST of the daisies said that he DOES love me!" This is what the narrator is doing here. Even when we are adults, even if we may not do it through daisies specifically, we may try to find comfort that our love for someone is meant to be, something so destined that its written in the petals of flowers.
The phrase 'only I may love you' does refer to that romantic idea of the one true love, the classic idea of monogamy - but it is also very possessive. And as the song goes on, the possessiveness becomes even more evident...
If I have my way, I will love you.
How long's it gonna take? Let me love you.
How am I gonna stay here without you?
Yet by the end of the song, I get a sense of passivity - the narrator yearns for her lover to love her back, but relies on things like daisy-plucking to somehow move the stars for him to come to her. But I think the passivity comes from frustration - the frustration of unrequited love...
But One can't carry the weight, or change the fate, of Two.
Despite her efforts, she does realise that she cannot control how he feels. When we love someone who doesn't return the same gesture, we do know, deep down, that we cannot do anything to change it. All the narrator can do is plea for her lover to respond...
Easy, easy. You must not fear.
You must meet me, to see me. I am barely here.
But, like a Bloody Mary, seen in the mirror:
speak my name and I appear.
Even after all this deep longing, she says 'I am barely here', because even with how much she yearns for him, she wants to still seem 'easy'. The idea of calling her 'like a Bloody Mary' is quite a ghoulish image compared to the rest of the song. Even if she is standing back, that is only so she doesn't scare him off - she is still waiting for him, and as soon as he calls for her, she will 'appear'.
Do you spite me?
'In California' is about homesickness. Joanna herself as described the song as 'a love letter to Northern California', where she was raised. It is also, in her own words, "about what makes a place hard to leave, and what makes a place impossible to remain in". Even while we yearn for where were born, we also can feel suffocated, or there are certain parts of it that are difficult to return to.
Joanna had her own story in mind when writing the song, but I'm going to be analysing it through the lens of good ol' personal interpretation. The 'homesickness' side of the narrative still resonates with me, but that is a subject for a different ramble (possibly written by someone who knows more about California than me).
I'll start again: 'In California' is about doubt and uncertainty in a relationship. While 'Easy' describes the beginning, and 'Does Not Suffice' is about the end, 'In California' is about the messy middle (and possibly the lead-up to the end...)
Throughout the song, the narrator is both hesitant of letting someone in, but also yearns to be loved.
To spend my life in spitting-distance
of the love that I have known,
I must stay here, in an endless eventide.
And if you come and see me,
you will upset the order.
You cannot come and see me,
for I set myself apart.
The narrator is staying in her home (California) - but I also see California as a metaphor for her own sacred space, the space that her lover hasn't touched. She is afraid that if they enter it, they 'will upset the order' - she has 'set [herself] apart' so she has her own space that is distinct from the relationship. And yet, she also feels an urge to them in:
Well, I have sown untidy furrows across my soul,
but I am still a coward,
content to see my garden grow
so sweet & full
of someone else's flowers.
When I hear this verse, I think of the tarot card Nine of Pentacles...
In this tarot card, a woman stands in a blooming garden. The card often relates to abundance and self-reliance - of keeping your own space and letting it flourish. If I ever have this card come up, it's often screaming to me: "Hey, it's time to focus on yourself and relish in your own free time, to cultivate your own space instead of oversharing with other people".
The narrator has dug 'furrows' to keep her own space, but her digging is 'untidy', and she still yearns to see her 'garden grow so sweet and full of someone else's flowers'. She describes herself as a 'coward' for feeling like this - maybe she feels some sort of shame about wanting to be vulnerable with someone. She goes on to say...
Sometimes I can almost feel the power.
Sometimes I am so in love with you
(like a little clock that trembles on the edge of the hour,
only ever calling out "Cuckoo, cuckoo").
To me, the image of a small clock calling out is very vulnerable - as if she is calling out in desperation, but feels that she cannot be heard. The following lines also resonate deeply with me...
When I called you little one, in a bad way,
did you love me?
Do you spite me?
As someone who (without getting too personal) often relies on close partners as a way for me to soothe anxieties, that feeling of not knowing if your partner 'loves' you or 'spites' you for venting to them. In a healthy relationship, your partner 'loves' you for confiding in them because it's a sign you trust them, and also gives them a chance to understand and connect with you. Yet when you are an anxious person, you will always have that voice that wonders if your partner resents you for showing yourself 'in a bad way'.
And then, we get to my absolute favourite Joanna Newsom lyric...
I don't belong to anyone.
My heart is heavy as an oil drum.
I don't want to be alone.
My heart is yellow as an ear of corn
It pretty much sums up the conflict of the song for me, but also the idea of a heavy oil drum, and a blooming ear of yellow corn, is just so vivid to me - and also deeply resonated with me while I was lonely and single; craving intimacy while also being wary of it.
Some nights I just never go to sleep at all,
and I stand shaking in my doorway like a sentinel,
all alone,
bracing like the bow upon a ship,
and fully abandoning any thought of anywhere
but home.
When I listen to this line, I picture a shaky little dog, guarding the door until her owner comes home. It perfectly describes separation anxiety - both for your home, in Newsom's case, or in a relationship.
Now as I actually read the text, I didn't notice this lyrical change:
Is it only timing, that has made it such a dark hour?
I know how it feels to be caught in a tumultuous time in a relationship (or, well, a shitty relationship in general) and wonder if it's just bad timing, that maybe if outer forces weren't there, it would all be easier (ah, a callback!)
This song leads nicely into 'Does Not Suffice', as the narrator starts to doubt how her lover feels about her...
My heart, I wear you down, I know.
Sweet farewell
'Does Not Suffice' is not only the end of the album, but also about the end of a relationship. It is also worth noting that it is (melodically) a reprise of 'In California' - this is basically the thread that binds all these songs together.
The song starts with the narrator packing away some fancy things...
I will pack up my pretty dresses. I will box up my high-heeled shoes. A sparkling ring, for every finger, I'll put away, and hide from view.
Why does she have so many fancy things? Maybe they represent her affection for her ex-lover - she saw her love for him as something 'pretty' and 'sparkling', but she has to 'hide from view' because he doesn't want it anymore.
And then, we have another callback!
everything that could remind you of how easy I was not.
Remember when she said 'I wear you down' in the previous song? All that anxiety and vulnerability she was showing? Now, she is coming away from the relationship seeing it as an act of mercy for him - because she is 'not easy' after all.
Caused me to burn, and twist,
and grimace against you,
like something caught
on a barbed-wire fence.
This not only an expression of how she felt - raw and trapped like a rabbit - but also how she thinks her lover saw her. She was feeling some kind of intense emotion (maybe anxiety, or passion) and it not only feels painful, but also makes quite a gristly sight. When we end a relationship because the other person is less invested, we can start to feel ashamed of the emotions we expressed.
Despite her prior doubts, she suggests that his parting comes as a shock...
Now, you can see me fall back here, redoubled, full bewildered and amazed.
Then we get to the namesake of the song...
It does not suffice for you to say I am a sweet girl,
or to say you hate to see me sad because of you.
It does not suffice, to merely lie beside each other,
as those who love each other do.
No matter what he says to comfort her, it is not enough to make the ending less painful. And she also admits that it wouldn't please her to go through the motions of a relationship (such as lying together) when she knows they don't both love each other.
The song ends on a bittersweet note...
I picture you, rising up in the morning:
stretching out on your boundless bed,
beating a clear path to the shower,
scouring yourself red.
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.
Despite how upset she is, she also wishes her ex-lover well, picturing how happy he will be when she is gone.
Lyrically, the song is short and sweet- it ends with a heavenly, echoing chorus of piano and violins and banjos, straining out until they fade away and the album ends.
Threading it all together
While I was going through the decline of my first intimate relationship, this triad of songs was a deep catharsis for me. 'Easy' is the one that I think most succinctly describes how I felt. While I was deeply yearning to give my love to this other person, they were not as invested as I was - and I knew that the whole time. And because of that, I wanted to be 'easy'. I was ashamed of being so obsessed, and the more that I felt ashamed, and the more the other person withdrew, the more crumbs they fed me, the obsession only grew more potent. Like the narrator in the song, I was looking for signs that- despite how terrible and unloved I felt - we were fated to be together, that someday, they would realise how deeply they loved me, and give me what I wanted. They never did.
'In California', for me, describes the separation anxiety and doubt I experienced. The relationship was kind of on-and-off, never very clear. There were times where I would stay up at night, sick with anxiety about when they'd come home. My distress was glaringly obvious. The other person didn't know how to handle it. They did things I am still angry about, but I was also, well, 'not easy'. And that's also why 'Does Not Suffice' resonated with me a lot - we cut all contact for their sake, not mine.
When I talk about how I acted in that relationship, I do worry that others will judge me as possessive and toxic. This is why I found, and do still find comfort, in this song - it's a reminder that many people have felt the same way as I did. And - like in the song - most of that obsession is locked away to fester in our minds, eating at us from the inside.