Unconventional Formal Structures and Function in the Music of Joanna Newsom
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Unconventional Formal Structures and Function in the Music of Joanna Newsom Rachel Hottle Department of Music Research, Music Theory Area Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montreal, QC A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts, Music Theory, April 2020. Copyright 2020, Rachel Hottle. Table of Contents Abstract ...……………………………………………………………………………………....... ii Résumé ...……………………………………………………………………………………...… iii Positionality Statement …………………………………………………………….………...… iv Acknowledgements ...………………………………………………………………………….... v Chapter 1. Introduction ...………………………….…..………..……………………………..…. 1 Formal Functions ……………………………………………...………………...….......…. 3 Methodology…………………………………………………………………..………....... 6 Chapter 2. “Emily” ...……………………………………………………..……………...…….... 11 Chapter 3. “Monkey and Bear” ………………………………………………………………..... 26 Chapter 4. “Sawdust and Diamonds” ………………………………………………………….... 46 Chapter 5. “Only Skin” ………………………………………………………………………… 63 Chapter 6. “Cosmia” ………………………………………………………………………...…. 90 Chapter 7. Conclusion …………………………………………...……………………….…… 103 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………….. 109 Appendix A: Complete annotated lyrics ………………………………………………….….… 111 “Emily” ……………………………………………………………………………....… 111 “Monkey and Bear” ………………………………………………………………….… 113 “Sawdust and Diamonds” ……………………………………………………………… 116 “Only Skin” ………………………………………………………………………….… 119 “Cosmia” …………………………………………………………………………….… 123 ii Abstract This thesis explores formal function, structure, and narrative in the five songs on American composer, harpist, and singer Joanna Newsom’s 2006 album Ys. Newsom’s music eschews popular song forms that rely on regular patterns of musical and lyrical repetition for their intelligibility, such as the verse-chorus paradigm (Osborn 2010). Studies of formal function in popular music take the verse-chorus paradigm as their point of departure (Temperley 2007, Biamonte 2014, de Clercq 2012, Osborn 2010), which is largely inapplicable to work, such as Newsom’s, which does not employ clear verse-chorus distinctions. For this study, I conceive of formal function in Newsom’s music as the intraopus coupling of narrative and music. As such, my analysis takes a chronological approach to form, rooted in close listenings and readings of the texts. Chapter 1 outlines the methodological context for my work and provides background on Newsom’s previous work. In Chapters 2 through 6, I analyze each of the songs on Ys as they appear on the album: “Emily,” “Monkey and Bear,” “Sawdust and Diamonds,” “Only Skin,” and “Cosmia,” respectively. In Chapter 7, I compare and contrast formal function and structure in each of the songs. iii Résumé Ce mémoire explore les fonctions formelles, la structure et le récit des cinq chansons de l’album Ys (2006) de la compositrice, harpiste et chanteuse Joanna Newsom. La musique de Newsom évite les formes de musique populaire qui dépendent de la répétition des paroles pour leur intelligibilité, à savoir, le paradigme couplet-refrain (Osborn 2010). Les travaux sur les fonctions formelles dans la musique populaire prennent pour point de départ le paradigme couplet-refrain (Temperley 2007, Biamonte 2014, de Clercq 2012, Osborn 2010), qui est largement inapplicable aux chansons qui n’emploient pas de distinctions claires entre les couplets et le refrain, comme c’est le cas dans les chansons de Newsom. Dans ce mémoire, je définis la notion la fonction formelle dans la musique de Newsom comme le couplage du récit et de la musique à l’intérieur d’une chanson. Comme telle, mon analyse adopte une approche chronologique de la forme, enracinée dans une écoute et une lecture rapprochées des textes. Le chapitre 1 décrit le contexte méthodologique de mon travail et donne un aperçu des chansons antérieures de Newsom. Dans les chapitres 2 à 6, j’analyse chacune des chansons de Ys selon l’ordre dans lequel elles apparaissent: « Emily », « Monkey and Bear », « Sawdust and Diamonds », « Only Skin » et « Cosmia », respectivement. Dans le chapitre 7, je compare et contraste les fonctions formelles et la structure formelle de chacune des chansons. iv Positionality Statement McGill University, where I conducted the major of this research, resides on the traditional land of the Kanien’kehá:ka, which has also been a place of gathering for other Indigenous peoples, including other members of the Haudenosaunee confederacy and Anishinaabe communities. I recognize that my presence on this land is but one outcome of an ongoing colonial legacy. I make this statement as a first step in interrogating the diverse effects of these seldom-acknowledged colonial histories. While my thesis seeks to challenge the boundaries of music scholarship by considering both music by a woman composer and unconventional formal structures, this research also upholds music theory’s white racial frame. As a first step towards dismantling this structure, I acknowledge that this research is not race-neutral, but rather is influenced by both my and Joanna Newsom’s whiteness. Moreover, I acknowledge that the majority of the music theorists whose work I employ are white and male, and the majority of their work is built on the music of white male composers. Acknowledgement is hardly a sufficient step towards equity in academia and in society as a whole. But I hope that this statement will serve as consciousness-raising, both for my readers and for myself, enabling us to take more active steps towards dismantling oppression.* * I am indebted to Philip Ewell for his identification of music theory’s white racial frame: “The Myth of Race and Gender Neutrality in Music Theory,” Music Theory’s White Racial Frame, (blog post, April 3, 2020), https://musictheoryswhiteracialframe.wordpress.com/. v Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisors, Professors Nicole Biamonte and Robert Hasegawa, for their support and guidance throughout the process of writing my thesis. Without their advice, feedback, and encouragement, this project would not have been possible. Thank you to my professors at McGill—Professors Nicole Biamonte, Bill Caplin, Bob Hasegawa, Ed Klorman, Christoph Neidhofer, Peter Schubert, and Jon Wild—who have challenged and inspired me to think differently and more deeply about music in my two years here. Thank you to my friend and colleague Marie-Ève Piché, for her help with the French translation of my abstract. Thank you to my family, especially my grandmother, Lois Hottle, for their continued support of my studies. Finally, thank you to my friends and peers at McGill, especially Bronwyn Kelly, Alex Jonker, Lara Balikci, Marie-Ève Piché, Lindsay Rader, and Tom Ingram, for their love, camaraderie, and commiseration throughout this degree. Chapter 1 Introduction This thesis explores form and narrative in the songs of critically acclaimed American composer, harpist, and singer Joanna Newsom’s 2006 album Ys. Newsom’s work blurs the boundaries between popular music and art music. Her songs are built around the interaction between voice and harp, and draw on sound worlds as disparate as Appalachian folk, Renaissance counterpoint, and psychedelic rock. Ys, Newsom’s second studio album, is a dense, sprawling, epic work. At almost an hour in length, the album contains just five songs, ranging from seven to seventeen minutes in length. It is an intensely personal album; as Newsom has stated in interviews, “Basically I wanted to undertake the task of writing songs about a particular year of my life. Not the task of telling that story in a linear way, or in any way that would make the story explicitly knowable to a listener, but rather, to tell the story to myself.”1 The album is named for the mythic lost city of Ys, sunk into the sea off the coast of Brittany, in western France. The legend describes the demise of a city built by a king as a present to his daughter. The city lies on an island, surrounded by walls to keep the ocean at bay. As she ages, the daughter descends into licentiousness, and the people of the city follow in her stead. One day, she falls in love with a beautiful, mysterious young man—alternately depicted as the Devil or an avenging angel—who convinces her to open the gate to the city, flooding Ys and drowning everyone in it. In some versions of the story, the daughter becomes a harpy, luring sailors to their death with her song.2 Notably, Newsom only named the album after all the songs were finished. She says, “None of the songs directly allude to that myth. But the main themes that emerge out of that 1 Joanna Newsom, interview by Brian Howe, Pitchfork, November 20, 2006, https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/6488-joanna-newsom/. 2 Joanna Newsom, interview by Rob Young, The Wire, November 2006, https://www.thewire.co.uk/in- writing/interviews/joanna-newsom.1. 2 myth are really close to the themes on the record—mortality, decadence, an excess of water, isolation, rebirth.”3 With her 2004 debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, Newsom had established her reputation as a distinctive and somewhat eccentric songwriter and musician. While the twelve tracks on the album are short, ranging from three to six minutes in length, the song forms are unconventional and sometimes non-recapitulatory. All songs contain Newsom singing and playing either the harp, piano, or harpsichord, and are filled with precise imagery and often arcane language, such as “Across the Great Plains, keening lovely and awful / Ululate the lost Great American novels,”4 but also folksy turns of phrase, like “Lead me to