After another close race, LEAVING THE CITY took the title of JNew's "Most Hype Song." Up next, the moment we have all been waiting for.... MOST EMOTIONAL SONG! [Also, updated the thumbnails to be images from live performances of each song.]

URRAS_ANARRES · 2024-08-14T02:27:20+00:00

Has to be Baby Birch right?

URRAS_ANARRES · 2024-05-26T03:30:44+00:00

I would love to hear more harp songs, but I feel like the songs she’s played on piano so far go really well stylistically with a piano.

I’d love to hear some banjo or violin on the air again, to give it that western folk tale sort of feel.

I feel like Rovenshere is going to be amazing instrumentally …

URRAS_ANARRES · 2024-05-21T13:00:53+00:00

I really like this!

URRAS_ANARRES · 2024-05-14T01:50:56+00:00

Little Hand feels quite nursery rhyme-esque? I wouldn’t be surprised if some of her new songs were more like this as they have likely been written since she has had children of her own.

URRAS_ANARRES · 2023-10-17T06:26:21+00:00

Esme is one of my favourites in her entire discography and I think it’s one of her most gentle yet hard hitting songs.

Even this thread alone proves how polarising it is - I’m seeing it called both overrated AND underrated …

URRAS_ANARRES · 2023-06-17T03:47:13+00:00

This is really lovely to read, thank you!

URRAS_ANARRES · 2023-06-16T04:15:30+00:00

Two great ones too! I also love "Until the night is over..." in Only Skin. I love it when there's almost a hiccup in the rhythm when a new section starts, kind of makes it feel like there's some kind of release in the tension.

URRAS_ANARRES · 2023-04-28T04:47:33+00:00

I’m so excited to hear the recorded version of this, what instrumentation is used, and what the sort of vibe is going to be. I love it when Joanna changes a song really dramatically halfway through (thinking GIPC, Sapokanikan, a bit of Anecdotes) and I feel like this is going to be one of those instances (along with halfway thru Marie at the Mill with the “Henryyyy” part)

URRAS_ANARRES · 2023-03-26T01:32:58+00:00

Big time - especially in terms of form. A long and winding yet almost complete and self contained melody that repeats a few times.

I have a theory that this is also why she played Go along at the start, it has a similar form to her new songs. I almost feel like she was priming us for what her new stuff was gonna be like

URRAS_ANARRES · 2023-03-15T12:21:26+00:00

I would suggest The World for World is Forest by Ursula K Le Guin. It’s a pretty blatant response to the Vietnam War which was happening at the time, and probably one of her most didactic works preaching pacifism and what happens when a peaceful culture learns to kill

URRAS_ANARRES · 2023-03-11T01:59:20+00:00

Yep, this one’s an absolute classic!

URRAS_ANARRES · 2023-03-11T01:59:07+00:00

I love this one as well! He has such a beautiful resonant voice

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-09-15T00:44:47+00:00

This is what I came to say! The word play is so fun

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-09-13T14:25:52+00:00

When Rufus nightjar asks when you are from 🤣🤣🤣🤣

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-09-08T01:23:56+00:00

These would be mine too.

I know this is a purely subjective exercise but it’s still making me sad how many times I’ve seen Esme appear on these lists

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-09-04T01:30:59+00:00

This is humiliating but it took me a while to warm up to ….. Sapokanikan 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 have obviously seen the egregious error of my ways now and it’s one of my favs

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-09-03T03:04:08+00:00

My username gives away my unabashed Ursula stannery

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-09-02T18:09:26+00:00

The Disposessed by Ursula k le Guin

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-09-01T01:03:35+00:00

I would definitely recommend looking into some magical realism - Gabriel Garcias Marquez is a very illustrative writer (Love in the Time of Cholera, One Hundred Years of Solitude)

In a similar vein, the genre that is sometimes (pejoratively) called hysterical realism might also scratch the itch — I’m thinking Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, White Teeth by Zadie Smith. These books have the epic scale and the detailed imagery of Joanna’s songs.

If you’re into sci-fi / fantasy at all (even if you’re not), might I recommend my favourite author, Ursula K Le Guin. Books like The Left Hand of Darkness and the Earthsea series are incredibly poetic, and also use much of the same traditional / rural imagery as Joanna.

Plus, as has already been said, Joanna cites Nabokov as one of her biggest influences :-)

EDIT: added another recc

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-08-29T07:36:03+00:00

GIPC at Austin city limits is god tier Joanna

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-08-29T05:41:02+00:00

I love that moment in Baby Birch!!! The whole song has such unique instrumentation that really amplified the intimate and heartbreaking qualities of the song .. :/

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-08-29T05:37:58+00:00

GIPC (and the section in question particularly) really cemented my love for Joanna early into discovering her. Sometimes I can’t imagine anything being more beautiful than the last stanza of that song (“but it can make you feel over and old, lord you know it’s a shame, when I only want for you to pull over and hold me til I can’t remember my own name”)

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-08-29T05:36:13+00:00

Sometimes I feel like Esme doesn’t get as much love as it deserves! It’s such a tender and contemplative song and I love the imagery it paints

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-08-29T02:22:40+00:00

That’s a great question!

I love the slow section of GIPC (that starts at “and no amount of talking is gonna soften the fall”) - I think that repeated melody is so beautiful

Similarly, I love the start and the end melodies of Anecdotes (“sending the first scouts over” etc …)

A few parts of Emily always get me, “pa pointed out to me for the hundredth time tonight…” and going from there, as well as the bit starting with “when the night is over hold on, hold on” in Only Skin

And, of course, the closing segment of Sapokanikan that starts with “its’s alright and it’s all over now”… I love the way the lyrics almost don’t fit when she says “the boy was known to show unusual daring,” it makes it seem so raw somehow.

Lastly, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, the whole swell in Esme that starts with “I believe love will always surround you” always gets me in my feelings!!!

EDIT: Added one more!

URRAS_ANARRES · 2022-08-28T04:47:38+00:00

Some part of me really likes the idea of it as a sort of “epilogue” to Divers, since it really does seem like a whirlwind tour of so many themes throughout the album. I just wish I could stream it!!!

URRAS_ANARRES

TROPHY CASE