SERIES AND COLLECTIONS:

• The Whole World Stopped to Hear You Hollerin’: Joanna Newsom and the Regulation of the Female Voice

Rachel explores the problematic nature of women’s voices, highlighting the criticism of Joanna Newsom’s as linked to persistent fears surrounding the untraditional female voice.

1. Finding Her Voice: The Voice, the Self, and the Audience in Newsom’s Early Career
2. The Banshee and the Siren: Joanna Newsom and the Danger of Women’s Voices
3. On “Control” and the Female Voice

• Go Long- Right Over the Edge of the Earth!

Melissa’s in depth look at the Bluebeard myth in the song “Go Long” as it relates to previous retellings and modern adaptations by Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

1. “Go Long” and “The Bloody Chamber”
2. “Go Long” and “Bluebeard’s Egg”
3. “Go Long” and “Bluebeard” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
4. “Go Long” and “The Bloody Chamber” (Once Again)

• A Funny Sea: Joanna Newsom on Fertility and Motherhood (in progress)

Rachel, on a recurrent theme in Newsom’s work: motherhood and fertility.  She writes about Joanna’s complex exploration of the role that her female narrators’ fertility plays in their creative lives, their conceptions of their own bodies and the way they are treated by the other characters in her lyrical worlds.

1. The Sprout and the Bean

•  Monkey and Bear

One of our favourite songs to dissect, it seems! Here is a collection of posts by Melissa, Rachel, and some of our readers on the feminist narrative in this wonderful fable.

“Sooner or later you’ll bury your teeth” — the significance of fantasy in Joanna Newsom’s “Monkey and Bear” by braided

“Sooner or Later You’ll Bare Your Teeth”: Bearing (and Baring) the Feminised Body in ‘Monkey and Bear’ by Rachel

“When Bear Stepped Clear of Bear…” by Melissa

“The Baring and Burying of Bear” by Melissa

• Only Skin

One of the richest songs in Joanna Newsom’s corpus, Melissa in two stand-alone posts focuses on the portrayals of sexuality, gender, pregnancy, and femininity in the song. 

“That’s an Awfully Real Gun:” “Only Skin” and The Destructive and Life-Giving Facets of Sex 

“Be a woman, be a woman!”: Female Sexuality and Femininity in “Only Skin” 

• Baby Birch

A favourite among critical fans, and the source of endless discussion and debate. These posts touch on issues of motherhood, abortion, fertility, miscarriage and adoption.

“Baby Birch” is a Baby Lost by Melissa

“Baby Birch,” Abortion Stigma, and Kyriarchy by Melissa

Baby Birch by thesilverpepperofthestars

• The Diver’s Wife

One of the newest songs in Joanna Newsom’s corpus, Rachel and Melissa share their initial reactions and feminist analyses of the song.

An Interpretation of Joanna Newsom’s New Song by Rachel 

“The Diver’s Wife”: Water, Pearls, and Femininity by Melissa

• “When I broke my bone, he carried me up from the riverside:” Dependency, Autonomy, and Femininity in Have One Me

Melissa explores the themes of dependency, agency, alcoholism, love, self-victimization, and femininity manifest in “Easy,” “Have One on Me,” “Good Intentions Paving Company,” “No Provenance,” “In California,” “Jackrabbits,” “Go Long,” and “Does Not Suffice.”  

Part One

Part Two 

STAND ALONE POSTS:

These posts by Melissa, Rachel and guest contributors cover a variety of topics and range from close readings of individual songs to discussions of album artwork.

“There’s Blood on the Eye:” Femininity, Masochism, Identity, and Shame in Have One on Me  by Melissa

“I don’t know any goddamned ‘Colleen’”: naming and claiming identity in “Colleen” by Anna

Perrault’s ‘Bluebeard’ and Newsom’s ‘Go Long’ by Anna

“Where There is only Lawlessness”: The Structures of Time on Have One on Me by Rachel

“The muzzle of a ghost:” The loss of character and the little black mare in “No Provenance” by Melissa

I Found a Little Plot of Land: Regulating Female Sexuality in ‘81 by Rachel

Down Where I Darn: Handicraft, “Women’s Work” and Art on the Milk Eyed Mender by Rachel

“Peach, Plum, Pear” and Power by Melissa

“The Book of Right-On” and Power by Melissa

The Abuses of Enchantment  by Rachel (our very first post!)