On the cover of her new CD “Have One On Me”, Joanna Newsom is seated quite fashionably amidst a real life collage of antiques, what looks like a tapestry, and other knick knacks and paddy whacks . It’s appropriate because her music to me always feels like listening to some kind of artsy collage of collected antiques and borrowed stories. But it’s always been a single voice, albeit a bold and stunning single voice.
So this new song is like her other songs, in that it is another collage sprawling with details and “flights of fancy”, BUT it also contains something different. The only word I can come up with to describe it is the word community. “Good Intentions Paving Company” is like Joanna Newsom made a bunch of miniature copies of herself and she’s testifying to the Lord! It’s certainly more gospel-y and, like somewhere I read, channeling Joni Mitchell in a way. The Good Intentions Paving Company is like a torch song for an honest old business or way of life that is long gone. Maybe it’s a hearkening for home or for a place to belong or for someone to “just pull over and hold you until you can’t remember your own name”. Anyway, it’s a fun little down-home song and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it.
mp3: Joanna Newsom, “Good Intentions Paving Company“
