SOUNDTRACK: NORAH JONES-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert # 65 (August 17, 2020).
Norah Jones is a musical force. Even though her songs are simple and tasteful, she has pretty much conquered or at least dabbled in many genres.
The blurb notes:
I’ve always wished to hear just her voice and her piano in a room. The unfortunate circumstances of our times have given us something beautiful. For this Tiny Desk (home) concert, Norah Jones sits in her music room; it’s just Norah, her upright piano, her poetry, and that golden voice.
I don’t know these songs (I’m sure they are lush), but even with this simple old-school piano, they sound lovely. All four of these songs are from her seventh record, Pick Me Up Off the Floor.
“How I Weep” and “Heartbroken, Day After” are pretty songs with lovely melodies.
My favorite song of the set is “I’m Alive,” which she co-wrote with Jeff Tweedy. I don;t know if it’s the Tweedy connection, but I love the melodies in this song–both vocal and musical. I’ve been hearing this on the radio a bunch and while I do prefer the full on recorded sound, this stripped down version is quite nice. “I’m Alive” is
a song that at once feels the pain of politics and a pain that is personal.
“You feel your soul / Get hollowed-out / While the world implodes / You just live without.” Yet the refrain is what lingers, “Oh, I’m alive / Yes, I’m alive / But I’m alive / Oh, I’m alive.”
“To Live” sounds like an old spiritual.
Jones is not very animated in this session. Indeed, if her hat didn’t keep falling off (why not just leave it off?), she’d have very little to talk about.
But I assume one doesn’t listen to Norah Jones for wild storytelling.
[READ: August 4, 2020] “Terrace Story”
This story started out with a young couple moving out of a beloved apartment and into a smaller one. The couple (Annie and Edward) had a little girl, Rose, and they talked about many things as if they were Proper Nouns: the tree outside the window was Yellow Tree, the place where the pigeons landed was Pigeon Tunnel. But the most pressing new Noun was Closet Mystery. The mystery was what would fall out of the tiny closet the next time you opened it.
Annie worked with Stephanie. Stephanie took on some of Annie’s work while she was having the baby. Annie wanted to thank her, so she invited Stephanie to their tiny apartment.
Stephanie was delightful and funny. And when she opened the door to Closet Mystery, the door opened onto a Terrace–a terrace that obviously had never been there before.
The terrace was gorgeous–amazing views, plenty of room, a grill, fantastic weather. It was fantastic.
When Stephanie left, Annie and Edward tried to recreate the Terrace in so many ways. But it only happened when Stephanie opened the door.
So they invited her over a lot.
They had a great time on the Terrace. They told Terrace Stories which were stories that were not really true, but it didn’t matter because the Terrace didn’t really exist either.
But soon, Annie grew suspicious of Stephanie. She felt that the stories Edward was telling Stephanie were more intimate, more detailed (even if false) than they should have been.
Edward told her he would never lie to her outside of the Terrace.
But on the Terrace, the lies were growing too big. Stephanie started calling Edward, “Eddie” and Rose “Rosie,” and Annie felt that Stephanie was trying to take over their lives. Annie had once been Anne until someone had started calling her Annie.
It didn’t help that her boss at worked continued to give Stephanie more and more of Annie’s work.
Just what was going on with this Terrace and why oh why couldn’t Annie find it on her own?
I was really delighted in the way this story turned surreal and wonderful and yet still seemed realistic.
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Usually any show with Jeff Tweedy is one I want to go to. For one reason or another I wasn’t really feeling the need to see Jeff Tweedy read from his book.
Originally this concert featured support from OHMME, which was half the reason I wanted to see this show and not one of the other shows. For whatever reason, OHMME was no longer at this show, and support was now from Katy Kirby, who has a very catchy song called “Traffic!” and plays some lovely folk songs.
I Just Read About That... 