Latest Joanna Newsom Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I have a voice that's obviously untrained - and I think untrainable - so I kind of secreted it away for a long time. Actually, I would write songs with lyrics when I was younger, but I would just sing in my head.

  Joanna Newsom

  Song, Writing, Thinking

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• I've been unaware of how people react to the instrument. People have ideas of what a harp is supposed to sound like, and a lot of them are negative ideas.

  Joanna Newsom

  Ideas, People, Sound

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• I had known that people would probably have strange reactions to my voice, because I have kind of an unwieldy, difficult voice, but I never thought that anybody would have a problem with the harp. I just assumed... C'mon, it's a beautiful instrument.

  Joanna Newsom

  Beautiful, Voice, People

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• I never thought people would be mortally offended by the sounds I was making.

  Joanna Newsom

  People, Would Be, Sound

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• I don't look at people's expressions, because I still get nervous when I play, especially when I first put the harp up there. I just try to tune - it takes me a half-hour to tune, and I get nervous if I look at anybody when I do it.

  Joanna Newsom

  Expression, Play, People

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• Families of privilege and money would have harps in their parlors, and their cultured daughters would learn to play. It's got such a strange history. But that wasn't the context that I learned it in, so the inherent friction between that history and the more humanist folk-y history wasn't in my conscience at all.

  Joanna Newsom

  Daughter, Play, Privilege

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• There's something fundamental to the harp that has retained its appeal my whole life. It's an instrument I am just in love with.

  Joanna Newsom

  Fundamentals, Harps, Instruments

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• I didn't really know a lot of the history when I was younger. I didn't realize that the harp is coded in such a specific way in musical circles. It's kind of this society instrument because of its history as a young woman's parlor instrument.

  Joanna Newsom

  Circles, Musical, Way

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• I didn't sing for years and years, but I started playing harp when I was maybe 9 or 10. I had actually wanted to play for years leading up to that, but no teacher in our little town would take me on as a student, because I was too young.

  Joanna Newsom

  Teacher, Years, Play

  Interview with Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2004.

• Around eighth grade I decided I wanted to be a composer and that's what I went to college for. Just a few years back, I switched out of composition and into creative writing so I could work with words.

  Joanna Newsom

  Writing, College, Years

  Source: www.avclub.com