Theme Songs of Summer: Just Before Winter Creeps In--Part 10

Fan Wu, 2nd year, Literary Studies

Song Title: Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie

Artist: Joanna Newsom

Album: The Milk-Eyed Mender

Joanna Newsom has made two albums after The Milk-Eyed Mender that surpass it in scope, both musically and lyrically. But this summer I came back to her debut album after first having heard it four years ago with new perspectives on women, folk songwriters and eccentricity. There is no doubt that Newsom is all three of those, but she is much more: she is, and has been, one of the strongest, most literary lyric writers on the indie scene. With aching, ambiguous lines like: "I do as I please / Now I'm on my knees / Your skin is something that I stir into my tea"--Newsom evokes both the pleasure and submissiveness we learn from love. I spent my summer with her, and it could not have been any other way.