[madpawn]

For the one-year anniversary of Divers, Drag City just released this absolutely wonderful outtake!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGoqZ4zWSsg

[cliquott]

I was listening to Divers today. Totally forgot it came out exactly one year ago, and now this! What a beautiful Sunday. The song is a thing of beauty.

[Steve]

That was a surprise! Well done to Drag City for releasing this. I believe Joanna alluded to the existence of a song that didn't make it onto the album ... so now we know.

The press release on Drag City read:


HAPPY AnniDIVERSary!
posted October 23rd, 2016
Joanna Newsom friends and faithful, we wish you a happy first AnniDIVERSary! The standard gift for the occasion is a timepiece, but watch out — here's a piece of time out of time that you'll never not have back again! Recorded for the Divers album, this represents the rarest of all birds: an actual unreleased outtake recorded at a Joanna Newsom session.

"Make Hay" is for the divers and the delvers to divine — is it just another piece or the missing one? Only (your) time will tell.

Second AnniDIVERSary gift is China — start digging now!
Artists in this story: Joanna Newsom

[Steve]

The Fader website [ http://www.thefader.com/2016/10/23/joan ... m-make-hay ] interprets the ending of the above Drag City statement to mean that a second track called China is imminent.

Whilst this is possible, I suspect it is simply a reference to the traditional second anniversary gift being something made of china. In the UK, a first anniversary is celebrated with a paper gift (!), but I had not realised until just now that in the US it's a clock, which seems very appropriate for Divers.

[under a CPell]

Wow, the lost song where Love was a symptom of Time! I wondered if we would ever get to hear it... What a lovely gift!

[under a CPell]

Now I've heard it I really wonder where the song would have been placed on the album. And I never knew "drug" was the past tense of drag

[cliquott]

[Steve]

That one jumped out at me, too, under a CPell. It's understood but not much used here (England) and to my ears it always sounds like one of those 'backwards irregulars'. In the main, irregular and unusual forms are drifting out of the language (I cringe when I hear 'stadiums' or 'formulas', and lament reading 'encyclopedia' or 'Halloween'), but for some reason there is a common urge to invent (or perhaps resurrect) forms like 'drug' and the like. 'Snuck' is sneaking in, from America I'm sure.

Incidentally, I just googled 'dragged through the meadow' and the first two results were in relation to Joanna's Emily.

Further musings:
"The Lord returned from the moors having bug a brace of grouse."
"The new outlet stocks a range of printers, keyboards, and mouses."
"What was annoying was not the fact that he now owned four hice, but that he brug about it all the time."
The pub near me is advertising its 'Hallo'ween Party' which perhaps grates even more than omitting the 'postrophe altogether.

[under a CPell]

[Steve]

Hi under a CPell - I completely agree with you and in fact I feel that 'computer mouses' is more correct than 'computer mice'. There seems something wrong about applying an archaic form to a very modern object, and - as you say - it's a new type of creature that has no reason not to form a regular plural.

You're right about the example from In California, too, although somehow it doesn't seem as obtrusive. I presume she sings 'sunk' instead of the correct 'sank' so that it echoes drunken and runt and shunt. There isn't another verse of exactly the same structure so she wouldn't have broken any internal rules by not matching it, but it's as though she delights in making these rules and testing them against the rules of language. Just another fascinating aspect to her writing that gives us something to discuss!

I was discussing the line about "hydrocephalitic listnessness" from Emily with someone the other day, and although my friend didn't like it, we agreed that 'you don't get that with One Direction'.

[Adam]

I only just got around to listening to this. Very interesting and as under a CPell says, almost certainly the missing song mentioned in the Rookie Magazine interview. Re "drug": when she coins "simulacreage" and "Amora Obscura" in a single album, anything else seems tame in comparison!

Looks like there is plenty there to keep the delvers happy. The two things that stand out to me on the first couple listens are 1) as far as I can think, it is the only song "from the album" with Biblical references ("sin made the snake", "Adam made ribs", etc) 2) the lyrics are comparatively playful, so it's a shame in that respect that it didn't make it on to the album, as the whole thing gets very serious after "Sapokanikan" imo.

What a shame it didn't get the full 3-years-recording-and-a-year-mastering treatment!