03.02.2007
NORAH JONES: WRITING SONGS, TELLING STORIES
THE BIGGEST FEMALE ARTIST OF THE 21ST CENTURY IS BACK WITH HER THIRD ALBUM: A MORE PERSONAL, MORE DIVERSE SET OF SONGS
“Being a normal musician” meant playing in side bands, rather than headlining as Norah Jones, the biggest selling female recording artist of the 21st century. (That’s right: bigger than Aguilera, than Stefani, bigger than Beyoncé: 32 million albums sold, and counting.) In 2006, she contributed to Mike Patton (of Faith No More)’s mammoth project band, Peeping Tom, which released an eponymous album last year, and more regularly, she played and sang in country band The Little Willies, which also released an album last year. Composed of her longtime bassist, contributor and boyfriend, Lee Alexander, and friends Richard Julian, Dan Rieser and Jim Campilongo, they originally covered their favorite Hank Williams and Willie Nelson songs at gigs until they eventually started doing original material. With The Little Willies, Norah was playing the piano, taking turns soloing with guitarist Jim Campilongo and sharing vocal duties with the other guitarist, Richard Julian. In 2006, she also filmed My Blueberry Nights with Wong Kar Wai, acclaimed director of Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love and 2046. Norah plays the lead character on a quest for the meaning of true love, acting alongside Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman and Jude Law.
With so many things on her plate, making her next album wasn’t immediate on her mind last year. “I had all these songs I had been writing and we were just recording these songs to record the songs. We weren't, obsessing over, oh, the third album or anything,” she chuckles. "And then about halfway through, we realized that, it was looking like an album.”
This was her first album where she wrote or co-wrote all the songs, as opposed to the covers-laden first two albums, and the first that she didn’t record with her legendary producer Arif Mardin, who passed away last year. She instead recorded the album in a home studio that she shares with Alexander, laying down a record that is stripped of studio glitz, a bare-bones album of songs that have been in Norah Jones’ head for some time.
"I was really excited to get into songwriting again, which was cool, because I hadn't figured out how to do that before," shares Norah, who had always been vocal about wanting to stretch her songwriting muscles. "On tour, you know you have to really just always write down ideas. And if you are too lazy to write them down," she pauses to laugh, "then you won't remember them."
She was able to write while touring. "I took a guitar around with me, 'cause I don't have pianos in my hotel rooms," she laughs. "And I also just have really been enjoying playing the guitar. I've been really loving it. I'm not that good, but I love it." This new element in her songwriting may explain why the piano is not a prominent figure as much on this album. Acoustic guitarist Jessie Harris, "one of our best friends," helped Norah write these guitar-based songs. "He's the only person who can play the guitar parts I write, 'cause I can't really play them, but he can play them the way I hear them," she enthuses.
The storytelling is both universal and particular—at first listen, "Wish I Could" is a sad love song set to a backdrop of poignant acoustic guitar and strings, yet people are reading rival lovers of an Iraqi-bound soldier into the lyrics. Iraq, because it is timely, and because there's another political satire on the album, entitled "My Dear Country," with the charged lyrics, "That nothing is as scary as election day... But the day after is darker, and darker and darker it goes..."
Most of the lyrics compel and later surprise—that little twist or jab at the end, such as in "Not My Friend," which starts out as a song of closure and ends with rather, er, drastic measures. And the songs are quite moving, particularly "Broken," "Rosie's Lullabye," "Not Too Late," and "Thinking About You," which Norah Jones wrote seven years ago, and has been in the back of her head all this time. Despite the underproduced feel, the songs have interesting textures and layers.
"These songs definitely express who I am more than the songs on my past records, just because I wrote them," Norah muses. "And, I think as a songwriter, I'm able to express things better now. Even the songs on my first record are… they're simple and they're sweet, I think. But they didn't go nearly as many places as these songs do."
Supplying the music is "my band, who I’ve played with since about five years, I guess—Andrew Borger on the drums, Adam Levy on the guitar, Daru Oda singing harmonies, and Lee Alexander of course, on bass," Norah lists. "And, they're sort of my core band from the beginning and they're all over this record. But we did have different people come in as well, which was fun." She says that the guests on the album were all good friends of hers, from when she started out as a musician on her own in New York. "Like, Jay Walter Hox, this great trombone player, who Lee and I used to play with, six years ago. I would've never thought to have a trombone solo on anything, but he's just such a great musician.
"Some really great jazz musicians also on this album," Norah stresses. "But it's funny, they didn't really get to show their skills, they were playing like really simple horn parts. Like Bill McHenry, I mean, he's a great musician. That's how a lot of these people got on the record… was just seeing them around town and saying 'Hey, you play saxophone. We need a saxophone.' You know?" She laughs again.
"I'm really proud of this record," Norah Jones beams. "It's just a lot more closer to me. And, we collaborated on a lot a different songs. I mean, of course, the musicians are very important on this album, but I do feel like this came more from me, as a person. I feel like I've grown up a lot musically, and I'm just really proud of this one."
