Joanna Newsom rarely makes public appearances nowadays, but she stepped out on Wednesday to accept a rather prestigious honor in her hometown of Nevada City, California. From now on, May 27th is Joanna Newsom Day in the city, whose mayor just so happens to be her childhood friend, Adam Kline of the indie rock band Golden Shoulders.
Newsom seemed genuinely grateful during her 15-minute speech, and in particular for her close relationship with Kline, who heavily impacted her music career and “so many other people in the community” of Nevada City.
“This proclamation truly means more to me than a Grammy or any other award could. Nevada City, you’re so dear to me,” Newsom said sincerely. “Being formally recognized as your native daughter is one of the highest honors I could imagine.”
After joking that her first draft of the speech was “edging into filibuster territory,” she thanked Kline as her “lifelong friend,” whose fortuitous sharing of her early music led to her getting signed to a label.
“Adam was one of the first people I ever played my music for, 30 years ago-ish, or give or take,” Newsom recalled. “He’s also arguably the reason I have a career. When I first started recording my little demo CD-Rs and handing them out to friends just for personal use, Adam took it upon himself to pass one off to Will Oldham, who was a musician passing through town, performing at the Magic Theatre, then known as the Magic Theatre.”
Newsom continued by explaining that she received her big break after Oldham took her demo to his Chicago label, Drag City. “A couple weeks later, I heard from Dan Koretzky from Drag City, offering to put out my record. And thus began a 25-ish year relationship that has been so wonderful with that record label. And when I look back on it, it does represent pretty much the only path down which I could have made records the way I want to and wanted to. And if I couldn’t have done that, I wouldn’t have made them. So thank you, Adam.”
From there, Newsom spoke of Nevada City’s strong connection with music and how it shows up in songs as “a central character, an abiding preoccupation, an object of devotion, a nagging riddle, a callous adversary, a fountain head of longing and love, consternation and mystery, ghostliness and devotion, scarcity and abundance.”
“It seems strange that such a small town could have such potency for so many of us in so many different ways,” she added. “What I loved about life here growing up was that it left room for some emptiness and some loneliness and some space, which all led to so much noticing. I think all of these musicians who came out of this town have had a chance to do a lot of that, and I think it makes a big difference.”
The speech continued with more effusive praise of Nevada City before transitioning into an extremely on-brand deep dive into the differences between metaphors and similes (“When we talk about metaphor, we’re actually talking about simile. We’re poetically likening one thing to another thing.”) that were definitely not on anyone’s agenda that evening, and seemed to go over the heads of those in attendance.
But it was Joanna Newsom Day, and that detour was to be expected. She also thanked her parents for their support, as well as her music teacher, Lisa, and other “incredible” educators in the community.
Closing the speech, Newsom joked, “I’ve gone down a lot of tangents about grammatics, which I think we can all agree were justified and not a reflection of the fact that I wrote this at [2:00 a.m.] in the morning last night.” She added, “I want to thank you all deeply and let you know that my Empire Mind shaft door is always open if you want to come down and say hi.”
Watch the full speech below. Newsom begins around the 9:29 mark.
Apropos of nothing, here’s a fun fact: Newsom is indeed related to California Governor Gavin Newsom, as they are second cousins twice removed.
Her most recent album, Divers, was released in 2015, though she did tease new songs at an LA concert two years ago.
