Music to Watch- 'Good Intentions Paving Company' Joanna Newsom

Initially I was going to review a different track off JN's amazing new release Have One on Me. Then I decided that the best track really did deserve some special recognition. This song moved me in a way that neither Ys or Milk Eyed Mender did on first listen. The voice that could once tease grating is suddenly a mature instrument in a pop/country/medieval/dance/folk/woah vibe. This album hosts a groove that is encapsulated in the near seven minutes of Good Intentions Paving Company. Newsom is finally talking about herself without layers and layers of extra text. She is expressing her messages in hook-laden tunes that hold all that technical beauty of Ys without the tendencies that scared some listeners off (while inebriated I once said that Joanna Newsom sounded like an ancient, crazy woman that is eternal). Paving Company is a mini epic that sounds, in my mind, like Newsom smoked a blunt at her piano while listening to Dolly Parton. The Newsome mystique has always been based around whether or not she took her music seriously. She spoke in twisting, knotty fables that were always greatly rewarding after multiple listens to let the text sink in. The mystique has now shifted to something that comes very close to happiness. Newsom speaks in Good Intentions with the voice of a confident woman finding the spring that comes after the melancholia of winter. Really, well worth a listen on a clear morning as you bustle to work. (That sentence intentionally had the word bustle in it)