May 27 is now Joanna Newsom Day

Joanna Newsom returned to her hometown of Nevada City, California, to accept a key to the city—or, more specifically, to the Empire Mine Shaft door—from Mayor (and Golden Shoulders frontman) Adam Kline, who declared May 27 a local holiday in her honor. Mayor Kline is a childhood friend of Newsom’s, and she’s one of many musicians in the rotating cast of Golden Shoulders session players. In a speech she gave during a City Council meeting, Newsom shared that Kline was “one of the first people” who ever heard her music, “30 years ago-ish.” Kline sent one of Newsom’s early demo tapes to Will Oldham, which led to Newsom’s record deal with Drag City—the label she credits with giving her “pretty much the only path down which I could have made records the way I want to and wanted to.” In addition to Kline and Oldham, Newsom thanked her parents and many of her childhood teachers, including her harp teacher, and praised the proclamation as a greater prize than a Grammy award. 

“Our town has always been full of musicians,” Newsom said of Nevada City, “and our music has always been full of this town.” Her speech was one only she could have given, her way with words almost as singular and remarkable as it is on her records. She spoke about her hometown and its place in her music and that of other Nevada City songwriters with such care and specificity: “Nevada City shows up in reliably in many of our songs again and again, not as set dressing, but as a central character, an abiding preoccupation, an object of devotion, a nagging riddle, a callous adversary; a fountainhead of longing and love, consternation and mystery, ghostliness and devotion, scarcity and abundance.” 

Newsom later described her upbringing in Nevada City as being “as full as I think it could have been anywhere,” saying that life in the town “left room for some emptiness and some loneliness and some space, which led to so much noticing.” The woman who penned “In California” would know and appreciate this better than anyone. Newsom hasn’t released any new music in over a decade, and her public appearances are even fewer and farther between (though she did play a residency at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles two years ago and included some unreleased songs in her set). We’re always happy to hear from our little life-giver, whatever form her transmissions may take. Watch her speech below.

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