New York City - Norah Jones

It’s really not so good an idea to fill your ancient, tiny-capacity MP3 player with Norah and Norah only, and set out on the road, thinking it’d make even the grimmest parts of the journey tender and not without subtle meanings. Especially when it’s an album featuring Norah singing about a labyrinthinely fascinating city that you'd always wanted to see for yourself. Especially when your own travel happens in winter, to harsh, unrelenting places like Chinese tourist destinations. (Of course you can renounce the idea of even bringing a player to drown out all other interesting, real sounds in travel. I got to do that when I am out of battery, which happens pretty often anyway.)

The thing about Norah is that she comforts you like opium. You keep coming back for more. You laugh, you fall into a reverie to the lyrics set to her low, smoky voice, and as you wake up lingeringly you cry, and cycle repeats. It’s subversive in that it could quietly wipe out everything else (N.B.: in emotionally turbulent times), and it's bad travel company exactly because of that. In the small town of Yangshuo, as I sat with newly made friends on the road side watching people and (unmoving) karst rocks and good humouredly chatting, we asked what music we each were listening to on that stretch of the journey. The guys chuckled (in slight embarrassment?) “oh, I know Norah Jones…but I never listen to romantic stuff like that ye know..” (guy’s pick was rock, more or less predictably.) Never occurred to me before that Norah’s music would be described as ‘romantic’, and then I thought, maybe, only girls and women listen to Norah? I personally would feel a little amused imagining a guy transfixed to her music for weeks on end like I sometimes do. Only on reflection did I realize that the subject matters and the perspective of her lyrics, poetic, poignant and at times melancholy, are mostly a very feminine kind. But I’d very much like to see someone disagree. :-P

About this album of New York City (which is actually by the Peter Malick Group featuring Jones)—if you had listened to the other more famous Norah albums (Come Away With Me and Feels Like Home) this one would not disappoint you in the least. The collaboration sees Norah attack the ‘70’s singer/songwriter style country/bluesy’ songs (quoting an unremembered source) with vigor and heart, and the result is that the album has a distinctly different and refreshingly lively feel as compared with the solo efforts. It’s really difficult to pick a favourite to put here, as all six tracks featured are equally great. I’ll just put the title track on YSI first. (coming later due to Taiwan earthquake and my being partially cut off to servers across the ocean..) UPDATE: download here before it expires around 6 Jan. Thanks to zhu for circumventing the problem from north America instead. All material from the web and meant for non-commercial purposes only. =D

New York City

I can't remember what I planned tomorrow
I can't remember when it's time to go
When I look in the mirror
Tracing lines with a pencil
I remember what came before

I wanted to think there was endless love
Until I saw the light dim in your eyes
In the dead of the night I found out
Sometimes there's love that won't survive

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
Such a beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease

Laura kept all her disappointments
Locked up in a box behind her closet door
She pulled the blinds and listened to the thunder
With no way out from the family store

We all told her things could get better
When you just say goodbye
I'll lay awake one more night
Caught in a vision I want to deny

And did I mention the note that I found
Taped to my locked front door
It talked about no regrets
As it slipped from my hand to the scuffed tile floor

I rode the train for hours on end
And watched the people pass me by
It could be that it has no end
Just an action junkie's lullaby

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
Such a beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease

We were full of the stuff that every dream rested
As if floating on a lumpy pillow sky
Caught up in the whole illusion
That dreams never pass us by
Came to a tattooed conclusion
That the big one was knocking at the door
What started as a mass delusion
Would take me far from the place I adore

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
You are my beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease