Pick Me Up Off the Floor (Blue Note)
Norah Jones
Released June 12, 2020
2020 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Top 10 Vocal Album
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mFF1H1e0qcKwGcLAG6Kt–GJ1fkGZNhfI
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/3pi6NXntLETosIkAuaZEhW?si=qwiK_77nTBm2J93zwWFFNA
About:
Norah Jones didn’t mean to make another album. After she finished touring 2016’s Day Breaks — her beloved return to piano-based jazz — she walked away from the well-worn album cycle grind and into an unfamiliar territory without boundaries: a series of short sessions with an ever-changing array of collaborators resulting in a diverse stream of singles (with Mavis Staples, Rodrigo Amarante, Thomas Bartlett, Tarriona Tank Ball, and more). But then an odd thing happened. Slowly but surely, the session songs Jones hadn’t released congealed into that very thing she’d meant to avoid — an album, lucky for us. Because Pick Me Up Off The Floor is not some disjointed collage. It holds together beautifully, connected by the sly groove of her piano trios, lyrics that confront loss and portend hope, and a heavy mood that leans into darkness before ultimately finding the light.
“Every session I’ve done, there’ve been extra songs I didn’t release and they’ve sort of been collecting for the last two years,” says Jones. “I became really enamored with them, having the rough mixes on my phone, listening while I walk the dog. The songs stayed stuck in my head and I realized that they had this surreal thread running through them. It feels like a fever dream taking place somewhere between God, the Devil, the heart, the Country, the planet, and me.”
Sure enough, just as this set of songs blurs sonic colors (blues, soul, Americana, and various shades of jazz) it also swirls the personal and political, specific pain and societal trauma, into one mercurial body. Even the album title’s meaning seems to shift. The words “Pick Me Up Off the Floor” at times play as a plea for outside intervention, as on the spare yet bewitching opener “How I Weep,” where Jones mourns an untold loss over pensive keys and humming strings. But in other moments the phrase feels like a bootstraps-style statement of purpose, as on the rootsy “I’m Alive,” made in Chicago with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy (and his son Spencer on drums), where Jones slashes her own silver lining into the haze of the modern news cycle: “She’s crushed by thoughts at night of men / Who want her rights and usually win / But she’s alive, oh she’s alive.”
“Living in this country — this world — the last few years, I think there’s an underlying sense of, ‘Lift me up. Let’s get up out of this mess and try to figure some things out,’” says Jones. “If there’s a darkness to this album, it’s not meant to be an impending sense of doom, if feels more like a human longing for connection. Some of the songs that are personal also apply to the larger issues we’re all facing. And some of the songs that are about very specific larger things also feel quite personal.”
The title also dovetails neatly with the way these songs came together. While Jones’ singles series continues, and several were rounded up for 2019’s Begin Again mini album, Pick Me Up Off the Floor makes magic out of the music that could have been left behind. Wanting to spend more time with her family and recalling the thrill of creating on the spot with Danger Mouse for 2012’s Little Broken Hearts, Jones launched her new approach in early 2018: a session a month with a different singer, player, band, or engineer. Instead of her usual methodical process, she’d prepare very little and have no expectations: if a collaboration bore fruit, great; if not, no big. The backbone of this album was formed early, in the especially fruitful second session with her go-to drummer Brian Blade and bassist Christopher Thomas — they made seven songs in three days.
Three of those ended up here: “Hurts to Be Alone,” a slinky soul-jazz number that finds Jones on piano, Wurlitzer, and Hammond B-3 organ; the sadly waltzing “Heartbroken, Day After,” which builds to a cinematic end; and “Were You Watching,” an eerie dirge whose mysterious verses were cowritten by Jones’ real-life friend, poet Emily Fiskio. That collaboration also shaped what would become Pick Me Up Off the Floor. Inspired by Fiskio’s work — plus all the Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein she’s been reading to her kids — Jones wrote her own poetry apart from music for the first time, and pulled from it during various sessions. Blade also pops up throughout: with veteran bassist John Patitucci on the stormy “Flame Twin,” and Brazilian Girls bassist Jesse Murphy on both the brass-blessed “Say No More” and “This Life,” which showcases a particularly haunting vocal from Jones.
“I don’t know if I was just in a zone or if this process turned it on, but I’ve felt more creative in the last year than I ever have,” says Jones, who put the final touches on Pick Me Up Off the Floor in early 2020 — some strings here, some harmonies there. By completely rethinking the way she made music, Jones discovered a new wellspring of inspiration, with the fortunate if unexpected result of making an album of tremendous depth and beauty that she was not trying to make.
Unpredictability has been a hallmark of Jones’ career from the start. There was, of course, her astounding 2002 debut Come Away With Me, which spent 164 weeks on the charts, swept the Grammys, and ignited a mainstream love for thoughtful, jazz-steeped acoustic pop. Many artists would just repeat that recipe for success, but Jones never settled into a single sound or mode. She began other projects from indie band El Madmo, to alt-country outfit Puss N Boots (who just dropped their second LP, Sister), to 2013’s Foreverly, a set of Everly Brothers covers with Billie Joe Armstrong. She appeared on songs by Herbie Hancock, Foo Fighters, OutKast, Willie Nelson, and Sharon Van Etten, and many more. And each of her albums broke whatever mold she’d set with the last one. It’s been a journey we’ve all been happy to go on — a clear sense of inspiration runs through it all.
Despite how Pick Me Up Off the Floor began, these 11 songs present a journey too. While a certain existential dread creeps through the mix, hope arrives with “To Live,” a swaying spiritual Jones originally wrote with Mavis Staples in mind: “If love is the answer, in front of my face / I’ll live in this moment and find my true place.” The clouds part further in the final two songs. Amid the ambling drums and pedal steel of “Stumble on My Way,” our host is worse for wear but on her feet again. And on “Heaven Above,” a gorgeously dreamlike Tweedy team-up, Jones seems to at last reach a place of peace — acceptance of the things we can’t change, and gratitude for the good that we get. In that way, Pick Me Up Off the Floor offers catharsis to anyone who gets caught in its warm embrace.
Track Listing:
1. How I Weep (Norah Jones) 04:41
2. Flame Twin (Norah Jones) 03:21
3. Hurts to Be Alone (Norah Jones) 03:25
4. Heartbroken, Day After (Norah Jones) 04:12
5. Say No More (Norah Jones / Sarah Oda) 04:58
6. This Life (Norah Jones) 02:38
7. To Live (Norah Jones) 04:28
8. I’m Alive (Norah Jones / Jeff Tweedy) 04:16
9. Were You Watching? (Emily Fiskio / Norah Jones) 05:16
10. Stumble on My Way (Norah Jones) 03:53
11. Heaven Above (Norah Jones / Jeff Tweedy) 04:16
Personnel:
Norah Jones: vocals, piano, Wurlitzer (3), organ (3), drums (6), celesta (11)
Jeff Tweedy: electric and acoustic guitar (8, 11), electric bass (8)
Dan Iead: pedal steel guitar (4, 10)
Pete Remm: electric guitar (2), synthesizer (2), organ (2, 3), keyboards
Christopher Thomas: bass (3, 4, 9)
John Patitucci: bass (2)
Jesse Murphy: bass (5, 6, 7)
Josh Lattanzi: bass (10)
Brian Blade: drums (2-6, 9)
Nate Smith: drums (7)
Spencer Tweedy: drums (8)
Dan Rieser: drums (10)
Josh Adams: drums (10)
Mauro Refosco: shaker (3)
Dave Guy: trumpet (5, 7)
Leon Michels: tenor saxophone (5, 7)
Mazz Swift: violin (9), backing vocals (9)
Ayane Kozasa: viola (1)
Paul Wiancko: cello (1)
Ruby Amanfu: background vocals (3, 4, 9)
Sam Ashworth: background vocals (3, 4, 9)
Recorded Big Purple Box, Brooklyn, NY; Brooklyn Recording, Brooklyn, NY; Diamond Mine Studios, Queens, NY; Electric Lady Studios, New York, NY; Rainbow Star, Brooklyn, NY; Reservoir Studios, New York, NY; The Loft, Chicago, IL
Recorded by Brandon Bost (1), Andy Taub (2, 5-7, 10), Patrick Dillett (3, 4, 9), Tom Schick (8, 11)
Mixed by Matt Marinelli (1, 2, 10), Jamie Landry (3-7, 9), Tom Schick (8, 11)
Mastered by Greg Calbi with Steve Fallone
Photography: Diana Russo
Art Direction/Design: Frank Harkins
Review:
Some may know Norah Jones exclusively as the immaculately voiced writer of loungey, jazz-inflected tunes perfect for rainy afternoons. Others who have followed her discography since those passionate and endearing early ‘00s gems have seen massive swings intended to redefine and expand her palette. She leaned into cinematic rock with Danger Mouse on “Little Broken Hearts,” started a country band with Puss ‘N Boots and featured on an Outkast track. Many lauded 2016’s “Day Breaks” as a return to her piano jazz core.
Now, on her seventh LP. “Pick Me Up Off the Floor,” Jones clears away the weight of genre signposts and disentangles her process to affirm twin strengths: her sterling voice and empathic songwriting. Whether singing about existential dread, finding hope in darkness or the pain of heartbreak, Jones gracefully translates those feelings into intimate moments of personal action and emotion. The album’s title even reckons with that dual strength, laid out and calling out for someone to lend a hand. A variety of discomforts put Jones down, but the process of rendering them in song is an act of uplift.
Rather than set out to record an album, Jones initially cobbled together a series of studio sessions as one-offs, expecting to come away with a few songs to round out the 2019 singles collection “Begin Again.” Even after releasing those songs, however, she found herself sitting with a surplus of material. It’s incredibly rare for “leftovers” to comprise a cohesive album, but “Pick Me Up Off the Floor” does just that.
Though stretching its borders from stormcloud blues to orchestral jazz pop to lithe Motown, the album is tied together by Jones’ ineffable ability to convey big emotions with simplicity. “How I weep, and I sleep, and I march, and I dance … but inside, inside I weep,” she pours out on the album’s opener. As the track ends, Jones’ heart is caught behind in brambles, the loss felt deeply, though the minimalist lyrics only hint at the story. Musically, the song counterbalances the existential weight with an evocative string arrangement from Paul Wiancko, curls of violin like birds darting through the sky, viola dropping like rain on growing flowers.
When daily life in modern America feels compounded by an endless array of issues and calls for hope, Jones’ songs pare away details to let the big moments speak for themselves. Walking the fine line between vague and blunt can be tricky, and “Pick Me Up Off the Floor” keeps itself squarely on the latter. Her lyrics aren’t refined and toiled over, but instead cut straight to the core, as if written directly after each painful moment. Album highlight “Heartbroken, Day After” sells both the angst and the yearning within words of each other. “Heartbroken, day after, our world is wasting away,” she offers, only to rebut herself, as if responding to the tears of the listener. “Oh hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay my little one / I promise we’ll find our way.” As angelic pedal steel guitar and backing vocals blur into a radiant corona, Jones’ voice boosts into another range: “Find a way out!” she calls, bursting out of the gloom.
It’s tempting to align that song and others under a banner of protest or response to the Trump presidency. “I’m Alive” is as simple and direct a statement of hope as many are capable of in this moment. Co-written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, the song uses a nameless “she” as a stand-in for Jones herself and women around the world. “She’s crushed by thoughts at night of men / Who want her rights / And usually win / But she’s alive,” Jones exhales, the trademark smoke in her voice weaving through muscly piano, Tweedy’s choppy acoustic guitar and his son Spencer’s nimble drumming. “He screams, he shouts / The heads on the TV bow / They take the bait / They mirror waves of hate,” Jones adds — a straightforward yet no less affecting summation of the last few years in American politics.
Elsewhere, “To Live” digs into more oppression, but aches to break through. “To live in this moment and finally be free / Is what I was after, no chains holding me,” she sings over the gospel-tinted, horn-laden track. And though the solution to her pain may seem easy — love, right there in front of Jones’ face — there’s a revelatory power to the sway, and comfort in the conviction.
Other experiments leave behind the political sphere to push into more personal territory, though again leaving room for listeners to feel every word without the weight of distance or minutiae. “Flame Twin” slinks and burns like a breakup funk track, and “Heaven Above” (another Tweedy collaboration) rides Jones’ lithe piano and lapping waves of guitar into the sunset, looking up at the sky for signs of a lost love.
While it may not be soundtracking any marches or precisely match any singular breakup, Jones’ latest captures big-picture feelings of anxiety, fear, loss and hope. “Pick Me Up Off the Floor” is a cohesive journey reflecting both tragically and sweetly on the amorphous cloud of heartache that lingers in these moments of pain, offering a hand to help us out of the fog.
Lior Phillips (Variety)
