Joanna Newsom plays her song "In California" live in concert at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, California on November 25, 2019. In California was released on Newsom's third studio album, Have One On Me (2010). Newsom performed as part of her "Strings/Keys Incident" tour, an intimate set of shows with just her singing and playing piano and harp, and marking her first return to touring since 2016.

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The Strings/Keys Incident: An Evening With Joanna Newsom Dates:

Sept. 6-7 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Kimmel Center
Sept. 9-15 – New York, NY @ El Teatro at El Museo del Barrio
Oct. 7-10 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
Oct. 12-13 – Milwaukee, WI @ Irish Cultural and Heritage Center
Nov. 22 – Carmel, CA @ Sunset Cultural Center
Nov. 25-26 – San Francisco, CA @ Herbst Theatre
Dec. 10-14 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Legion Theater (CANCELLED)
Jan. 15-16 – Austin, TX @ Bates Recital Hall

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Joanna Newsom official bio:

Avant-garde multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom will embark on a national tour. The String/Keys Incident – An Evening with Joanna Newsom will feature her emotively beautiful songs in a rare and intimate concert experience by Joanna alone: solo voice, harp, and piano!

Newsom was classically-trained on the harp at a young age and began her professional musical career as a keyboardist in the San Francisco-based indie band The Pleased. After self-releasing two EPs in 2002, she signed to the independent label Drag City where she released her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender in 2004. The album released to critical-acclaim, named “The 12th best folk album of all time” by NME, and secured Newsom a dedicated underground following.

In 2006, she released Ys, which charted at Number 134 on Billboard 200 and received a 2007 Shortlist Music Prize nomination. She followed with the release of Have One on Me in 2010 and Divers in 2015. Her song “Sapokanikan” on Divers earned her a spot on NPR’s “The 200 greatest songs by 21st century women.”

No stranger to critical-acclaim, she is often noted for her unique musical style, sometimes characterized as psychedelic folk, and her prominent use of harp instrumentation.

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In California lyrics:

My heart became a drunken runt
On the day I sunk in this shunt
To tap me clean
Of all the wonder
And the sorrow I have seen
Since I left my home:

My home, on the old Milk Lake
Where the darkness does fall so fast
It feels like some kind of mistake
(just like they told you it would;
Just like the Tulgeywood)

When I came into my land
I did not understand:
Neither dry rot, nor the burn pile
Nor the bark-beetle, nor the dry well
Nor the black bear

But there is another
Who is a little older
When I broke my bone
He carried me up from the riverside

To spend my life
In spitting-distance
Of the love that I have known
I must stay here, in an endless eventide

And if you come and see me
You will upset the order
You cannot come and see me
For I set myself apart
But when you come and see me
In California
You cross the border of my heart

Well, I have sown untidy furrows
Across my soul
But I am still a coward
Content to see my garden grow
So sweet & full
Of someone else's flowers

But sometimes
I can almost feel the power
Sometimes I am so in love with you
(Like a little clock
That trembles on the edge of the hour
Only ever calling out "Cuckoo, cuckoo")

When I called you
You, little one
In a bad way
Did you love me?
Do you spite me?

Time will tell if I can be well
And rise to meet you rightly
While, moving across my land
Brandishing themselves
Like a burning branch
Advance the tallow-colored
Walleyed deer
Quiet as gondoliers
While I wait all night, for you
In California
Watching the fox pick off my goldfish
From their sorry, golden state--
And I am no longer
Afraid of anything, save
The life that, here, awaits

I don't belong to anyone
My heart is heavy as an oil drum
I don't want to be alone
My heart is yellow as an ear of corn
And I have torn my soul apart, from
Pulling artlessly with fool commands

Some nights
I just never go to sleep at all
And I stand
Shaking in my doorway like a sentinel
All alone
Bracing like the bow upon a ship
And fully abandoning
Any thought of anywhere
But home
My home

Sometimes I can almost feel the power
And I do love you
Is it only timing
That has made it such a dark hour
Only ever chiming out
"Cuckoo, cuckoo"?

My heart, I wear you down, I know
Gotta think straight
Keep a clean plate;
Keep from wearing down
If I lose my head
Just where am I going to lay it?

(For it has half-ruined me
To be hanging around
Here, among the daphne
Blooming out of the big brown;
I am native to it, but I'm overgrown
I have choked my roots
On the earth, as rich as roe
Here
Down in California.)

Written by Joanna Caroline Newsom