New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Norah Jones has released "How I Weep," the poetic opening track of her forthcoming album Pick Me Up Off The Floor, which will be released June 12. The new song follows the album's lead single "I'm Alive," a collaboration with Jeff Tweedy. Pick Me Up Off The Floor is available for pre-order on vinyl, CD, or download. Norah has been posting a series of #StayAtHome videos over recent weeks including a poignant live version of Guns N' Roses' "
Patience" and a tribute to
John Prine with a version of "That's The Way The World Goes Round."
Jones recently began writing her own poetry apart from music for the first time in her life. Eventually, several of those poems found their way back into songs on the new album, including "How I Weep," where the singer mourns an untold loss over pensive piano and humming strings.
"My friend got me into poetry this year," says Jones. "Her poetry, then she gave me poetry books. That plus reading Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein to my kids every night got me into a word maze and I wrote this poem. I liked it but doubted I would ever release a book of poems and started thinking how to turn it into a song. I edited it down quite a bit and sat with it and a very different kind of song emerged. I immediately thought of this string duo I saw to do an arrangement and I loved how it turned out as if they played the main role of the subject, or the 'loss'."
"How I Weep" lyrics:
How I
How I
Weep for the loss
And it creeps down my chin
For the heart and the hair
And the skin and the air
That swirls itself around the bare
How I weep
How I weep
How I weep and I sleep
And I march and I dance
And I sing and I laugh and I laugh
And I laugh
But inside
But inside
Inside I weep
Inside I weep and I weep
For a loss
That's so deep
That it hardens and turns into stone
There it stays
And rolls through bones
Till they crumble
And the earth doesn't spin
It's got no way to win
And the stars stare down with sad clown faces
And they taunt me
They taunt me
So I run and I run and I run and I run
But I've nowhere to go except into the sun
And I weep for the loss and the loss weeps for me
The loss weeps for me
Then it whacks me straight into my stomach at night
It's a hard blow to take with all of its might
It tries to be sorry it tries to be sweet then it runs out the door as if on two feet
And I stand there and wonder when will I be free
Then I realized I held it, it never held me
It had to hurt me to finally be gone
'Cus I made the mistake of dragging it on
And I wonder what kind of person am I
Who weeps for a loss but can't tell it goodbye
How I
How I weep
How I weep
How I weep
