—By Bill DeMain
With her 2002 debut Come Away With Me chalking up over 20 million sales, and her three follow-up releases—Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007) and The Fall (2009)—each selling over a million copies, Norah Jones has become one of the most popular musicians on the planet. Her accolades include nine Grammys, national and international tours, TV appearances, magazine covers, and duets with legends such as Ray Charles and Dolly Parton. She’s even sung with the Muppets. But Norah’s modest take on her career and musical abilities goes like this: “I’m still working it out.”
The best part of this supernova story is that all of it happened initially with little publicity and less radio play. In a commercial scene that is rampant with hype and excess, Norah Jones crept in the back door and started a quiet revolution. As her producer Arif Mardin commented of her success, “I think people like honest singers. [Someone with] no pretension or conceit, just singing the songs.”
Norah Jones was born in New York City on March 30, 1979, toward the end of her mother Sue’s nine-year relationship with Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar. Four years later, mother and daughter moved to a suburb of Dallas, Tex. Raised on a musical diet that included a mix of oldies radio, MC Hammer, Nirvana and Dolly Parton, Norah started playing piano as a pre-teen. In high school she got into jazz and by senior year had landed solo piano gigs. While studying jazz at the University of North Texas, she played at a local Italian restaurant, a steady job which she describes as “paid practice.”
During her sophomore year, she met two visiting songwriters from New York—Jesse Harris and Richard Julian. Both would be instrumental in her future (Harris wrote her biggest hit, “Don’t Know Why;” Julian is a co-writer and bandmate). Upon hearing her sing, the pair avidly encouraged her to move to Manhattan.
After arriving in 1999, Jones gravitated to the downtown songwriting scene, which has its headquarters at the Living Room. Harris and Julian introduced her to many of the city’s hippest musicians. These included bassist Lee Alexander, guitarist Adam Levy, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Daru Oda and drummer Andrew Borger, who would end up as part of the Handsome Band, the backing group that Norah describes as her “family.”
What follows are the stories behind a few of her songs, excerpted from a conversation that Bill DeMain had with one of our favorite performing songwriters.
“Sunrise”
It was written during a break in a tour. We were sleeping in a lot, and that’s kind of what the song is about. I came up with the “Ooh-ooh.” It’s the easy part, but it’s the hook. Lee had some chords and some words and part of the melody. We moved some of the chords around. And I said, “What about some ‘Oohs?’” And I was kind of kidding, and then I thought, “No, that’s it. Let’s do ‘Oohs!’” And he said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” And I sang him what I was thinking. Lee has become very poetic, for someone who never really wrote a lot before. I’m really impressed. He writes on his computer. I can’t do that. I have to have a messy notebook and be all artistic about it. He writes these verses on his computer, and he sits there for hours and it finally comes out. It’s really thought out. We’ve both learned so much from Richard [Julian]. Especially Lee. He’s written a lot with Richard, and they talk about songwriting a lot. I think he’s sort of taken some of that and made it his own.
“Come Away With Me”
I hadn’t written since I was about 16, and I’d only written two songs back then and they were so bad that I just gave up. But I’d come back from seeing Tony Scherr play and I had seen Jesse and Richard probably, and all that came together in my mind. I had sent for my acoustic guitar in Texas, which is a really crappy guitar, and I wrote it on that. The chords are really simple. It came out in 10 or 15 minutes, and I wrote it down. I didn’t have a tape recorder at that time, so I was nervous that I was going to forget it. So I did these stupid symbols over the words—1-2-3-1-5—this really cracked-out system (laughs). Once I went through the code the next day, it came out the same way I remembered. It’s difficult to get to a place where songs come out that quickly, but it’s so great when they do. The next day, I wrote “What Am I to You?” the very same way. And I thought, “Oh yeah, I’m baaad” (laughs). I didn’t really know if they were great songs, but I just felt cool. It hasn’t happened since!
“Don’t Miss You At All” (original lyric written to melody of Duke Ellington’s “Melancholia”)
I used to hate those people who put words to old Charlie Parker songs. So I would never go into a situation saying, “I’m going to write words to Duke Ellington.” That’s sacred. You don’t want to touch that. But I heard that song—Lee played it for me—and it was so beautiful. I went into our little music room to learn how to play it. As I was playing it, I just started singing, and those words came out. So it came from a place where I was really moved by it. I recorded it for the first record, but I didn’t really know if it was good or not. I didn’t put it on the record for a couple of reasons. Mostly because we didn’t get a good version of it. I liked ending the record with the solo standard, but I preferred doing it with “The Nearness of You,” which is a lot more uplifting. The Duke Ellington song is beautiful, but it’s kind of sad. Also, we didn’t think we’d get permission. We didn’t even try. After the first record was successful, Bruce [Lundvall] at the label, he took the demo of it and he got the permission even before he asked me if he could (laughs).
“The Prettiest Thing”
We were on this plane in the Midwest and it was night time, and we were above a thunderstorm. There was a lot of lightning going on, and I thought it was really beautiful. And I started singing. I had the music and the melody and the line, “The prettiest thing I ever did see was lightning from the top of the clouds.” It stuck, and in my mind I wrote the entire song. Not words, just the music and melody. I tried to finish it, then Daru and Lee helped me finish it. It wasn’t going anywhere. The words weren’t as good as they could’ve been or something. And I still don’t believe that they’re as good as they could be. Richard finally came in. And this is in the studio. Richard and Lee were still working on that damn song, because it still wasn’t to a place where we felt like it was great. At the 11th hour, we recorded it. I’m still not sure about it, but I really like it. I used to be the kind of person who’d say, “Oh, the song’s done. Isn’t that great? Thank god. Glad that’s over.” Then Lee will come in and say, “I like it, but that line’s kind of funny.” I’ll say, “No! It’s done! Don’t screw with it. Can’t we just go eat dinner?” That comes from being kind of lazy. I like to work hard, but I’m not the kind who can sit there and obsess over a lyric for more than five minutes. I have to go away and come back to it.
“Don’t Know Why” (written by Jesse Harris)
It was a demo I sang for Jesse in May of 2001. That was the first take of the song on that recording, and that’s the one we used for the record. I think it was really beautiful. It was so spontaneous. That’s what made it so cool. I feel like that’s why people connected with it. We were lucky we captured some kind of spark. Having to play it over and over again on tour kind of killed the magic for me. But I’ve been able to start enjoying it more. I feel like songs go through cycles for me. You start getting sick of a song, then maybe you change the drum groove. I’ve stopped playing piano on “Don’t Know Why.” I stand up and sing it, and Andy plays a little pattern on the box instead of the brushes on the drum, and that has made it totally fresh and fun for me. Now it’s one of my favorite songs to sing in the show. Maybe it’s because the audience always claps the loudest for it (laughs).
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