hooves on the turf

I saw filmmaker Craig Zobel’s The Great World of Sound a while ago, but got it on Netflix again to re-watch a scene in which a character performs Joanna Newsom’s “Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie” a cappella. Outside the context of the movie, the singing by actress Tricia Paoluccio is a little too theatrical even for Joanna Newsom material, but it gives me goosebumps nevertheless, and worthily illustrates Joanna Newsom’s gift as a songwriter. The story of how this song ended up in the movie is discussed in an interview on Fabulist. When I first watched the film, the surprise was so unexpected that it almost made me leap; so I’m sorry about the spoiler, though it has been over a year since it came out! It’s not by any means a movie that will move you a million miles, but it’s kind of a sweet story with a sad aftertaste, and modest in its telling, about a disheartened music enthusiast who finds himself working for a record company that scams aspiring musicians in small towns; Kene Holliday, who plays a colleague bent on making his job work, is actually pretty hilarious; and though Tricia Paoluccio was a hired actress, most musicians you see in the movie are non-actors who thought they were auditioning for real–their responses to the staged auditions are far more telling about the entertainment industry than the plot itself. Continue to download the song and watch the trailer.

Download “Clam, Crab, Crockle, Cowerie” by Tricia Paoluccio (Joanna Newsom cover) | The original is available on Joanna Newsom’s The Milk-Eyed Mender from 2004.