Norah Jones has released “How I Weep,” the poetic opening track of her forthcoming album Pick Me Up Off The Floor, which will now be released June 12th. 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’.”