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Joanna Newsom's type?

Tom

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Another Joanna Newsom thread? I'd say ISFP, maybe ENFP.
 

Forever_Jung

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I know it doesn't matter anymore, since INFJ seems to be the consensus, but I was reading through an interview and found these quotes:

joanna newsom said:
--He generated his initial drafts based on a big pile of notes that I gave him; this sort of manifesto about how I wanted the record to sound and the mood I wanted it to have. While it's not important to me that the audience explicitly understand what the record is "about," I did think it was important that the collaborator understand that explicitly. We needed to have a cohesive vision. ...So I started by giving him that manifesto, then a more detailed series of notes as well, going line by line through the songs.




--Basically I wanted to undertake the task of writing songs about a particular year of my life... I was starting to see a lot of connections, and I wanted to make them more substantial to myself, or at least explore them. Writing these songs was a way to organize my brain and organize these events and how they had affected me. There were four very big things that happened in my life in this particular year, and so four of the songs are about these things. The fifth song, "Only Skin", was an effort to talk about the connections between the events.......




---I just find it funny that at this point, we see a collection of highly charged, highly potent symbols as referring back to a classical aesthetic, because to me they seem deeply connected to the pedestrian actuality of real life......




I really like to imbue every little thing with connections; the continuity makes me feel better about the finished work, so that's why I did that.

And here's another interview that certainly discounts the Se argument:

“I don’t want to compound the fragility myth about me ... but I think other, people, in my, life, certainly, commented, that I seemed to have, a ... sometimes fragile relationship with reality.” She stops. “But I wouldn’t say that it’s felt like a problem for me but, you know, I forget to pay bills and I get my water shut off and I live in a rural area. And you know when your cable gets shut off they actually have to make an appointment to send out a technician to reinstall it and it’s really expensive and insanely annoying. And so that’s happened to me like four times now. The list of things like that is very, very long. And there’s nothing romantic or fantastical about being hapless, or borderline dysfunctional in terms of a lot of the things that make someone a good grown-up in the world.”

She also says she must confess that people who work with her find her stubborn to the point of being difficult. She can’t rest creatively until a song is exactly the way she imagined it. She can’t bend.

This seems INFJ to me, she is certainly NF at any rate.
 

lulabelle

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I know it doesn't matter anymore, since INFJ seems to be the consensus, but I was reading through an interview and found these quotes:



And here's another interview that certainly discounts the Se argument:



This seems INFJ to me, she is certainly NF at any rate.

oh my goodness. this thread is crazy to me! joanna is SO the archetypal INFP. has anyone listened to her lyrics? yes, she uses lots of symbolism and metaphor, but above all, it's so dreamy and expansive. i really don't see how anyone could see her as anything but INFP. i think people are getting Ne+Fi confused for Ni.

'we've seen those mountains kneeling felten and gray. we swore our very hearts would up and melt away' soooo dreamy. so floaty. so ethereal, her lyrics and music are.

and i don't think INFJs ever get their water shut off or forget to pay their bills, really. LOL. INFJs are pretty type-a. joanna is a total weirdo and is pretty much the opposite of that. she's very quirky and has always done her own thing; i don't think she's ever tried to fit in.
 

lulabelle

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i put all my money on infj. her orchestration, it feels like bright eyes, but more challenging. van dyke parks--entp. she reminds me of an infj 4w5 sp/sx girl i know.

don't you think she's too DREAMY though? INFJ 4w5s i've known are all very focused in the eyes. joanna is much more dreamy than anything else. and there's a sweetness and innocence to her that i only really see in INFPs. i think everything about her life and process is very INFP to me... she's never been about fitting in in an INFJ way... she doesn't seem neurotic as much as ethereal + into executing her artistic vision. i would be very surprised if she wasn't an INFP. she's very spacey as wwell... her bills and stuff get turned off because she forgets to pay them etc. that isn't very INFJ behavior.
 

lulabelle

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I doubt she's just writing 'what sounds good'.

She strikes me as very INFJ (including her attention to sensory detail) She's very eloquent and as genial as she is aloof from the interviews I've seen/read (which is something I equate with INFJ women).
Just because she isn't campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, it doesn't mean she isn't an INFJ. I really can't see her as an ISFP at all.

For a comparison: Joni Mitchell is ISFP - Not Newsom.




ftlto7.jpg


Adorable.


nah. she's an archetypal INFP. INFPs are VERY into nature imagery. more than INFJs, i would say. unfortunately, if an artist uses any kind of metaphor or symbolism in their work, they are typed as INFJ. i think Ne +Fi can be very confused for Ni by a lot of people. she's too dreamy and 'sweet' and her vision is very Fi to me. she's so individualist; i mean, she would carry around weird parasols at college and was basically ostracized. and her lyrics are DREAMY and are almost explosive with this overwhelming feeling of awe that INFPs experience so often. she's spoken about how she can't really articulate her thoughts in words. that's INFP and not INFJ.
ithink people are losing the forest for the trees here.
 

lulabelle

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that's so funny; i think you've named all INFPs there. michel gondry is far too whimsical to be an INFJ. everything is absurdist and Ne.

and joanna always talks about not being able to articulate her feelings properly... very Fi.
 

lulabelle

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I agree.

First off, I have lots of songs written down and recorded and of course I'm an ISFP.

Also, she's not as much a poet as a singer/songwriter (sorry but there is a difference).



Also, she doesn't write purely metaphorically; a lot of what she writes is actually about the outdoors and stories.

She is metaphoric, a bit, but so is any intelligent person when they write, to be quite frank (it's not an INFJ trait ONLY).

The things that make me think ISFP are: song after song about nature and details about happenings but ALMOST NOTHING CONCEPTUAL.

And, she is not very mysterious.

Onstage, she talks about things like how she cut her thumb and used superglue to close it, and then demonstrates to the crowd the difference in the sound between the healthy thumb and patched up thumb.

She giggles onstage and is not super sophisticated (sorry but all INFJs are sophisticated HAHA just kidding but hey it's something I've noticed; they have an air of decorum even without trying).

She is like a grown up child.

I don't know why I'm so intent on proving her ISFP-ness, except that it's annoying how every time someone is talented, people scream NF. That's just not always the case.

Harumph!

P.S. Did I mention (of course I did) that she looks like an ISFP?

INFPs use nature imagery constantly in their art. that isn't any indication of Se. she's too floaty and dreamy to be ISFP. ISFP lyrics are MUCH more literal. joanna is weaving all of these meta-tales into songs into metaphors into feeeeelings into beingness. not ISFP.
 

lulabelle

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It certainly has. infj she is.

ugggh it's so annoying how whenever people see metaphors or symbols in songs they immediately thing of Ni.
there are hardly more archetypal INFPs than joanna newsom.
she's so DREAMY, for one. if you look at photos of her, she doesn't have that enigmatic focus of an INFJ, rather this dreamy, faraway look.
and those kooky outfits!
and how she radiates this kind of innocence and sweetness. she's also incredibly spacey, forgets to pay her phone/gas/electricity bills, and has often stated that she cannot express herself through words (speaking to people). that's very INFP.


now for the music. i can ALWAYS tell an Fe musician from an Fi one, because Fi music is explosive and evokes a feeling of awe. it's also usually quite ethereal. joanna's music is all about this incredibly deep, intense feeling projected onto nature and brought into the past and future. it's intensely melancholic. and it's a deeply personal, sorrowful, individual journey in many ways. it rattles you from the core. it's so Fi.

'we've seen those mountains kneeling felten and gray/we swore our very hearts would up and melt away' -----gahhh the intense feeling of awe this evokes! this is so Fi to me.

she's said things like how she chooses to go through life 'skinless' aka letting every possible emotion pass through her. that's such an Fi statement. she's a poet INFP in every single way.
 

the state i am in

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don't you think she's too DREAMY though? INFJ 4w5s i've known are all very focused in the eyes. joanna is much more dreamy than anything else. and there's a sweetness and innocence to her that i only really see in INFPs. i think everything about her life and process is very INFP to me... she's never been about fitting in in an INFJ way... she doesn't seem neurotic as much as ethereal + into executing her artistic vision. i would be very surprised if she wasn't an INFP. she's very spacey as wwell... her bills and stuff get turned off because she forgets to pay them etc. that isn't very INFJ behavior.

i can't imagine infjs or 4w5s ever being considered the pinnacles of focus. 5 in general is pretty much the opposite of focus (--> comprehensive everythingness). i do now agree that she's not a 4w5 infj. seems to me to be more of an infj 9w1. more dreamy, more sensible pacing, more e1 composition. like sufjan (also infj 9w1), that sense of wanting a kind of disciplined perfection. for 5, meh, not so much. the energy seems to me to have more to do with the perfect idea than the perfect execution.

also, i don't think infps have a greater emphasis on nature imagery. they might be more visually inclined in general and more connected to whatever environments they are in (generally a much, much deeper sense of place). sp has an impulse for distance and slowness and desire to get some fucking space regardless of type, however, which can tend towards natural environments, broader scapes, open spaces. pastoral frolicking and jungle treks come from different energies.

i am surprised at your impression of infjs as perfectly organized. for me, Ni is as ethereal and airy as it gets, and we're still far from T. sometimes people mistake the risk aversion of sp as T, but it's simply not. it's not the same kind of organizational principle or directness in controlling significant conditions (even if its willingness to take the longview leads to a sometimes more realistic adultlike recognition of them). in my current job, by far my biggest challenge is skillfully and efficiently dealing with and managing the administrative environment. really in every aspect of my life.
 

lulabelle

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i can't imagine infjs or 4w5s ever being considered the pinnacles of focus. 5 in general is pretty much the opposite of focus (--> comprehensive everythingness). i do now agree that she's not a 4w5 infj. seems to me to be more of an infj 9w1. more dreamy, more sensible pacing, more e1 composition. like sufjan (also infj 9w1), that sense of wanting a kind of disciplined perfection. for 5, meh, not so much. the energy seems to me to have more to do with the perfect idea than the perfect execution.

also, i don't think infps have a greater emphasis on nature imagery. they might be more visually inclined in general and more connected to whatever environments they are in (generally a much, much deeper sense of place). sp has an impulse for distance and slowness and desire to get some fucking space regardless of type, however, which can tend towards natural environments, broader scapes, open spaces. pastoral frolicking and jungle treks come from different energies.

i am surprised at your impression of infjs as perfectly organized. for me, Ni is as ethereal and airy as it gets, and we're still far from T. sometimes people mistake the risk aversion of sp as T, but it's simply not. it's not the same kind of organizational principle or directness in controlling significant conditions (even if its willingness to take the longview leads to a sometimes more realistic adultlike recognition of them). in my current job, by far my biggest challenge is skillfully and efficiently dealing with and managing the administrative environment. really in every aspect of my life.

joanna is obsessed with executing her vision in an AUTHENTIC and TRUE way because her music is her voice. she has said in interviews that she can't articulate her thoughts very well, and so music is a way for her to Be.
the harp is a way of life for her. INFP musicians will tell you they are same. we are actually ALL about the details that make up the grand music vision, for whatever reason. we are obsessive about what we love. i actually was reading a thread on reddit a little while ago and a few INFJ musicians were talking about working with INFP musicians, and they mentioned that INFPs are actually better with the details. we are really attuned to any little bit of the music that doesn't feel like us, and will die if it isn't changed.

everything else falls by the wayside. see: electricity bill, water bill, etc etc (aka like joanna). do INFJs really forget to pay their bills all the time? ehhh on the whole, i doubt it, regardless of enneagram. that kind of real-world forgetfulness + lack of responsibility is much more commonly INFP. \

and everything in joanna's life has been about her individual path. if something hasn't 'felt' right to her, she hasn't done it. i've read everything about her and listened to everything + i don't see any indication of her needing to achieve this great harmony with the world and people. it's much more personal and individualistic than that. she isn't a people pleaser in any sense of the word, and INFJs vary, but all that i've met are neurotic and high-strung/need to achieve in some way (yes, even my INFJ 9w1 friend! super neurotic!), and joanna isn't. it's more like she feels she has this higher calling, this duty to be 'skinless' aka feel every emotion so completely and utterly to her core. it isn't analytical. it just is. that is her main mission, and it doesn't have to do with 'perfectionism.' that's such an 'off' reading of what she does. it's so intuitive and raw and vulnerable. she is helpless to express. her music is SO Fi; it's so soaring and pure and full of awe for natural beauty + full of this melancholy that is very Fi. her music is all depth and height.

Fi ethereality hits you in the face and is kind of mindbending in its commitment to depth and great heights. Ni is a distillation, not an expansion or euphoric rise and fall of ideas/feeling, although its process is definitely 'otherworldly' in a way. i see it as more ninja-like and mysterious than ethereal. it isn't soaring like joanna's music is, really. i know when i hear Fi music. i know it sound silly, but it really wrenches me apart. it feels so 'pure.' and INFJs and INFPs give off such different vibes; i don't know how anyone could confuse the two. you say that INFJs aren't always focused, but there is this kind of laser-beam intensity looking at an INFJ that isn't there with an INFP... and they are all more organized than INFPs (at least, the ones i've known and read about).
INFPs have this much softer and dreamier gaze. there is something much more raw and vulnerable about an INFP at first glance. it seems so reductive but i haven't been wrong thus far. i think over the years i've unconsciously been accumulating all this face and personality data and now it's just second nature. different types just feel so different to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcsBGR9uHmc
 
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Forever_Jung

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Well, [MENTION=22547]lulabelle[/MENTION], you quoted me 4 years ago, which is an especially long time ago when you consider I was a teenager in 2010. I probably lean INFP now that I understand type better (not that I ruled it out at the time, I said she's an NF at least), but INFJ's can be plenty spacey and ethereal. I assure you.

I agree with most of the other stuff you said, though.
 

lulabelle

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i can't imagine infjs or 4w5s ever being considered the pinnacles of focus. 5 in general is pretty much the opposite of focus (--> comprehensive everythingness). i do now agree that she's not a 4w5 infj. seems to me to be more of an infj 9w1. more dreamy, more sensible pacing, more e1 composition. like sufjan (also infj 9w1), that sense of wanting a kind of disciplined perfection. for 5, meh, not so much. the energy seems to me to have more to do with the perfect idea than the perfect execution.

also, i don't think infps have a greater emphasis on nature imagery. they might be more visually inclined in general and more connected to whatever environments they are in (generally a much, much deeper sense of place). sp has an impulse for distance and slowness and desire to get some fucking space regardless of type, however, which can tend towards natural environments, broader scapes, open spaces. pastoral frolicking and jungle treks come from different energies.

i am surprised at your impression of infjs as perfectly organized. for me, Ni is as ethereal and airy as it gets, and we're still far from T. sometimes people mistake the risk aversion of sp as T, but it's simply not. it's not the same kind of organizational principle or directness in controlling significant conditions (even if its willingness to take the longview leads to a sometimes more realistic adultlike recognition of them). in my current job, by far my biggest challenge is skillfully and efficiently dealing with and managing the administrative environment. really in every aspect of my life.

“The thing that I was experiencing and dwelling on the entire time is that there are so many things that are not OK and that will never be OK again,” says Newsom. “But there’s also so many things that are OK and good that sometimes it makes you crumple over with being alive. We are allowed such an insane depth of beauty and enjoyment in this lifetime. It’s what my dad talks about sometimes. He says the only way that he knows there’s a God is that there’s so much gratuitous joy in this life. And that’s his only proof. There’s so many joys that do not assist in the propagation of the race or self-preservation. There’s no point whatsoever. They are so excessively, mind-bogglingly joy-producing that they distract from the very functions that are supposed to promote human life. They can leave you stupefied, monastic, not productive in any way, shape or form. And those joys are there and they are unflagging and they are ever-growing. And still there are these things that you will never be able to feel OK about–unbearably awful, sad, ugly, unfair things.”

We are getting near the heart of things, and so I ask her, wondering myself, if you can experience such gratuitous joy without the trauma of skinlessness.

“Maybe not. It’s possible that if you are not open to one of those experiences you can’t be open to the other. It requires a sloughing off of a particular sort of emotional callous, and you’re probably shedding the same block, the same blunting mechanism in terms of joy and in terms of sorrow. And maybe you go through a million regenerations of that in your lifetime, feeling very blunted, and then feeling very exposed and over sensitive.”

idk the way she talks about her emotions, and in another part of the interview, the 'unbearable beauty' of emotions... 'skinlessness'. that is incredibly Fi to me. she is an explorer of her own emotions + committed to experiencing the rough terrain of life in a very pure, individualistic way... she is a poet. she really isn't concerned with the space between people as much as the space within herself and understanding her own emotional narrative. her language becomes euphoric as she goes deeper and higher into her emotional world. i think you're missing the forest for the trees here.
 

lulabelle

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i can't imagine infjs or 4w5s ever being considered the pinnacles of focus. 5 in general is pretty much the opposite of focus (--> comprehensive everythingness). i do now agree that she's not a 4w5 infj. seems to me to be more of an infj 9w1. more dreamy, more sensible pacing, more e1 composition. like sufjan (also infj 9w1), that sense of wanting a kind of disciplined perfection. for 5, meh, not so much. the energy seems to me to have more to do with the perfect idea than the perfect execution.

also, i don't think infps have a greater emphasis on nature imagery. they might be more visually inclined in general and more connected to whatever environments they are in (generally a much, much deeper sense of place). sp has an impulse for distance and slowness and desire to get some fucking space regardless of type, however, which can tend towards natural environments, broader scapes, open spaces. pastoral frolicking and jungle treks come from different energies.

i am surprised at your impression of infjs as perfectly organized. for me, Ni is as ethereal and airy as it gets, and we're still far from T. sometimes people mistake the risk aversion of sp as T, but it's simply not. it's not the same kind of organizational principle or directness in controlling significant conditions (even if its willingness to take the longview leads to a sometimes more realistic adultlike recognition of them). in my current job, by far my biggest challenge is skillfully and efficiently dealing with and managing the administrative environment. really in every aspect of my life.

i do think that nature resonates with INFP Fi because it's this ultimate Pure animal. it is there before and after and in between, growing on its own terms in strange and beautiful ways. being in nature recharges and enlivens my Fi. i envision my Fi as a wild garden/forest so it feels like i'm resonating at the same frequency as the outer natural world. that's my relationship to treez and sky, at least. i don't think it has much to do with being visually oriented or not.
 
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