Norah Jones has shared a new single entitled, “How I Weep”, which acts as the second new recording set to appear on her forthcoming studio album, Pick Me Up Off the Floor, due out this summer on June 12th. Jones previously shared “I’m Alive” as the album’s lead single which hears her team up with Wilco singer/guitarist Jeff Tweedy. 

Fans shouldn’t let the title of “How I Weep” mislead them, as Jones’ new song isn’t as melancholy and dismal as it first appears. Rather, Jones channels positive energy with semi-lively instrumentation via the violin to match her lyrics, “How I weep and I sleep/And I march and I dance/And I sing and I laugh and I laugh.”

It turns out that the song’s lyrics were drawn from Jones’ newly discovered passion for traditional poetry, as she mentioned in a statement shared with the arrival of “How I Weep” on Wednesday in saying,

My friend got me into poetry this year. 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’.

Listen to the new single in full below.

Norah Jones – “How I Weep”

[Video: Norah Jones]

Jones was scheduled to embark on a co-headlining run of performances this spring alongside past collaborator Mavis Staples beginning with a show on May 12th in Albuquerque, NM. That tour will no longer take place as scheduled for obvious reasons surrounding COVID-19, but fans should check back to Jones’ website on occasion for updates to her 2020 tour schedule and ticket info.