Sharon Van Etten Adds Norah Jones To “Seventeen,” Releases Depature Mini-Doc
Sharon Van Etten released dropped “Seventeen” onto the internet on the eighth day of 2019, and it’s still one of the best songs of the year. “Seventeen,” the standout jam from Van Etten’s great recent album Remind Me Tomorrow, is a howling, intense trip back into feverish teenage years, and it builds up to a bruising howl — “I know that you’re gonna be” — that always makes for a goosebump moment. But now Van Etten has shared a very different version of “Seventeen,” and she’s brought Norah Jones into it.
Van Etten and Jones have turned “Seventeen” into a laid-back, bluesy shuffle of a duet. (Van Etten calls it a “country version.”) That new version, recorded for Amazon, figures into Departure, director Josh Goleman’s new short documentary on Van Etten. Van Etten has been living in New York for the past 15 years, but she’s just now moving out. The documentary captures her last few days in NY. The doc, also made for Amazon, features Van Etten remembering her years in the city, hanging out with her kid, playing a goodbye show at Webster Hall with surprise guest Jones, and recording that new take on “Seventeen” with Jones on her final day in New York.
In a press release, Jones says:
I’m a fan of Sharon as a person and an artist, so I was more than excited to finally get to sing together. I loved her idea to do the song in a different way. It felt really great to be in the studio together, I hope we get to sing more. Singing with her and watching her at the show was breathtaking, she’s a true rock star.
You have to be signed in to Amazon Prime to hear the new “Seventeen” but not to watch the documentary. You can do both below.
UPDATE: You can now hear the rework of “Seventeen” without an Amazon Prime subscription.
Remind Me Tomorrow is out now on Jagjaguwar.