Watch Joanna Newsom’s Surprise Performance Of “He Needs Me” At Punch-Drunk Love Screening

Watch Joanna Newsom’s Surprise Performance Of “He Needs Me” At Punch-Drunk Love Screening

Jon Brion has done a lot of things in his career, but one of his crowning achievements is probably his sprightly, dazzlingly happy score for the 2002 Paul Thomas Anderson movie Punch-Drunk Love. And on Saturday night, at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, Brion and the Wordless Music Orchestra performed a live score for the movie during a screening. As Pitchfork points out, another past Anderson collaborator, Joanna Newsom, came through as a surprise. (Newsom acted in Anderson’s movie Inherent Vice, and he directed her videos for “Sapokanikan” and “Divers.”) She sang “He Needs Me,” a song that shows up in the movie a couple of times.

Harry Nilsson wrote “He Needs Me,” and Shelly Duvall sang in in Robert Altman’s Popeye movie. It memorably plays in Punch-Drunk Love when Adam Sandler shows up in Hawaii to surprise Emily Watson’s character. From the fan-made videos we’ve seen, it looks like Newsom sang the song during that Hawaii scene and then again over the end credits. Watch some of those videos below.

Punch Drunk Love with Jon Brion live and Joanna Newsom on vocals. Thank you @iamprisonmike for the incredible seats

A video posted by Jasmine Amiri 💀🔮🍕 (@jasmineamiri) on

Jon Brion will do another live score for Punch-Drunk Love 3/19 at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music; fingers crossed that Newsom will show up again. And man, can you imagine if Newsom and Brion did some more stuff together?

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