Don't Know Why

"Don't Know Why" was Norah Jones' first single and the song that launched her to stardom, but she didn't write it. It was written in 1999 by a New York City-based songwriter-guitarist named Jesse Harris. A few weeks after he wrote it, he recorded it with a violinist and released it under the name Jesse Harris and The Ferdinandos. He sold the album on his website. Harris had met Jones a year earlier when he travelled to Texas with a group of other musicians to put on a clinic at the University of North Texas, where Jones was a student. They stayed in touch, and at his urging she moved to New York City to pursue music in 1999.

Many have enjoyed a latte at a coffee shop or filled in a crossword puzzle while this song plays as a mellow backdrop, but the lyric is anything but soothing. The singer is left catching teardrops in her hand when her lover is a no-show. According to its writer, Jesse Harris, it's not autobiographical - he often writes songs about loss that have nothing to do with his personal life. A more lyrically uplifting song is the title track, which is one of three songs Jones wrote on the album.

After Jones came to New York City, she started performing this song with Jesse Harris, who thought it was a good fit for a female voice. Jones changed the key to fit her voice, added a drum beat, then recorded a demo of the song with Harris in October 2000. That demo got the attention of the jazz label Blue Note, which signed Jones and sent her to the studio to record with a group of session musicians. The results were too convoluted, so Jones was assigned to a different producer, Arif Mardin, who had worked with many famous artists, including Aretha Franklin. He was brought in to capture Jones' distinctive sound, which he did by keeping the original demo take and adding some guitar and a vocal harmony, making Jones harmonize with herself.