PITY THE FOOL who hasn’t heard of Norah Jones. There can’t be many of them left, after all; in the last four months alone, the raven-haired singer has been described, profiled, and generally buzzed-about in practically every publication on the planet. The Los Angeles Times said her voice is "capable of expressiveness in almost any musical idiom." Entertainment Weekly pointed to her "sparklingly original debut." Elle called that debut, Come Away With Me (Blue Note), a "mature, heady brew." And GQ asserted that Jones "has a way of finding the lost soul of a song."

But not everyone has been swept up in the feeding frenzy. Jones, for one, wouldn’t mind a break from the constant interviews, industry showcases, and hype that have at times threatened to overtake the music itself. The 23-year-old — yes, 23 — is, quite understandably, exhausted.

Q: In the last few months, you’ve been profiled and raved about in practically every publication on the planet. How are you feeling about all this attention?

A: It’s kind of freaky. I had to stop reading it, because it was just too much. It just wasn’t healthy for me to read it. That’s how I’ve dealt with it. I just try not to think about it.

Q: How unexpected has all of this been?

A: Pretty unexpected. Just the record-company thing was unexpected. I mean, it wasn’t overnight; we had a relationship for a while before I signed with them, but everything was very lucky. Yeah, this was very unexpected. We thought some people would like the record, maybe, but we didn’t know that it would be this well-received.

Q: When did it first start sinking in?

A: I don’t know. Because it took so long before it came out; we were actually finished with it in August, and a lot of people heard it before it came out, and it got a lot of attention before it came out, just from press, and I was like, "Well, this is cool, but wait till it comes out; watch, it won’t sell anything, and everybody’s going to laugh." And actually it’s done really well. I guess that’s when it sort of hit me — when it actually sold better than we thought it would.

Q: Do you know what it has sold, at this point?

A: I think, like, 230,000 [as of early May].

Q: Not bad for a first record.

A: Oh, it’s way more than I ever expected to sell in a lifetime.

Q: Does that put more pressure on you for the next one?

A: Yeah, it does, but I have to try to not care about that. But yeah, of course. But I know what I want to change, and whatever. As long as I’m happy with the next record — whatever. It’ll probably be a little bit sad to me if it doesn’t sell, or if people don’t like it as much as the first one, but if I’m happy with it, it’s okay.

Q: You say you know what you want to change on the next one — what do you want to change?

A: Well, nothing specific that I would want to get into, probably! But I have some ideas, we have some new songs, and I just want to go in and record for a couple of days and see how it goes. I don’t want to record and plan this big record extravaganza; that’s probably what I want to change. Not that we actually did that; we did a couple sessions like that, but we did some sessions just going in and recording, and that seemed to work best for me, and that’s how I want to do the next record.

Q: How much publicity do you think is too much publicity? Or is there no such thing?

A: I definitely think it’s way beyond too much for me, just because of who I am. Now, that’s not everybody’s take on it, but this is too much publicity, even though I know it’s a necessary thing. It’s just not a side of things I ever thought about before, so it’s not really my favorite thing.

Q: Do you feel like you’ve gotten more media savvy?

A: Yeah, I’ve definitely gotten a lot better. I don’t know — people are always nice, but I’m just ... I just don’t like to read it. The interviews aren’t so bad, except when you have to do a lot of them at one time.

Q: Are you doing a lot of them now?

A: It’s died down a little. I was doing a lot, like, in February. We went on a couple promo trips to Europe and then to Japan. I’m not into that. Because it’s like, you’re doing showcases of three songs here and there, for a bunch of industry people, and you’re doing 10 interviews a day. That’s just not fun for a musician who’s into music and not into that side of things. It’s better like this, where it’s a little bit spread out.

Q: How do you set boundaries, personal and professional, when there are so many demands on your time?

A: We’re sort of just feeling it out. You know, we’re new at this, so we’ve done things that we may never do again.

Q: Like what?

A: Like the promo trips. I did 14 interviews one day and then a 45-minute showcase, and then I did it the next four days in different countries in Europe, so we were flying every day, and there’s just no way. There’s just no way. I’d rather relax than sell an extra 10,000 records. I don’t care, at this point. It’s already reached my personal goal. So I just want to relax.

Q: So you must sometimes miss just being an anonymous singer.

A: Yeah. I do. Because this all happened so suddenly. I don’t know if I was really that ready to make a record. It turned out okay, and I’m happy with it, but I’m still learning stuff. I mean, nobody ever stops learning — even when I’m 60, I’ll still be learning. But I’m really kind of young. I just turned 23.

Q: I was reading an interview in Time where you said, "I just don’t want anybody to have any expectations." Is that a real concern of yours, that people’s expectations will be too high?

A: The people around me don’t put pressure on me. But I just don’t want random people that I don’t know to have any expectations. I’m not too worried about it, but yeah, I don’t want people to have any expectations. Because I don’t have any expectations of myself. I really don’t. I want to be happy, and I want to make music, and I want to enjoy making music. If it ever gets to the point where I’m doing too many interviews and I’m not playing enough music, I’m not happy. And that’s why we’ve got to play shows, you know? It can’t be all press and publicity.

Q: Everybody makes a really big deal about the fact that your bio doesn’t mention your father, Indian sitar icon Ravi Shankar, and yet every article that’s been written about you mentions him. How do you feel about the whole thing?

A: It’s fine. When we first started, a few people didn’t know, and a lot of articles didn’t know, and so they didn’t mention it. At first it was really scary to me, because it’s just not something I feel comfortable talking about with anybody, much less complete strangers who are going to write about it. But it’s gotten fine. People know that it has nothing to do with the music, I think. It’s something they have to mention; I’ve always known that. It’s human nature, they’ve got to mention stuff like that. And it’s true, it’s the truth: he’s my dad. But he really didn’t have a lot to do with my growing up, or anything to do with my music, unless you want to call it genetics, which they do, and that’s fine too; I don’t really care. My relationship with my dad is cool; we know each other, we talk every once in a while, we see each other a couple times a year. We didn’t put it in the bio because it didn’t make sense to. It’s not like we were trying to hide it. But I didn’t want to get a bunch of attention because of my dad. I don’t think that’s cool. And I don’t want to talk about it — watch, I won’t shut up now! — but it’s like, I just didn’t want to talk about it with people. It’s nobody’s business.

Q: Your half-sister, Anoushka Shankar, is a musician, too. Have you performed with her at all?

A: Oh, no, no. She plays Indian classical guitar.

Q: Would you ever want to try and collaborate with her?

A: Not right now. We’re pretty close, actually, even though we don’t see each other that much because she’s always traveling. We’ve talked about music before, and we’ve done some things at home together when I've visited her. I don’t think with that kind of music. But if something made sense, yeah, I’d love to play with her. She’s a great musician. But just the style and the sound of the instrument she plays isn’t the kind of instrument that I think about putting in my music.

Q: Whose CDs are in your CD player right now?

A: We just got an iPod, so we’re trying to download all our favorite CDs. I was looking at this list and it’s like, Fleetwood Mac, Alison Krauss, João Gilberto, that Ryan Adams CD, Heartbreaker — I love that CD.

Q: Do you have time to go out and see live music anymore?

A: No, not right now.

Q: You must miss that.

A: I do, actually. I didn’t realize it until a couple months ago. But I think that’s when I was most inspired, is when I did that, you know? So I need to hook up this iPod thing and just listen to a lot of good stuff.

Q: In an interview in Entertainment Weekly, you said, "I don’t want to show my belly. I’m not quite comfortable with that." In this Britney Spears, bare-it-all age, how has the music industry dealt with that — has it been an issue?

A: No, not at all. People ask me about it, but I’ve never had anybody be like, "You should do this." So that’s cool. My pants have gotten a lot tighter in the past year, just because I think when you get more comfortable with yourself.... But, you know, I sit down at the piano — I’m not going to wear a crop-top! It’s just going to fold my belly in, anyway.

Q: What’s next?

A: I don’t know. We’re going to be touring in the States and Europe pretty much through December, so I just want to have fun doing it, make sure we have fun. And I want to go back into the studio and record. And that’s as far as I’ve planned.

Q: Is there anything you think people should know about you that they don’t? Actually, you probably feel like they know too much already.

A: Probably, yeah! I’m a pretty simple person. I’m a big nerd. I’m not quite as serious as my music sounds now, but I don’t think it matters if they know that or not. You know what I mean? I’m presenting my music, and it’s a piece of me, but I’m not trying to present myself. I’m just trying to present some music.

Norah Jones plays the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, in Somerville, on June 18, at 8 p.m. Call (617) 625-4088. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com