Fiona Apple Seems Ready for the World

World Socialist Web Site wsws.org

Fiona Apple seems ready for the world

By Erik Schreiber 4 May 2020

Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Fiona Apple’s first album in facing her problems. But weaning herself from some of eight years, is a remarkable personal statement that the medications and quitting drinking during the past simultaneously captures aspects of the current public few years has lessened her anxiety and, to judge by her mood. new album, enabled her to examine and overcome her The considerable acclaim that greeted the album own previous difficulties. “The message in the whole shows how broadly and deeply it resonates. record is … get yourself out of the situation you’re in, As the pandemic forces many of us to stay at home whatever it is that you don’t like,” she said. “Even if and keep our distance from each other, fans and critics you can’t do it physically.” alike appreciate the desire for liberation and Percussion is central toFetch the Bolt Cutters. We communion that Apple expresses. The album’s hear drums, claps, and drumsticks beating on objects celebratory moments, spirit of determination and such as a stove top and metal butterfly, according to delight in creativity and play should be invigorating to Apple. Swing and shuffle rhythms propel these songs. anyone stricken with cabin fever or oppressed by the Apple’s prominent keyboard playing often reminds us news. that piano, too, is a percussion instrument. Apple was born in New York City to parents who Competing with the percussion for dominance is were Broadway performers. She received classical Apple’s voice, which she uses to great effect. Her basic piano training as a child and soon began writing her approach is a straightforward, everywoman style with own songs. She later discovered Ella Fitzgerald and clear articulation and occasional melisma. But she Billie Holiday, who became lasting influences on her. recognizes and exploits a broad dynamic range that After being sexually assaulted at age 12, Apple includes whispers, eerie falsetto, blues belting, and developed anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. shouts. Overdubbed harmonies and countermelodies While still in high school, Apple gave a recording of help create, with an economy of means, the rich palette her songs to a friend who babysat for a music publicist. of timbres and textures that is the album’s primary The tape ended up in the hands of a Sony Music aural pleasure. executive, who offered Apple a record deal. Apple’s On Apple’s last album, she cried, “All I do is beg to debut album Tidal (1996) was released to critical and be left alone.” She marks her turn outward on the commercial success before the singer had turned 20. opening song of Fetch the Bolt Cutters by declaring, “I While accepting a video music award the following want you to love me,” dragging out the “you” for year, she criticized the superficiality of the emphasis. Though she acknowledges human mortality entertainment industry and encouraged the audience and expresses doubts about what her life will mean not to imitate their favorite celebrities, but to be when she’s dead, Apple insists on her desire for love themselves. Apple herself has exhibited independent “while I’m in this body.” During the coda, she mindedness throughout her career, during which she celebrates this psychological advance playfully by has released successful albums such as Extraordinary quickening the tempo and singing in a constricted, feral Machine (2005) and The Idler Wheel … (2012). falsetto that recalls Yoko Ono. Apple became overmedicated, she told Vulture, with Apple lightheartedly recounts childhood antipsychotics and other drugs prescribed to treat her embarrassments in “Shameika,” including her attempts anxiety. She also began drinking heavily to avoid to be cool and look tough. “I wasn’t afraid of the

© World Socialist Web Site bullies / And that just made the bullies worse.” Though make a comparison.” The song is buoyant with a sense she attracted few friends, she consoles herself with the of freedom and generosity. It is the highlight of the memory that “Shameika said I had potential.” Her flat, album. unaccompanied delivery of this comment limns it with The final three songs are the album’s weakest. “For irony and highlights its patronizing quality. Yet she Her” undergoes several shifts in rhythm, tempo, and regretfully adds, “She got through to me, and I’ll never mood in a bravura performance of an unfocused see her again.” composition. “Drumset” is a relatively banal “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” continues the coming-of-age expression of romantic disappointment, and “On I Go,” theme more frankly. “Girls could roll their eyes at me which is little more than a chant, is an anticlimax. and kill,” Apple remarks. “The cool kids voted to get Still, confronting her problems and finding a new rid of me. / I’m ashamed of what it did to me, / What I balance seem to have helped Apple to make an let get done.” Yet she also describes finding her voice outstanding album. Her skill, artistry and humor are and seeking her own path. “I need to run up that hill. / I evident throughout Fetch the Bolt Cutters. The will! I will!” Quiet electric piano chords evoke gentle album’s optimism and social impulse, which is beams of light beckoning through trees. “Fetch the bolt informed by forgiveness and wisdom, are gratifying in cutters, I’ve been in here too long,” Apple sings, as the current moment and will ensure that the album still dogs bark to be let out. speaks to us when this moment has passed. Apple asserts her independence on “Under the Table,” which begins with a bit of wordplay: “I would beg to disagree / But begging disagrees with me.” She may consent to go to a boring social event, she cautions To contact the WSWS and the her boyfriend, but “that fancy wine won’t put this fire Socialist Equality Party visit: out,” and she will still speak her mind. “Kick me under http://www.wsws.org the table all you want. / I won’t shut up.” In “Newspaper,” Apple shows her desire to improve her relationships with women, including those whom she might consider rivals. She addresses her ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend, whom he has just dumped, with compassion. “I too used to want him to be proud of me,” Apple commiserates. “It’s a shame, because you and I didn’t get a witness, / We’re the only ones who know.” She confesses, “When I learned what he did, I felt close to you.” The following song, the slow, gospel-tinged “Ladies,” develops this theme. It begins with Apple repeating its title as though chiding or marveling at a group of women. Although Apple often delights in wordplay and assonance, she is more direct and plainspoken in “Ladies.” The “revolving door keeps turning out / More and more good women like you,” she observes, as an electric piano glimmers. “When he leaves me, please be my guest,” she says, inviting women to take clothes that she has left behind at her boyfriend’s house. Apple’s fellowship comes from hard-won maturity. “Nobody can replace anybody else, / So it would be a shame to make it a competition. / No love is like any other love, / So it would be insane to