Fiona Apple: “I Just Want to Feel Everything”

Fiona Apple has been bemoaned and hailed (in her own words) as “the patron saint of mental illness” since her entrance into the public eye as a teenager with her debut album Tidal in 1996. At a time when the alternative music genre was dominated by men, her sensitivity, femininity, and mistakes were exploited while her music was seen as secondary. Yet, her lyrical and vocal talent could not be ignored. Her songs are beautifully and viscerally expressive yet show a resistance to succumb to her situation. While many of her songs express wanting to change the ways she acted in the past, she does not express any regret for what she has done or what has happened to her. Instead, she uses her songs as an outward expression of her innermost thoughts, using the lyrics to express what she truly wants to say.

Fiona Apple, born Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart, comes from a family of singers and performers, with her parents meeting when they were cast in a Broadway musical together. At the age of 8, she decided that she wanted to take piano lessons. Once she began playing, she already started to compose songs. She often began writing her songs by reflecting upon her past diary entries. Not much has changed in the way she approaches songwriting to this day. When walking home from school, she would repeat words that caught her attention and use them in her songs. Apple still maintains this part of her creative process by collecting words that catch her interest and writing them onto notecards.

She also attributes a lot of her inspiration and development of songs to maintaining a sense of child-like open-mindedness when it comes to her creative process. When asked about her inspiration to continue writing her songs, Apple talks about tapping into her childhood self. She recalls her dedication to writing songs was so strong when she was younger that she just never wanted to stop, even when it was dinnertime. When recalling this passion and devotion, she reflects on how her feelings have changed since then and attempts to reclaim them. A continual source of inspiration for her was a recurring childhood daydream. In this dream, she would grow a pair of wings and fly above her classmates, who would shout, “Fiona has wings!” This daydream not only inspired her “FHW” (Fiona Has Wings) tattoo but also to wear angel wings during some of her performances. Apple has described the feeling of finishing a performance as “waking up from a delicious nap,” reflecting the catharsis of her songs.

Fiona Apple wearing angel wings while performing in Seattle, Washington (1997)

Apple also emphasizes the importance of “braiding together” with others when working on her music. Although she does not listen to any “modern” music (so as to not influence her songwriting), she still seeks advice and recommendations from other musicians, but she especially values the inspiration of those close to her. In Apple’s sophomore album (and my favorite), When the Pawn..., she sings about reclaiming herself and persevering through her past experiences. At the time, she was dating filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, who designed the album cover and directed the music videos for “Fast As You Can,” “Paper Bag,” and “Limp.” Apple and PTA had a somewhat tumultuous relationship, which ended in 2000. When she released When the Pawn... on vinyl in 2020, she chose to redesign the cover to reclaim it for herself.

 

When the Pawn... 1999 original cover (top) and 2020 redesign (bottom) by Apple

In my focus book, Faith, Hope, and Carnage, which consists of a series of interviews between Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan, Cave reflects on his experiences with the death of his son, his faith, his addiction, and his life in general. He also shares his songwriting process, in which he has a particular way of approaching his writing. He frames songwriting as his “9-to-5,” having to have this structure even though he writes his songs in inspired bursts. In contrast, Apple takes a more playful and casual approach to writing, believing that this open-mindedness can lead to a spark of creativity. She also tends to collect inspiration from the mundane, naming her last album (as well as a song in it), Fetch the Boltcutters, from a line in a TV show she was watching at the time. Cave also discusses taking images from the ordinary, such as a memory of his wife sitting at the kitchen table listening to the radio after their son passed. While these may just seem like unremarkable moments to others, both Apple and Cave transformed and attributed added meaning to them.

Apple’s approach to her artistry, influenced by her sensitive approach to life and raw expression of her inner intensity, allows her to create a sincere and deep-rooted connection between her and the listener.

by Thérèse Giannini



Sources:

https://lyricworkroom.com/fiona-apple-on-writing-and-performance/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/fiona-apples-art-of-radical-sensitivity

https://www.rrr.org.au/explore/news-articles/deeper-read-things-you-possibly-didnt-know-about-fi ona-apple

“Faith, Hope, and Carnage” by Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan, 2022

Image Credit:

https://www.instagram.com/pigsandplans/p/CxIkmtBMDl9/?img_index=1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Pawn...