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FIONA APPLE – EVERY SINGLE NIGHT/PERIPHERY

Have you ever experienced a panic attack? It is quite simply the feeling of your mind attacking your body’s state of peace. Like a dog broken from its leash as a rabbit hops hurriedly in the distance, your mind races away and you have nothing to do but watch in fear. Then your brain becomes an antagonistic foreign entity, uncomfortably sitting on the top of your head… kind of like a dead octopus sitting on your crown, with its long cold tentacles sliding across your cheeks, and you would do anything to just get it off. In Fiona Apple’s song Every Single Night from the new album The Idler Wheel… she describes it so perfectly:

Every single night
I endure the flight
Of little wings of white-flamed
Butterflies in my brain
These ideas of mine
Percolate the mind
Trickle down the spine
Swarm the belly, swelling to a blaze
That’s when the pain comes in
Like a second skeleton
Trying to fit beneath the skin
I can’t fit the feelins in…
Every single night’s a fight with my brain

The music mirrors the stress as her trembling voice juxtaposes eerily with the lullaby xylophone. Eventually the fear hits a pinnacle as her voice raises to a haunting tribal chant every time she hits the word “brain”, and a held low piano note looms overtop forecasting impending doom. It is a creepy little insight into the off-kilter mind of Ms. Apple.

And check out Periphery just for fun

FIONA APPLE – WEREWOLF

My girlfriend and I share tastes when it comes to music. Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, The National, Frightened Rabbit, LCD Soundsystem, Neutral Milk Hotel, Radiohead, are just some of our mutual favourites (I know, she’s pretty damn cool). But we have been at odds over one artist for some time now. Musical phenom and emotional powerhouse Fiona Apple is somebody I respect greatly for talent. Receiving a Grammy at nineteen is no small feat. But my favourite songs have all needed a cohesive melody or beat, no matter how experimental. Apple, like the jazz artists I could never get into, has a disjointed and loose nature to her music. She does have exceptions, and I have been known to listen to songs like Extraordinary Machine without the influence of my better half. Werewolf also falls into that elite group of songs. The lyrics are brilliant and revealing, the piano work is excellent, and best of all your patience is paid off with an element rarely associated with Apple – catchiness. “Nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key” is an melodic line that gets stuck in your head with ease. It is also a beautiful way of expressing that sometimes things aren’t always perfect, in fact, sometimes things are far from it, and that’s okay. Leave it to Apple to find peace in sadness. I really was surprised I enjoyed this song as much as I did. Even more surprising, not too long ago my girlfriend played the Tidal album for me as I was relaxing on the couch. I don’t know if the planets had all aligned perfectly at that very moment, or if Apple’s music is best listened to in a state of great relaxation, but I loved it. I guess we do agree on everything.