At least once a year for an unknown period of time that can only be decided by the inner workings of my brain, I am physically, as if I have no control of my actions or thoughts, only able to listen to Fiona Apple. Something about the passion and rawness of her voice combined with the assertive power each song holds forces me into this inescapable hold. What I have noticed is that this usually occurs in times of change or realizations in which I don’t know how to process. This can most likely be correlated to the release of the Grammy award winning album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” which came out a month into lockdown. It only makes sense that obsessing over that album when I was trying to process living through COVID-19 somehow manifested into needing to hear Apple’s voice to process anything slightly emotionally confusing down the line. Whether it’s the dolphin sounds of “I Want You to Love Me,” that guarantees my brain can’t focus on a single other thing happening, or the palpable urgency in “Oh Well,” that makes my brain feel like it’s on a run, Fiona Apple in all her musical glory has the ability to stabilize my thoughts when everything feels like it’s just a little too out of my control for comfort. Here are my chosen Fiona Apple “comfort” songs:
Oh Well
I Want You To Love Me Shameika
On I Go
I Know
Ladies
Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Extraordinary Machine
Criminal
Please Please Please Across the Universe
Limp
The First Taste
Hot Knife
Drumset
…all by Fiona Apple
For playlist, click here.
