I've been
Thinking about when I was trying to be your friend
I thought it was then, but it wasn't...
It wasn't genuine
So, we are only 114 days into the year 2020 as of this writeup, and there has already been an absurd amount of artists who are at least somewhat on my contemporary music radar that have released new music within that time. Singles, EPs, or full-length projects have been dropped by: Destroyer; Laura Marling; The Mountain Goats; Sufjan Stevens; The National; Car Seat Headrest; Pearl Jam; Mac Miller (posthumously); Joyner Lucas; M Ward; Bon Iver; Drive-By Truckers; Nine Inch Nails; and even Jay Electronica FINALLY released what is technically his major label debut. Not to mention projects which I didn't write down on my to-do list or which just missed me entirely. So it's already been a busy year of healthy competition for new music by artists that I've enjoyed.
But with all these other fine acts considered, Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a clear early front runner for album of the year to me. And evidently according to the near universal praise and critical acclaim it's received since its release, I'm not the only one who thinks so. The album is a flood of years upon years of stored energy. It surges with passion, poignancy, contempt, confession, revelation, love, and a few indescernable spasms. And most conspicuously it clangs and bangs and scrapes and grinds and swirls and echoes with textures upon textures upon textures.
I move with the trees in the breeze
I know that time is elastic
- I Want You to Love Me
It'd been 8 years since Apple's last album. That fact on its own is not so surprising, as Apple has a reputation as a non-compromising perfectionist who puts a lot of pressure on herself and who takes her time to create music that she believes in. The releases of her albums have experienced delays which have not been entirely her fault (instability within her record label, being shelved for "lack of marketability" *rolling my eyes*). Yet it had still been 7 years since the album before last, and 6 years before that, so the pattern is consistent.
On her last album, she made conspicuous efforts on songs like Periphery and Jonathan to try to incorporate new non-traditional musical sounds and textures. Apparently she seemed to enjoy the results of those little experiments because on Bolt Cutters, Apple went full Bone Machine. Don't get me wrong, there are pieces of this album that sound as classically cabaret as the best of When the Pawn..., but other portions of it sound like they were recorded in the middle of a busy scrapyard. There aren't many high profile artists that reach the sense of percussive and textural adventurousness of Bolt Cutters without using synthesized or psychoacoustic sources, and for that alone it must be admired.
Vocally Apple is still very much on top of her game. Her smooth alto range has aged well, and out of context it is indistinguishable from her timbre and talent when she made her commercial debut 24 years ago. But that doesn't mean she won't go out of her way to snap, growl, or wail when it's appropriate. When compared to The Idler Wheel, Bolt Cutters has slightly less of an emotional range, and therefore the vocal performance is more focused. But that is a lofty standard, and compared to every other album of hers, Bolt Cutters shows Apple's deepest level of vocal maturity and variety. She is responsible for all vocals on the album except for background vocals on the eponymous song (which includes barking noises from 4 different dogs) and on "Newspaper" which features her older sister Amber, who records under the name Maude Maggart.
But Apple's songwriting is where she truly distinguishes herself. And as far as the album's reception is concerned, her lyrical content and prowess is exactly what all the fuss is about.
My dog and my man and my music is my holy trinity
- Shameika
Timing is everything, isn't it? Fetch the Bolt Cutters is an album that largely concerns itself with introspection and isolation, coming from an artist who herself has been mostly reclusive for the past 18 years or so. And it just so happens to have been released at a time when a large portion of the world is complying with stay-at-home orders in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. So despite the fact that much of this album's music has existed and has been in progress for years and years, it comes to the world at a time when its mood and themes are particularly resonant within the current social climate.
Kick me under the table all you want
I won't shut up
- Under the Table
In my estimation, the over-arcing theme of the album is courage. Finding courage, sustaining it, and being able to call upon it. Particularly to have courage within relationships, including the relationship with the self as it relates to self-esteem and ego. But more than anything, the purpose or mission of the album (if there is one) seems to be encouraging people to speak up and to stand up for themselves. Another reason (perhaps the main reason) why Bolt Cutters is receiving praise for being so socially conscious and so currently relevant is the ways in which it addresses victims of sexual harrassment, sexual assault, and sexual abuse. "For Her" is a song which was conceived in the aftermath of the nomination hearings of United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and contains what is probably the album's single most alarming and brutal lyric:
Well good mornin
Good mornin
You raped me in the same bed
Your daughter was born in
- For Her
In addition to her sister Amber, the title track from the album also features guest vocals from Cara Delevingne. Delevingne is an English model, actress, and singer who was allegedly sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein in 2016 and was told by him (before the time of the alleged harrassment) that she would never work as an actress on account of her sexuality.
I grew concerned when I saw him start to covet you
When I learned what he did I felt close to you
In my own way I fell in love with you
But he's made me a ghost to you
- Newspaper
As a survivor of sexual assault herself, Apple's empathy for female victims permeates through the record, including in "Newspaper" which is perhaps the album's most complex song. Its themes do certainly relate back to creep culture, but the context and the stakes of this particular song are more personal. While Apple's thoughts and feelings mostly seem to concern her ex-lover, the person she's addressing and concerning herself with is her ex's new lover who has replaced her. A woman with whom Apple feels an intrinsic connection to as a fellow victim to a common predator, but also a woman she can't possibly make a viable connection with. "Ladies" follows a similar structure, addressing the woman or women who are involving or will involve themselves with Apple's ex-lover(s). In her interview/profile with The New Yorker, Apple describes one of the struggles in her life which informed many of these songs as the struggle to "not fall in love with the women who hate me."
I too used to want him to be proud of me
And then I just wanted him to make amends
I wonder what lies he's telling you about me
To make sure that we'll never be friends
- Newspaper
At least some of this writing is probably informed by Apple's brief relationship with Louis C.K., and with befriending Rebecca Corry, one of the women who accused C.K. of harrassment. Apple met Corry when she became involved with Corry's advocacy organization for pit bulls. Evidently Apple's perspective on C.K. changed over the course of getting to know Corry, but despite the fact that Apple has publicly voiced her opinion on C.K., the idea that he and the allegations against him are a direct influence on Apple's music rather than a passive or supplementary influence is speculative, and so I'll leave it at that.
Nobody can replace anybody else
So it would be a shame to make it a competition
And no love is like any other love
So it would be insane to make a comparison
- Ladies
Not all of the songs which concern romantic relationships are negative. "Cosmonauts" has some beautiful imagery and mixed metaphors but overall is a rather sweet and traditional lovesong. "I Want You to Love Me" is more complex, more personal, and I would even say more frightening by comparison, but ultimately still concerns itself with affection and the desire for it to be reciprocated. Within it Apple also acknowleges a sense of purpose within her career and her life, and her relationship with herself as a sensitive introvert.
I know that none of this'll matter in the long run but
I know a sound is still a sound around no-one
- I Want You to Love Me
Words hurt some people more than others. Sometimes a lot of the ridicule and judgment we might experience in our formative years can stick with us and deeply effect the way we grow into ourselves. Sometimes we emerge from it with a healthy level of confidence, but other times with a great weight of self-consciousness. Much of the first three songs of Bolt Cutters in particular concern themselves with disovering nourishing and accepting oneself in the face of the scorn of others.
I didn't smile because
A smile always seemed rehearsed
I wasn't afraid of the bullies and
That just made the bullies worse
- Shameika
Nowhere is this inner strength and independence more fully realized than in the album's eponymous track.
A girl can roll her eyes at me and kill
I got the idea I wasn't real
- Fetch the Bolt Cutters
"Fetch the Bolt Cutters" is an expression taken from the British Police procedural The Fall. As a sex crimes investigator comes upon a locked door to a room in which a girl has been tortured, she exclaims the expression. The sentiment contained therin and the way in which it applies to Apple's music is clear--enough is enough.
The cool kids voted to get rid of me
I'm ashamed of what it did to me
What I let get done
It stole my fun
They stole my fun
There are many people in the world who've dealt with bullying who still carry the scars of it. Some of these people have just permanently internalized it, for whatever reason. Maybe they weren't brave enough to confront it, or not perceptive enough to realize the ways in which it's changed them, or maybe they simply don't have a beacon of encouragement to make them feel as though they're worthy enough to rise out of the mental hell to which they've been confined. Apple is trying to be that beacon for someone.
In "Heavy Balloon" she makes a sketch of what it's like to struggle with depression, and what an endless process it is. I also suspect that song has a lot to do with overcoming addiction, as Fiona has had a complicated relationship with both alcohol and cocaine over the years. Of course, the subjects of depression and addiction are hardly mutually exclusive. But Apple has some intrinsic and beautiful gifts: she has skills of reflection and of acute self-awareness, she has musical talent, and she has a courage which envelops the entire album. With this music she is doing her best to lead by example, to help inspire others out of the darkness of helplessness.
And I listened because I hadn't found my own voice yet
So all I could hear was the noise that
People make when they don't know shit
But I didn't know THAT yet
"Fetch the Bolt Cutters" is the most warm, most rich, and most completely representative song of all the album's themes and intentions. To me that makes it the most powerful song on the album, as well as one of the most empowering songs I've ever known. I also must praise the song for its explicit reference to Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)." It makes sense that Bush would be one of Apple's strongest early influences, because there's never been anyone else quite like her. It still really warms my heart to see such an homage though, as I still believe The Hounds of Love to be one of the greatest concept albums of all times.
I grew up in the shoes they told me I could fill
Shoes that were not made for running up that hill
And I need to run up that hill
I need to run up that hill
I will I will I will I will I will
Go on, smart sensitive self-aware woman. Go on, baby of the family. Go on, in spite of everything that's ever harmed you and the ones you care about. And thank you for giving this to us.
Fetch the Bolt Cutters, released April 17, 2020, Epic Records. Run time 51 minutes 54 seconds.
01. I Want You to Love Me
02. Shameika
03. Fetch the Bolt Cutters
04. Under the Table
05. Relay
06. Rack of His
07. Newspaper
08. Ladies
09. Heavy Balloon
10. Cosmonauts
11. For Her
12. Drumset
13. On I Go
This album is outstanding. It has some of the highest commodoties in art: it has flaws, character, personality, nature, groove, class, style, bravery, and truth. Fiona, you deserve a round of applause.
References:
I mostly referred to Emily Nussbaum's extensive profile of Fiona from the March 20, 2020 issue of The New Yorker for background information regarding this writeup. I read a few other articles concerning the album from Consequence of Sound and IndieWire, but much of the factual information from those articles was derivative of the New Yorker article, although they still make for interesting reading. I also referred to the album's Wikipedia page for dates and personnel info, and also Cara Delevingne's Wikipedia page for basic biographical info.
Fetch the bolt cutters
I've been in here too long