Another 6 years of development and another lengthy title, Fiona Apple’s fourth album came to the world named as The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. The reason I write the whole title at the beginning is because 1) it is awesome and 2) It exemplifies a great deal of the writing style on this release. Fiona’s writing has always been evocative – relying on central metaphors that are both thoughtful with examination and visceral without – and it is at its strongest. (So I don’t miss any favourite lines from any of the songs, I’m going to employ a style from the days of the Leonard Cohen thread by singling them out. Special commendations to Dan Abnormal).
It is also at its strongest on pure musicality. Where Extraordinary Machine had the ornateness of the chamber pop production and her alternate jazz standard occasionally not mesh, The Idler Wheel solves any kinks by both stripping down to large primal chords and increasing intensity. The percussion is something I will especially talk about on this album, the timpanis, the crashing cymbals, all adds to the closest feeling we have had yet of being in Fiona’s psyche.
The first two tracks are very much indicative of the variety yet consistency that can be throughout the entirety of The Idler Wheel. The celesta led rhythm of “Every Single Night” of a jazzy lullaby before the tribal qualities of the choral voices. Meanwhile, “Daredevil” has a rhythm that has a constant skip in its step, constantly undermined by the continuous roll of drums and Fiona’s voice which, unlike the delicateness of the previous track, shouts to the point of her voice almost breaking.
Every Single Night: Let my breast just bust open/ My heart’s made of parts/ Of all that surround me/ And that’s why the devil just can’t get around me
Daredevil: Say I’m an airplane/ And the gashes I got from my heartbreak/ Make the slots and the flaps upon my wing/ And I use them to give me a lift
The jazz stylings of “Valentine” is – next to the final track – probably the closest to a song that could have been found on Tidal or When the Pawn. It’s also contains some of Fiona’s darkest lyrics – with mentioning of cutting oneself – but in a way that never glorifies the issue and sees it as the cry for help it is. But while the instrumentation of that song is more traditional (barring the heartbeat of the bass drum), the carnivalesque piano locomotive movements of “Jonathan’s” constant, factory like sounds of percussion. Like Extraordinary Machine (and the aforementioned heart/parts line), she is able to bring out the greatest humanity of machinery, mainly by recognising mankind’s unrecognisable connection with it.
Valentine: I’m a tulip in a cup/ I stand no chance of growing up/ I’ve made my peace, I’m dead, I’m done/ I watch you live to have my fun
Jonathan: You’d like to captain a capsized ship/ But I like watching you live
19 years in the industry since Tidal have resulted in the strongest vocal performance Fiona Apple has ever given in “Left Alone.” Fluctuating from spoken word verses to the operatics of falsetto in the chorus, the structure of the song leaves her voice as erratic and as brilliant as the ever changing melody. “Werewolf” on the other side of the singer coin has some of the best lyrics of Fiona’s career, detailing a self-destructive relationship that both parties are aware of that and is as playful with both its images and relationship to the music (with the fun minor key line) as Leonard Cohen’s “Halleluiah.” Werewolf also contains choice and very powerful use of Apple sampling children’s voice, counteracting the innocent with the jaded.
Left Alone: And now I’m hard, too hard to know/ I don’t cry when I’m sad anymore, no no/ Tears calcify in my tummy/ Fears coincide with the tow
Werewolf: And you are such a super guy ’til the second you get a whiff of me/ We’re like a wishing well and a bolt of electricity/ But we can still support each other, all we gotta do is avoid each other
“Periphery” contains plenty of Apple’s trademark sarcastic drawl, with her not to happy about having to stay with the peripheral idiots (accompanied by some bouncy piano!). I love the strange transition into the chorus and the cross between march-like and the falsetto of the finale, walking away from even the “outsider” world. “Regret” is an aggressive song that slowly builds up intensity to the climax, has my favourite metaphor of the whole album, with the image of doves and piss being one that is a horrific description of the corruption of innocence.
Periphary: And if he finds himself yearning/ For his throne on the silly side/ There’s nothing wrong, as long as he’s learning/ Besides, he can take it up with his bretheren/ Or with his bride, just not with me
Regret: But I ran out of white doves’ feathers/ To soak up the hot piss that comes from your mouth/ Every time you address me
“Anything We Want.” Another jazzy piano song of Fiona’s longing for a past relationship, has yet more strange percussion that starts off sounding almost like they were hitting a selection of domestic household appliance (it sounds like something clipping will inevitably sample). But this homelike beat adds to the shelter and nostalgia that the song’s lyrics also more than provide. And to harp on percussion even more, than we also have the timpini of “Hot Knife,” which feels like the mentioned “genesis of rhythm.” As well as the strange piano runs, we have Fiona interlocking her vocals beautifully and perfectly with her sister Maude Garret; talent seems to run in the family.
Anything We Want: My scars were reflecting the mist in your headlights/ I look like a neon zebra shaking rain off her stripes
Hot Knife: If I’m butter then/ He’s a hot knife/ He makes my heart a cinemascope screen/ Showing a dancing bird of paradise
Although “Hot Knife” is the official – and brilliant – end to the album, on the Spotify we end after weird instrumentation with Fiona returning to the bare basis and what she is most famous for: her and her piano. “Largo” is short and beautiful tribute to a place that Fiona loves, yet I mostly felt like talking about this song because it feels like coming full circle. John Peel famously said of The Fall that they were “always different, always the same,” and with the way this bonus piano track still feels like it fits into everything that came before, that description could most certainly apply to Fiona Apple.
“Largo”: I feel like singing and drinking and stuff/ And I don’t wanna care if I stumble or cry/ Handle me like family and that’ll be enough/ To keep me from dying when I want to die
It’s certainly been nice to run through yet another brilliantly consistent, beautiful and (sadly) short discography of Fiona Apple, especially since I believe we ended on her best album, the one that is most exemplary of her lyrically and musically.
But now we must move on, to someone of a larger body of work. And, oh boy, have we got a good one…
What did you think of the album, though?
Fiona Apple Album Rankings
- The Idler Wheel…
- When the Pawn…
- Extraordinary Machine
- Tidal
