Recently I scanned my iPod for potentials songs for this running segment and ended up with a playlist of over fifty potential songs for future Feed Your iPods (that is not to say I don’t want to hear from you, if you have a suggestion that fits the bill, write up a short paragraph and shoot me an e-mail and maybe I’ll feature it later). But there is something to say that amongst all these great songs, there is one that went into instant repeat mode.
I can’t say I was ever much of a big Fiona Apple fan in the beginning, there were a few good songs, one great song, one great speech (ah, remember when the VMA’s were interesting) but nothing really kept my interest. Like most people I ignored her second album mostly because I didn’t finish reading the album title until sometime last year. That was a shame because I missed a great song Paper Bag.
I have Zach Braff for introducing me to the song as it was included in the soundtrack to the otherwise forgettable The Last Kiss. I guess I shouldn’t have expected more from the hack who wrote Crash. But enough about pretentious movies. The song is full of quoteworthy lines thanks to Fiona not being afraid to let everyone know of her eccentricities (full discloser: I like my woman a little off kiltered), there is just something about the way she says, “I went crazy again.”
But the best lines are saved for the chorus: “Hunger hurts and I want him so much I would kill. But I know I’m a mess he don’t wanna clean up.” And you get the sense that Fiona knows of all these eccentricities when she sings, “He said ‘It’s all in your head’ and I said ‘so is everything’ but he didn’t get it.” There is also something to say about the pitch point production that hits every right note thanks to Jon Brion who has gone on to help out with Kanye West’s two most recent albums.
When looking to see if there was a video on YouTube so I could highlight the song I was surprised to see there was a proper music video produced for Paper Bag. It is disturbing that a song of this quality couldn’t get any airplay especially considering the song was released in 1999, the worst year in recorded music ever. Seriously, look it up, worst ever. The video makes the great song even better with the pseudo-musical feel to it, reminiscent of the McG videos from the mid-nineties (before he went off to make crappy movies and television shows) without the exaggerated color.
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