And now for a quick check-in with the Fiona Apple Album Countdown: We’re two weeks out. The wait is almost over! And as might be expected in this crucial prerelease window, Fiona Frenzy is in full effect. Should you wish to pass these last fifteen days reading many, many words about Fiona, here’s a New York Times piece about her avid hill-climbing; here’s Spin on her time-traveling and that latest long title (the Idler Wheel is about “being still in the middle of everything else but being able to feel everythingâ€; the Whipping Cords are about coping with mistakes); and here’s a Pitchfork interview about her goldfish Desmond and the screaming children that can be heard on her newest track, “Werewolf.†Take it away, Fiona:
I wrote that song while staying at my mother’s apartment up in Harlem. Whenever there’s a TV, I put on [Turner Classic Movies]– I always have it on, while I sleep, whatever. I was recording myself doing the song for the first time, and a battle broke out in the movie that was playing. People were shooting and screaming. I liked it, but I couldn’t use it from the movie, so I spent literally the next year trying to recreate that sound. I went to San Francisco for Halloween and I was hanging out in trollies recording people screaming. I would walk past a bunch of drunk people and be like: “Hey, scream!†But it would always sound wrong and stupid.
She eventually found the right screaming at an elementary school across the street from her home. The result is below. Enjoy.