Fiona Apple’s “The Idler Wheel…” turns 13
The full title is actually The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Chords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
Fiona Apple’s fourth album was released on this day in 2012, and it was her most experimental yet. Although now it hindsight we can see the seeds being planted that eventually grew into Fetch The Bolt Cutters, it was a risky move for her in 2012.
And what’s with the long title? First When The Pawn… and now this one. Well, when explaining its meaning, Fiona says that it’s not a new concept for her, personally. “I like the idea of the idler wheel,” she said, “it just sits in between things, but it makes such a big difference in the way that the machine is working.”
Meanwhile, the whipping chords are about self-reliance: “[The “whipping chords” line] relates to (…) the “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” concept. (…) But I read this thing in a nautical book about how when ropes get frayed you’d use the whipping cords to fix the ends. The whole thing of the whipping cords is that (…) no matter how well prepared you are in life, you’re gonna fall down a hole, and if you can fix the frayed ends of things, then you’re better off.”
And thus the stage is set, and we enter Fiona’s amazingly weird brain rife with insomnia, broken hearts, and introspection.
“This [album] I love, even though there’s a lot of pain that I went through during the making of it. I feel very sure of myself. Not that I’m so great, but that I’m right.”
Immediately, this work stands out from the others. It’s much more stripped down, sparse, and percussive that its predecessors. There were no electric instruments in this entire album, and yet she created this entire world that we just get sucked in to, despite it being a relatively uninviting, hard-to-swallow album. The best ones always are.
Her voice is not cushioned by gorgeous piano chords, but rather takes centre stage. She speak-sings, chants, yelps, and breathes in a way that sounds almost like she’s trying to calm herself down. It’s Apple’s most mature work yet, and she knows it. “This [album] I love, even though there’s a lot of pain that I went through during the making of it.” She told SPIN magazine, I feel very sure of myself. Not that I’m so great, but that I’m right”.
And she wears the pain like a medal: “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/Hip hip for the lift, hip hip for the drag, I want them all in my bag. Oh, give me anything, and I’ll turn it into a gift.”
This album is possibly my favourite of hers, so rich in imagery and poetry. She so perfectly tows the line between a complete mental breakdown and total self-confidence. She’s no longer just projecting her pain outward like she did in Tidal, but she acknowledges the role she plays in her own story.
Nowhere is this done more clearly than in Werewolf, which in Fiona’s own words, it was admitting, “Yeah, all the anger that I had toward you was justified, and you are an asshole, but I was a great dance partner, and I brought a lot of that out of you.”
That’s more than many of us have the courage to do.
Every Single Night is a cute-sounding opener into a not-so-cute, always-fighting mind. She doesn’t sing it as someone who has survived a finished battle, but rather she’s in the midst of it. The track feels like it’s building up to something and she just isn’t able to release it, like when you need a good cry but the tears just don’t come out. But she tells us, “I just wanna feel everything”.
And, according to Daredevil, she does. She pleads for help all while deeply understanding who she is to her core. “I’m caught on the cold, caught on the hot, no so with the warm a lot. And all I want’s a confidant to help me laugh it off”. Don’t we all?
Jonathan opens with this ominous combination of a distant rattling and her signature piano. It’s a bittersweet song, and despite its dark instrumentation, there’s love in the lyrics: “Jonathan, anything and anyone you have done has gotta be alright with me. If she’s part of the reason you are how you are, she’s alright with me”. Total, unconditional acceptance. Hearing this, it makes sense why Fiona and her ex-boyfriend—and namesake of this song—stayed friends after their breakup.
The drums continue into the rolling and rattling Left Alone. It’s one of my favourites from the album—and hers. The song has such movement, like you’re tumbling down towards something. Finally, we arrive land at the question, “how can I ask anyone to love me when all I do is beg to be left alone?” This hypocrisy of ours is too much to handle, and we keep on rolling into the next verse.
This song has some of the best lyrics I’ve ever heard. “It hurt more than it ought to hurt, I went to work to cultivate a callus” and “My ills are reticulate, my woes are granular, the ants weigh more than the elephants.” Who among us has not handled major life changes with grace, but been pushed over the edge after a minor inconvenience?
“ It explores the worst, ugliest parts of the human experience and forgives it.”
The march continues into Werewolf and Periphery. The latter tells a story about her timeless sentiment that the entertainment world is “bullshit”. She leaves it, and us, with the sound of her singing to herself and dragging her feet across what sounds like gravel.
But then comes Regret. A seething and dejected song. The emotion just pours out of her in the screaming, “I ran out of white dove feathers to soak up the hot piss that comes from your mouth every time you address me”, a line that came from none other than bombardier beetles. She eloquently explained to Dan P. Lee that “they shoot this noxious shit out of their asses”.
Next is another favourite of mine, Anything We Want. This song is gentle, child-like, and beautiful. The clattering jumps around you as Fiona paints a picture of a new love. She blushes (“my cheeks were reflecting the longest wavelength”), she flirts, and they do “anything [they] want”.
If I can be vulnerable, I will confess that I spent a good amount of the worst month of my life listening to this song while laying on the floor. Although it’s a love song, the line “we don’t worry anymore ‘cause we know when the guff comes we get brave. After all, look around, it’s happening now” exists on its own. It’s that self-reliance that keeps coming back in her music. It held my hand and reassured me that I too can be brave.
That’s what this album does. It explores the worst, ugliest parts of the human experience and forgives it. It takes care of you when you listen to it, and accepts that as long as you’re growing, there’s nothing wrong.
Hot Knife took a while to grow on me. I kept waiting for something to happen, like it was building to something with no release. Over time, that went away, and now I just enjoy getting taken into this pool of vocals from Fiona and her sister, Maude. The song became even better when I realised there was no looping in the song, and instead the two just recorded for hours straight.
It was originally the closer of the album, but in the expanded edition we’re gifted with Largo. It’s an endearing song about the club in LA where Fiona used to sing, and sounds a lot more similar to her previous work. “When over the rainbow is too far, go to Largo”. She walks us through this club and introduces her to her friends. And then, just like that, the song ends.
I would not hesitate to say that The Idler Wheel… is a masterpiece. What she does in only 45 minutes explains why there were seven years between this and her previous album. She’s developed the confidence to play with instrumentation and grown enough to look at like with more nuance, but never losing the righteousness that makes us fall in love with her.
It’s a perfectly human album, an almost living and breathing thing, while somehow also a diary entry that we have all written. It’s perfect.
