Switched on Pop - Breaking Down Alanis Morissette (and our own Preconceptions) with guest Andrea Warner

Episode Date: June 29, 2017

Author, critic and podcaster Andrea Warner joins for a throwback episode exploring politics in Lilith Fair, harmonic anger in Alanis Morissette's iconic "You Oughta Know," and the blind spots in your host's assessment of women in rock.  Featuring: •Alanis Morissette - You Oughta Know Artists mentioned by Andrea Warner: SZA Ibeyi The Overcoats Lizzo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And today we are joined by Andrea Warner. Hi, Andrea. Hello. Hi.

Andrea is an associate producer at CBC Music, host of the pop culture podcast, Pop This, an author of We Aud to Know, How Four Women Rule the 90s and Change Canadian music plus the forthcoming Buffy St. Marie, a biography. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. And we are in need of your expertise today because this is a somewhat unorthodox show. We'll be going back in time to an event that happened this July 20 years ago, 1997,

the start of the Lilith Fair Festival. Yes. There's no one more qualified to take us back in time and back into the president and everything between than you. You are the foremost expert on Canadian female musicians of the mid-90s. Wow, that's so niche, but I like it. It's so good. When you look at the lineup of these Lilith Fair festivals, you realize what a unique moment this was, this 90s female rocker. moment and I think it's worth investigating and celebrating and we'll do that in the second half

through the lens of one song by Alanis Morissette you ought to know nice but before we get there Andrea you write and we ought to know about being at the very first lilith fair concert yeah can you describe what that was experience was like yeah like I had never experienced anything like before at all. We didn't have a ton of money. So this is kind of like a big deal for me to like buy a ticket and go to this massive festival with my friends. The thing that stands up the most, which is, I don't know why, but was seeing the indigo girls. So I'm in this like large fields. Like it's officially a football stadium at UBC. So a Thunderbird Stadium is where it was held at UBC at UBC is a university here. And so it's an outdoor festival. It's just so much.

women. I've never been around that many women in my whole life. And there was this moment, I was like, oh, wow, this is amazing. Everyone was there to, like, have a good time and see themselves on stage in a way that it just had never really existed. Like, we were, you know, we all went to shows and we all heard people on the radio and we all loved Alanis Morissette and Riot Girls and everybody else. But, like, to see all of these women on stage, to see, together and have a few different stages. Anyway, the Indigo Girls, I had never, ever really, like, seen a fan base that was so into a group.

Everyone was wearing the same long, like, dwindle skirts. I don't know if you remember what those are, but... I'm not familiar. These, like, long skirts that are kind of crinkly, and they're always worn somehow with sandals and tank tops, and everyone's doing sort of, like, a similar. folk festival arm sway dance where it looks like they're a bit worshipping the sun but also just like having this group tai chi class like it was so beautiful and so lovely and i just never been to that kind of moment before i'd never witnessed anything like it and then you know also like

lisa lobe and sarah mcclachlan and sean colvin all these people but it was it's really the indigo girls fans that blew my mind because there was so much love and they had like such a safe space and it felt like we were just in this bubble of our own choosing which was really powerful. I love that and it's amazing me that you were there at the inception of this Lilith Fair moment with the artists you mentioned plus Tracy Chapman, Jewel, Suzanne Vega, Fiona Apple, Emmylou Harris. I don't know if this is an answerable question, but what accounts for that moment happening then. Like why 97, why Lilith Fair? Do you have any insight into that? Oh, man. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, obviously, because I sort of, my book covers 93 to 97.

So we touch on the end of Lilith Fair, particularly because my whole thesis about the book is like, this was five weirdly compact and magical years in which four Canadian women become international superstars. And Sarah McLaughlin, particularly, because I, I think it really took people by surprise that she wasn't, you know, how people get, like, dismissed, like, chicks with guitars. Like, even though, I mean, it's perhaps an accurate description. It's also used as a bit of an insult. And no one knew that she was also this incredibly astute, perceptive business wizard.

Right. Who was able to identify an absence. Like, she had been the absence over and over again. You can't play two women back to back and you can't do this. Like Tori Amos and you on the same radio station? No, that could never happen. There was like an obvious absence in just ignoring and minimizing and devaluing half of the potential record buying industry.

Music festivals are still doing that to this day. When we look at like the complete and utter inequality in the programming gender-wise for music festivals. I mean, it's horrific. And what's fantastic about Lilith There is that McLaughlin and company proved everyone wrong, all the ones who dismissed the idea of an all-female concert tour by making, I think, something like $16 million. Whoa.

And being one of the most successful concert tours. Yeah. So that's interesting. I want to go back to the idea of the chick with the guitar for a second. Yeah. Is there a common musical thread to these. performers. Certainly they're tied together by virtue of their gender and maybe a certain outspokenness and a sort of maybe activist bent. But I wonder if do you detect any musical similarities? Can we

just sort of define this Lilith Fair 90s moment by any musical characteristics? Well, I mean, I suppose acoustic guitars were at the forefront because it costs a lot to tour a band. And I mean, people have to accompany themselves on something that's relatively easy to move around. It's not too expensive. If you're trying to cart around a grand piano, it's not possible. Guitarers are nice and mobile. It's like seeing that like Neil Young and Steve Earle and all these other guys, like, we don't think about it like that.

We want to look for a commonality between women because they're the other. And we don't apply that to men who are also musicians. And I mean, a lot of that is because when people say, musician, it defaults to white dude. And when people say musician, they have to specify like a female musician or, you know, whomever else. And I think that's what happens is that you can find commonalities for sure, musically, you know, but it's not, it's not exclusive to women. Yeah, no, that's a great point. I did not consider the fact that even searching for a sort of common musical ground is doing the sort of a certain work of siloing and that I wouldn't

necessarily do that too. Same male tour. That's what I'm here for. Well, let me rephrase, is the perception of the girl with an acoustic guitar, does that somehow play into the sort of dismissal of these musicians as not being serious, as not being weighty, edgy, whatever? Where are the synthesizers? Why aren't there any drum solos? I still think it comes back to like, when does something become a stereotype, you know? And like people just sort of decided chicks with guitars was like, you know, going back to like Joni Mitchell, she's like the one person who's allowed to do that.

And then after that, everyone's a carbon copy. Again, because they're so surprised, apparently, that women can make music. I don't know why. I really do think it comes down to like this sort of systemic sexism that has just skewed everything that we know. This is very enlightening in terms of revealing the narrow limits of what female musicians are, I guess, allowed to be by fans, critics, record industry, etc. With that in mind, I want to fast forward to the present now. go from that formative moment you had in Vancouver and then come to today because my next question is, could Lilith Fair exist today? And if so, why doesn't it?

Well, I think for sure, Lilithair was like pretty white back in its day. It did levy those sort of criticisms. And I think absolutely, you know, it lacks sort of intersectionality. I think there could be like a way more interesting and diverse intersectionally feminist little affair today. I know that they tried a couple years ago and it flopped and it just didn't work. It felt like a bit rushed. It also felt maybe a couple years too early. I think like right now we're at this amazing point. Like I just went and saw the overcoats last night here in Vancouver.

I just saw them three days ago in L.A. Oh my God. So great, right? So good. Just amazing. Oh, my God. Oh my God. And like it's just such an exciting time. So can you imagine like them and Ibei and like Siza and like oh my God. It could be the most amazing cool Lilithara now. A couple of years ago, I think in 2015 I put together this like I called it Dreamfest. I envisioned like an all female lineup. People were like let's just make this happen. Let's do it. Like Alessiakara and Lord and like and I think this would be an amazing time to do that. For the record, I would go to that show in a heartbeat.

Totally. As I think would most of the people listening to this podcast. Yeah. Oh, and Lizzo would like headline it. It would be great. So good. Thank you for sort of setting the stage for the deep dive that we're about to do into a performer who never actually played at Lilith Fair as far as I know.

No, she didn't. Yet seems to embody so many of the virtues. of that moment. Let's take a quick break and then come back to discuss Alanis Morissets. You ought to know. Andrea Warner is with us. Don't go away. with Shopify and batter records of with the form of pay for the world. Has heard of the best.

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Welcome back to Switch to on pop. In the first half, we discussed with our guest, Andrea Warner, the roots of the, what do we, is there a shorthand that we can call this 90s female rock lilifair moment? Like an acronym you want to just invent right now. I'm not sure we want to be in the, in the camp of reducing this down to a single word. Probably not what we want to do. Can you imagine? You're right. You're right. I'm doing the same thing that I was cautioned against in the first half. This is, okay, this is less a podcast and more of an intervention at this point.

But like done with a lot of tender love, you know, right? Yeah, no, no, which I, which I appreciate. So you ought to know, Andrea, could you introduce this song? You write about it very well. I mean, because maybe you could talk about both what the song means to you and also how you feel it's sort of been not given the credit its due or how Alanis as a musician was rather misunderstood by contemporary critics. Oh, I think she was utterly dismissed by a lot of contemporary critics at the time. I feel she was like an angry chick that was the way that they described her. Like what a novelty, a woman with vibrant emotions. The question always is like, do critics

matter? Well, yes and no, because obviously she was hugely popular without critical support, but when we look at what her legacy is, she's still this sort of like triumphant figure for a lot of fans, but you read about her and she's this pop culture joke on the other hand. Honestly, we did a karaoke at this punk bar a few weeks ago. Two guys got up there and just screamed saying it for the good four and a half minutes. The whole bar joined in and it was cathartic and amazing. What a challenging song to sing karaoke. I mean, because the love that you gave that we made wasn't able to make it enough for you to be open wide. How do you sing that?

It's so hard. You sing it loud and you sing it proud. And that's what it is. Let's listen to You O'Don Know. Couldn't have asked for a better introduction. So let's use this rubric of angrieness to talk about this song. Whether you use that to dismiss the song or celebrate it is another thing. But like, where does that come from?

I want to try and pinpoint that. And I think we have to start with the vocals themselves, which is probably maybe the first thing you encounter when you listen to, Alanis Morrison. What is it about her vocals? Let's get some analysis on the table. Charlie, Andrea. Well, to me, it's like the secret voice. She gives absolute voice to your secret voice. Like it's this spine tingling, raw, haunted.

It's unhinged, but it's still fighting for control. And I think that's exactly what you're going through in this moment of trying to figure out how you became the one in the rearview mirror of this relationship that you thought was whole and you thought was great and you thought was fantastic. I mean, I'd love to talk like lyrically about it as well at some point. but I think that that vocal performance evokes all of that. I love your description of her vocals as unhinged yet kind of hanging on for control. And I think there's a moment at the very end of the chorus, each time she sings, you, you, you ought to know. And when she does those you, you, you's, she does this thing that I don't even know how to describe, really.

It's almost like a yodel where she goes. goes, you, you, you? I mean, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm, that was more to saying. I'm definitely going to edit that out later. No, not a lot of, uh, keep that for sure. No, Charlie's going to put it back in. Yeah. But to me, this is one of the most mind-blowing parts of the song. It's like at once kind of virtuosic, like that's really hard to do, as I hopefully just illustrated to send your voice from a really low place to a really high place in like a nanosecond. And yet it also feels like you were describing, kind of crazy, kind of unhinged, kind of all over the place. But on the other hand, what stands out to me about this,

we're calling these vocals unhinged, and yet they are extremely performed. I think as you're pointing out, right? There's immense talent going into how she articulates every single vowel, every consonant. I'm so drawn into a couple of her words. She, when talking about oral sex in a movie, theater, she says the word theater, as if she is performing the piece in a theater.

Every word feels really carefully chosen, even the ways in which she brings this unhinged quality, it feels like a really powerful choice. Well, that's where I think where the tight control comes in, totally. I think there's like something like so performative, which means she doesn't ever lose control. She is exhibiting her pain, but she's doing it her way. This person may have made her feel horrible, but she is going to communicate that the way that she wants to. Ooh, yeah, I like that.

She does things with vowels that are just, she almost creates new vowels that are these sort of diphthongs in between. It's not going to be told how to perform for sure. No, totally. It's not exclusively a Canadian accent thing, just so you guys know. That was my next question. You anticipated it. Oh, our American bias. And what about the other thing that stands out to me about the voice is breath,

which is always present in this song. And I think, again, maybe one of these moments where we can triangulate it a little closer, maybe via Charlie's analysis, kind of like a performed madness or something, a performed. A performed like mania? Thank you. Charlie, anything else about voice? I think we've extensively covered incredible vocal quality of Olena's Morissette.

I'm really interested to go further into the music. Let's go to the chorus, because in terms of the angriness index of this song, I think this is a real peak. And now we can move away from vocal performance into harmony, because I think part of the reason we hear a certain anger in this song is the harmonic motion of the chorus. which starts on the very first note. Or I should say the very first downbeat. If this chorus starts and I'm here, it's on that downbeat here where she sings a note that is totally unexpected.

Because up till now we've been in the key of F sharp minor and then all of the sudden when we land on that chorus with the word here, here, she goes to an A-sharp, which is not part of F-sharp minor. It's part of F-sharp major. So all of the sudden, out of nowhere, we've switched what we'd call the modality of this song, from minor to major. Very cool.

Yeah, and it is cool. And it might be surprising that that connotes anger, because we usually think of major as happy. but I think partly it's so jarring because of how fast it happens that it really, it's like a very dramatic moment. And then what happens immediately after is interesting because she sings, and I'm here to remind you. And so she hits the same note twice, right? She hits that A sharp twice.

Da-da, da, da. But the second time, she's singing that A-sharp over a new chord, which is E major. And now we're at this moment where the note, yeah, the note A sharp does not belong over an E major chord. That's messy. Yeah. Oh my God. It's really like now, now we're getting into like real tension, real anger.

You guys are my favorite people. I love this. I cannot participate in the like sort of this level of analysis, but I am so excited to listen to it. It's amazing. Thanks. I'm glad you're along for the ride because it's just about to get crazier because the next thing she does. So we've had this sudden shift to F sharp, very jarring.

And then we get the same melody but over a chord that introduces this intense dissonance of a tritone, actually, between E and A sharp, the note she's singing, which is like, which used to be called Diabolus in Musica, because medieval monks found it so unpleasant. They thought it was the devil in music. And then when she goes to the next line and she says of the mess you left, when she hits that word mess, we go to another very weird chord, which is A major. Now that's bizarre to hear because once we've moved from F sharp minor to F sharp major, we shouldn't hear that chord.

That chord A major belongs to the F to the minor world that we'd left. behind. So this is very odd. She's introduced this new major tonality, but then literally on the word mess, she kind of messes it up by bringing in this chord that doesn't belong. That's from the minor world. My mind is blown. Oh my God. So in just the first two lines of the chorus, we have so much sort of musical tension that is obviously reinforced by the force of the lyrics that I think whether we know it or not we're sort of feeling an anger like a very visceral reaction to these bizarre chords with the addition of her vocal performance that we just talked about and these crazy chords in the chorus this is a really

intense song. But that's so validating to hear all of that because that's what we've been feeling since we very first heard it, like 22 years ago. And like to have that analysis be like, oh, it's not just that like people bought into this stylized anger and everyone drank the Kool-Aid. No, like it's there not just in the vocals, not just in the lyrics, but in the actual music. That's amazing. Yeah. She knows what she's doing. Yeah. Nate, I feel like I want to add to your just something that makes this song so extraordinary and I hope invalidates all of the early critics is that on top of making a really great structure of a song where the verse starts in a lower register, it builds up through a pre-chorus, which speeds things up, and then you get these awesome high notes in the chorus.

She's using songwriting techniques which are very intentional, making challenging choices, and yet they are so singable. Yeah. Right? This thing gets lodged in your ear. To be able to make those kind of choices where there's this dissonance at the core and yet you still want to sing along,

I think speaks to just the greatness of her writing on this piece. That's a really good point. That's amazing. And now let's segue. Thank you for that. Let's segue to what you talked about earlier, Angela. Like, lyrically, what gives us this experience of feeling both her anger

and also like a certain kind of honest reckoning. Are there lyrical moments that stand out to you for those qualities? Yes. She sort of pivots between these two modes, which is like raw almost sort of undignified confessional, which is so beautiful and so vulnerable and really heartbreaking. And then these like sly biting master class in shade lyrics. So she sort of like snaps like in the beginning, it's very, quiet, but it's, I wish nothing but the best for you both.

This is obviously a lie immediately, because then she immediately goes into this line. She's another version of me. And that's so cutting. It's so precise. And yet again, we're at this point where you both. And yet again, we're at this point where the closer we look at these lyrics or this music, it reveals a writer who's not untamed and wild and feral

that adjective you used earlier, which I love, but someone who is channeling those emotions through the rigor of songwriting. Oh, totally. And the craft of it. So I appreciate us all taking the time to do this because I think you're right it's a very superficial analysis to describe this as just that angry chick or however she's been dismissed because it's yes there's an anger but it is very carefully calibrated and we wouldn't feel it so powerfully if it wasn't made in

just this way well lastly I am just curious now that we've made it out of you ought to know alive. And this is obviously purely conjectural, but again, this was a massively successful single. Yeah. Is there music like this in 2017? Could Alanis Morissette release this song today and have this kind of success? Is there room for this kind of anger? I think so. I think it's actually people are kind of desperate for it. I think we're just starting to sort of, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm get a wager that particularly as we move through 2017 and longer and longer in the political climate, we're just slightly angry about different things perhaps right now. And that's going to take up some time. And that's where we're going to see the rage channel, like in a slightly

different direction. Absolutely. Yeah, I want to add to that that I think that there's a false conceit to your question, Nate, which is that I think if you played someone the song and they weren't listening all that carefully. You said, do you think this song could come out today? No, absolutely not. It's got a bunch of slap bass on it. It texturally fills a very different kind of sound, which is not popular right now. But underneath what is the sonic palette of the song, the lyricism, the anger, the raw emotion, the compositional strength, those are all absolutely wanted. Absolutely. Well said. Well, I like both of your prognosis. And I hope we do find something like this hitting the radio dial soon.

Andrea, thank you so much for joining us again. Andrea Warner. Look out for her forthcoming biography of Buffy St. Marie and possibly to the 2017 intersectional feminist version of Lilith Fair coming to a city near you. Let's make it happen, guys. I like it. Thank you for joining us and educating me especially. It was really great to have you on and to sort of step in the time machine

and get to listen to this amazing Alanis Morissette song. I'm Nate Sloan, producer, editor. I'm Charlie Harding. Our design is by Luke Harris. Editing by Bill Lance. And we are proud members of the Panoply Network. Please contact us at Switched on Pop on Facebook. switch on pop

at gmail.com basically any combination of switched on pop and an at sign will get you to us and you can find Andrea on the internet at underscore

Andrew Warner we're taking a short summer break so we'll be back in a month until then thanks for listening