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knew she was referring to staff members of Amoeba Music, the legendary Berkeley record store where I’d worked sophomore year before switching to its inferior cousin, Rasputin Music,
Girl fuck you Rasputin is GOATED
And never is a promise.”
This was a Fiona Apple song I had loved in high school. I intended it as a negotiating tactic—fishing for a shrug, a foot wedged in a closing door, a never say never. What I got instead was a look of recognition, and a slow, serious nod. “And I can’t afford to lie,” he said, finishing the lyric.
Fiona Apple’s whitewashed face bobbed at the end of his arm. He started “Never Is a Promise” and walked back to sit with me at the table. The thing about Fiona is she fully commits. She’s not worried about sounding maudlin; she is always 100 percent inside of her emotions. Her songs can sometimes be a little tuneless as a result, weighed down by the heaviness of being Fiona Apple, but not this one. The melody moves with her emotions: low and limited when she’s pissed, climbing intervals with the release of her epiphany. Fiona would never do what you’re doing, I wanted to say to Joe, sitting at
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OK Computer was the CD in my Discman, a time capsule from a year earlier. I had been in a Radiohead phase under the influence of the Rasputin staff, a portion of which was so obsessed with the band as to be incapable of discussing anything without steering the conversation back to their albums. Had I really not played OK Computer, or even used my Discman, all year?
Because “Our House” isn’t about Joni Mitchell. And “A Case of You” isn’t about Leonard Cohen, and “Chelsea Hotel #2” isn’t really about Janis Joplin either. We are all just writing about ourselves.
Zoe was obsessed with Joanna Newsom. So was I, so was everyone in San Francisco in 2005, but Zoe brought a real gay energy to the whole thing.
