Fetch the Bolt Cutters: Fiona Apple’s Continuing Impact on Gen Z
I keep scraps of paper and pocket-sized journals in a gold, rusted antique chocolate box painted with blue and yellow butterflies. The box has followed me from my childhood bedroom to dorm rooms, my first apartment, and back to my childhood bedroom, and now it sits in my grown-up apartment, collecting dust on the bookshelf I purchased from Facebook Marketplace. Inside, the contents are emotionally messy. I force myself to read the scrawlings at least once per year as a form of either self-torture or self-acceptance. Some words have made their way into poems and essays, but mostly, they’re a declaration of my being that hasn’t yet surfaced. The box and all of its innards are my manifesto.
In an article entitled “Fiona Apple’s Art of Radical Sensitivity” in The New Yorker, Apple is said to have a notebook with lyrics scribbled on the pages without sequence. I imagine the yellowing pages of a spiral-bound notebook with potential lyrics written in its margins, header, and body. She goes on to read her words to the reporter as she remembers who she was trying to become with each line.
Apple found me on the precipice of an unfortunate series of “it’s time to grow up” moments. In a fit of female rage, my friend asked the inaugural question, “Do you ever listen to Fiona Apple?” followed quickly by, “ I literally never do this, but I’m requiring that you listen to this album. I listen to her when I feel like I need an exorcism.”
Much of my 20s has been spent frantically searching for validation that the emotions I’m experiencing are normal and not an anomaly unique to my existence. I call my mom, wondering if she felt similar at my age. I take meandering walks with friends, discussing passing thoughts turned philosophical contemplations. I even gravitate towards books about women lost in their 20s in some big city. Regardless of my path toward reassurance, my perception is that no one hears me. My words themselves are understood, but not their meanings. I turn to music in those alienated moments, knowing that the most influential and gut-wrenching emotions are exemplified through the tunes I scavenge for in every crevice of Spotify.
When I started to ask anyone in my circle if they’d listened to Fiona Apple, I was met with responses that ranged from “I think so?” to “I’m dying. YES.” Apple’s lyricism resonates with an audience that spans generations. Gen X and Millennials have the undoubted experience of watching Apple’s discography unfold in real-time, but Gen Z grapples with her music through research and nuanced applications. I see post after post of young women describing themselves as a “thought daughter” rather than a “thot daughter.” In these TikToks, Apple’s “I Want You to Love Me” resounds passionately:
And I know none of this'll matter
In the long run
But I know a sound is still a sound
Around no-one
The video's subject paces around the screen at two-times speed, usually screaming at the sky, hands in fists shaking in the air. Thought Daughters are stuck ruminating, blasting Apple’s discography, and cannot remain at the surface level.
I think a lot. If I could splay my thoughts, they would look like a pile of spaghetti. Each noodle is a different rumination, twirling around my fork, intertwining until matted into one clump. Their convoluted nature would incite concern, and I would be prescribed a visit to the seaside to heal my female hysteria. Apple takes pivotal life moments and turns them into art that lifts the often-silenced voices of women by decentralizing men from the narrative. When Apple sang, “He said "It's all in your head," And I said, "So's everything" but he didn't get it.” Rejoice! I thought. Someone finally sees inside my brain! Because I’ve realized that my brain, thoughts, and innermost musings are the fodder that fuels my craft. These ruminations may be unique to my lived experiences and hopelessly misunderstood by some, but I am not alone in having deep and complex feelings. There is a commonality of strength and a shared loneliness between me and all the women I love and respect. Together, we tactfully dissect and celebrate the female experience of being entirely too soft for an emotionally inept world; even when it feels like the hamster is dead, but the wheel keeps on spinning, we endure.
Throughout life’s more chaotic moments, I’ve somehow managed to be supported by the words of other women. Few people in this life will see me holistically. But I have found relief in unpacking the messy emotions from my little antique chocolate box, trying to make sense of them all, and now knowing that so many others are doing the same.
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Sophia Markoski is a creative writer based in Los Angeles who believes writing can meaningfully portray life by amplifying quiet voices. When not at her day job, Sophia can be found skateboarding at the beach or cartwheeling in a grassy park.