Fiona Apple’s debut album ‘Tidal’ was released on July 23, 1996. The tracks include “Sleep to Dream,” “Sullen Girl,” “Shadowboxer,” “Slow like honey,” “The First Taste,” “Never Is a Promise,” “The Child Is Gone,” “Pale September.” “Carrion,” and the most Iconic, “Criminal,” which won a Grammy award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Tidal is my personal favorite of her discography because it started out her career with personal and true lyrics, some written at only age 14. Even at such a young age, her lyrics are raw and full of emotion. She portrays this not only in her voice and lyrics, but also the full production of the songs where the sounds of her piano are just as loud as her feelings.
The opening song “Sleep to Dream” embodies this concept beautifully with her voice and lyrics being demanding and powerful. She does not hold back when she writes,”You say love is a hell you cannot bear/and I say gimme mine back and go there for all I care.” These lyrics are telling the individual who she is speaking to that if they cannot handle her way of loving then they don’t have to be with her, she needs someone with a similar intensity and will not be around if her way of loving is not appreciated. In the chorus, she expands on this idea by stating,”This mind, this body and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways/So don’t forget what I told you; don’t come around I got my own hell to raise.” Through these words, Apple shows that she will not make herself smaller because of the individual’s negative actions towards her. She’s got her own hell to raise, meaning she is heavily focused on herself and her needs. This song is an excellent opener because, even though this album is extremely vulnerable, she lets her audience know that she is not to be seen as sad or helpless.
The 2nd track of the album, “Sullen Girl” was written after her traumatic experience of being sexually assaulted at the age of 12 and is almost the opposite of the opening track. This track explains how she went through life after her assault and how she lost her inner sense of self. One of her lyrics states, “Is that why they call me sullen girl, sullen girl?/They don’t know I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea.” These lyrics tell the story of how the people around her only see her as this resentful, ill-mannered, and sullen girl, not only after but before the event as well. In the second line, it explains how she used to be carefree and sociable but whoever ‘they’ are, never characterized her in that way. The following lyrics states,”But he washed me ‘shore, and he took my pearl/and left an empty shell of me.” These lyrics create a visual of how her assaulter not only physically hurt her but also took the parts of what made Apple her own person and left only the bad parts, which led her to truly becoming sullen.
The 8th track by the name of “The Child is Gone,” explores the pain of transitioning to adulthood and losing the innocence she once had. The first verse states, “Darling, give me your absence tonight/take the shade from the canvas and leave me the white/let me sink in the silence that echoes inside/and don’t bother leaving the light on.” This verse portrays her feelings with adulthood. She explains it as dark and lifeless but she accepts that feeling even though it may be bleak, because she is content in leaving her past behind. The closing verse states,“And suddenly I feel like a different person/from the roots of my soul come a gentle coercion/and I ran my hand over a strange inversion/as the darkness turned to dawn, the child is gone.” This verse concludes her descent into adulthood. She explains the unfamiliarity of it all and recognizes that she may actually be resistant to growing up the closer she gets to her final days of childhood. Apple has found herself aware of her changes but acknowledges the fact that she cannot control change but only be aware of it.
Overall, the lyrics that Fiona Apple has written are unique and meaningful in their own way. This album brings the listener through the many parts of growing up. From how to find ways to hold your ground, to having that confidence being taken away from you, to growing from it, even if it’s not in the way that most perceive it as. Apple gives her listeners a transparent look on her experiences in a way that’s poetic but also straight forward. Though not all of the tracks are covered here they all have this same element. This also goes past the debut album, with her other albums, “When the pawn…,” “The idler wheel…,” “Extraordinary Machine,” and more share this idea. Most recently, Apple came out with a song titled “Pretrial(Let her go home)” which was released on May 7th 2025. The song was made to highlight the injustice of pretrial detention for women, specifically mothers who could not afford bail. This song proves Apple writes when she is passionate, considering this was her first song since 2020, and encourages her audience to speak up about subjects they care about as well. Fiona Apple writes when she cares deeply and shows others that they should create art for themselves.
