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Alanis Morissette takes on the world — and herself — on
under rug swept
by Karen Bliss
“This one, I (wrote) from a new chapter place — new band,
new boyfriend, a new headspace; just feeling so much more comfortable
with my humanness,” Alanis Morissette says about where she was
at personally when she started to create her latest album, Under
Rug Swept.
“Not that I’m feeling all Zen-ed out all
the time,” she clarifies. “That’s just not true. But
that I feel comfortable when I’m not Zen-ed out. I’m feeling
comfortable with my own humanness, whether I’m angry or depressed,
or whatever it is, it’s just okay.”
The Canadian artist, now based in Los Angeles, is
sitting in a Toronto hotel room, doing press behind Under Rug Swept,
an album that she self-produced and wrote. As usual, Alanis radiates
good vibes. She has an enormous smile, a robust laugh and a genuine
gentleness. While some of the new songs explore victimization, control
and loss of self, they are generally reflective and delivered with dots
of warped humour.
She doesn’t get into any negativity in the interview.
What she’s written says it all, and while she’s quite willing
to talk about her songs (yes, ‘Narcissus’ is playful and nasty,
she agrees), she doesn’t get riled up or emotional. The act of
writing the song puts the situation behind her. ‘Hands Clean’,
the album’s controversial first single, is a prime example.
“I was chronologically young with this person
in particular, but with so many different men, and being a young woman
and in a patriarchal environment, particularly the record industry,
being a woman, some people were looking at it (the relationship) and
saying, ‘That’s not really appropriate what’s going on,’”
she recalls.
“(The song) is my commenting on all of it because
there was a long period of time where I was silent, silencing myself
really, and not wanting to speak about it. So sharing it in ‘Hands
Clean’ is my way of saying, ‘Okay, no more secrecy,’
and, at the same time, it’s not written as a way to get back, or
revenge. That, I’m not interested in, but I do have interest in
feeling liberated by finding the truth.”
Morissette occasionally chuckles while answering questions,
even when the thought doesn’t seem all that funny. It’s what
she isn’t saying — that human beings sure do act stupid sometimes.
‘Narcissus’ begins “Dear Momma’s boy I know you’ve
had your butt licked by your mother.” Who wouldn’t laugh at
that? In ‘Flinch’, after agonizing over being shackled to
a past love, she strikes from left field with: “This man knows
not of how this information has affected me/ But he knows the colour
of the car I just drove away in.” And in ‘21 Things I Want
In A Lover’, she lists her requirements like a personal ad.
“I’m laughing all the time,” Morissette
says. “There are only certain things that can be shown or evidenced
in a song. Usually, it’s a couple of years later [when] I’ll
have objectivity on a song: ‘Oh, there’s humour in this.’”
It seems ridiculous that critics once dubbed this
27-year-old an “angry young woman” (after years of enduring
another one-dimensional tag in Canada, as a “teen pop queen”)
based simply on her vitriolic lyrics, like the ones in her breakthrough
hit, ‘You Oughta Know’, from 1995’s Jagged Little
Pill, which went on to sell over 30 million copies. She’s never
denied that anger is a part of her, as it is all of us, just not anywhere
as big as the media played it.
“What I love doing is I embrace my own anger,”
she says. “And it’s frustrating when I meet people who don’t
because when I get angry it just really freaks them out. How is this
(relationship) going to be possible then? If I can’t be angry,
I’m cutting off a part of myself. But I continue to evolve in embracing
someone else’s [anger].
“If somebody loses it in front of me, and they’re
really enraged, I’m holding back a smile. And I see that there
have been times when boyfriends of mine have been really frustrated
because usually people start to cry or get angry — those two emotions
in particular — and I’m smiling! And they’re like, ‘What
are you smiling at?’” — she chuckles — “and
(I say) ‘I’m just so happy to see this part of you come out.’
“But I have to watch that because I’m sure
that’s the last thing they want to see is me smiling,” she
laughs.
So while the majority of Under Rug Swept is
Morissette delving into past relationships in order to let go and move
on, the most telling song about the composer herself is the album’s
closer. ‘Utopia’ is a wish for global tolerance and communication,
powerful enough to evoke tears. Morissette, whose recent travels have
included Lebanon, Croatia and Turkey, has seen firsthand that people
are people wherever you go.
“We’d gather around all in a room/ Fasten
our belts engage in dialogue/ We’d all slow down and rest without
guilt/ Not lie without fear disagree sans judgement,” she sings
in the opening lines.
Those lyrics, from ‘Utopia’, were written
prior to 9/11 but have since become more impactful, beautiful and perhaps
naive. “We would stay and respect and expand and include and allow
and forgive and enjoy and evolve and discern and inquire and accept
and admit and divulge and open and reach out and speak up,” she
sings.
“Just as much as we — Canadians or Americans,
and the Western world — have our truths, so too do the Middle Easterners.
I think our conscience level is reflected in the choices we make —
in terms of driving airplanes into buildings, but it is something they
really wouldn’t believe in,” she says of the people she met
in the Middle East. “The part, to me, I think that this is mostly
about is there is no tolerance for differences. Can there be a difference
and would that be okay, whether it be religious or philosophical?”
While her songs might reveal and unravel and try to
make sense of her personal relationships over the years, when it comes
to the bigger picture it seems Ms. Morissette has it together, endeavouring
to better herself, and in some way, humanity. Lofty goals perhaps, but
she has made a difference.
Prior to Christmas, Friends Of The United Nations
honoured her with The Global Tolerance Award for all her humanitarian
efforts through the arts — from teaching kids about cultural diversity
at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles to the plight of the poorest
nations at The Great Jubilee Concert For a Debt-Free World in Rome.
She also participated in Toronto’s Music Without Borders concert
(aiding refugees in Afghanistan) and the John Lennon Tribute to assist
victims of the 9/11 attacks, as well as raising funds to support gun
control.
“I felt like I was already doing purpose-filled
things. It just kind of affirmed it really,” Morissette says of
the 9/11 attacks. “A lot of things that are happening lately, they’re
like messages being sent to me saying, ‘Keep going, keep going,
and keep reaching higher and higher.’”
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