Dating : Riding the Waves of Fiona Apple’s ‘Tidal’

One album. I am thirteen years old. I listen in my bedroom. On repeat. These are not the songs for a bus ride. Not the songs for listening in public. I’m alone with this music. On my bed. Because I need to be flat, laid out, ready for the lyrics to wash over me. I can’t go skating with this soundtrack. This is not the score for a casual head-bopping escapade.

It’s calm under the waves in the blue of my oblivion

Just ten tracks. Less than an hour of tunes. Still, I am not still; I am moved. My heart swells. I am sad, and I am seen. Moody, bluesy, piano ballads. A throaty female voice. She sings. In defiance, in pain, in a reckoning of power.

And so I’m a shadowboxer baby

The singer is a sad girl, a sullen girl. I am a sad girl, a sullen girl. I don’t know her pain, but I know my pain. This is the pain of being a sad, sullen girl. Of being discounted. Too young to fight and win. Too young to know if this is just me.

So what would an angel say?

Fiona Apple. Long hair. Big eyes. But she doesn’t want to be a doll. Prefers to fight, to prepare. A shadowboxer. Questions everything. I don’t think of myself as a fighter, but I’m inspired by the strength in her vocal chords. And suddenly, a slow song.

Does that scare you?

Sultry now. Because — oh yeah — we have feelings. We want love. To love and be loved. The mood changes. Shifts into the offensive. We can have desires. We have desires.

Slow like honey / Heavy with mood

The voice is forward. Music bubbles up to support the feeling. The feelings. Bom-bom-bom. There is a symphony of emotion. And there is a symphony of sound. Softer and longer. Slower. Slower.

Waiting for the black to replace my blue

And this is some kind of ecstasy. Love is not just pain. Love is pleasure. It is sensations on the skin. Hunger. Fantasy. Fiona is weaving the web, and I am caught. I float, still on my bed, on the verge of knowing the first taste of love. It’s all in my head for now. But I feel its weight descending on me. Becoming real. Becoming possible. When, though? When?

My feelings swell and stretch / I see from greater heights

Oh, no. Here comes the sadness again. A deep knowing. That promises don’t pan out. That love is treacherous. That I can’t show these sad parts. That I have to stay here, in my bedroom, listening to Fiona in secret. I won’t sing these songs with my girlfriends. I won’t share Fiona with anyone. This is my album. My songs. This is me, singing. I sing the sad, sullen songs.

You say you understand / You’ll never understand

But maybe there is hope. Maybe I have someone I can call “darling.” I can tell them to give me space. To leave me in the dark. To let me listen to my songs. I can feel suddenly different, suddenly not like myself at all, and I can tell my “honey” to help me.

I’m trying to find a place I belong

Very quiet now. Piano forward. Piano counting the time. Piano like a drum beating. Gentle, yes. We are tired now. We are close to the end. Love is exhausting. Being a sad, sullen girl. This is exhausting. We can’t do this all alone. We need other people. We can’t always fight. We can’t always hide.

All my armor falling down in a pile at my feet

And the lullaby fades. To make way for one last stand. Let’s sit up now. Look out the window. It’s time to think about the future. Accept the past. What’s done is done.

Honey, I’ve gone away

This is me, saying goodbye to the bad days, the bad boys, the bad love. I am practicing now. At thirteen. This will come in handy. For all my sad and sullen moods, I am still strong. I will have the strength to walk away.