How I Will Remember Fetch The Bolt Cutters

Written By: Jillian Giandurco

I wholeheartedly believe that out of the entire population, only ~4% of people know enough about music to accurately illustrate and analyze the musical eccentricities of Fiona Apple’s latest release Fetch The Bolt Cutters. I am not one of those people, nor will I pretend to be. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that for the next many, many, many years we spend trying to dissect this album, I will always fall short when describing its essence, its perfection, and its construction. One day I hope to finally find the right words to express its importance, but that day is not today. In the meantime, however, I’ve decided to use this moment to preserve the energy surrounding its release instead. 

Every genre has their fair share of earth-shattering albums that aged to define a moment in time. Neo soul was finally given its flowers when The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released; with its blend of R&B, soul, and hip hop, it proved to be an irresistible listen for audiences of all walks of life. The album Black Sabbath was revolutionary in creating the heavy metal genre that no one could have prepared for. Beyoncé threw every convention out the window when she dropped her self-titled visual album unannounced, and inadvertently changed the industry standard from releasing albums on Tuesdays to Fridays along the way.

Whether we find ourselves discussing the impact of Kanye West’s abrupt abandon of maximalist hip hop for the minimalist, auto-tune crooning found on 808’s And Heartbreak, or the monumental songwriting and production choices of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, all of these albums have one thing in common: cultural impact.

While each of the aforementioned records were undoubtedly released during their own respective times of uncertainty, the cultural relevance of these projects, and the so-called “signs of the times” during which they were released do not play in conversation with one another. Unlike a politically and historically purposeful album like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On?, records like 808’s made as much noise as they did because they were created to shift away from the culture, not in tandem with the culture.

This exact distinction is why the premiere of Fetch The Bolt Cutters has felt unlike any other and begs to be remembered for decades to come. Apple reimagined this album what feels like a thousand times over the last eight years, and with every rewritten lyric and concept change, there’s no way she could have predicted it would be released under these circumstances: social distancing, self-quarantine, country-wide, government mandated shut downs, the works. And yet, lyrically, sonically, and thematically, the timing could not have been more perfect. Somehow, some way, Fiona Apple made the most devastatingly precise observations and embodiments with this project about life during social distancing before we even knew what social distancing was.

The melodies are more spoken than sung, and often crescendo into an inevitable apex that encourages Apple to shout her anger away until her message is heard. The song compositions comprise of man-made stomps, kicks, claps, and shakes, and somehow manage to perfectly mimic the rapid speed in which our emotions bend throughout the day. The chorus of the title track was written years before self-isolation, and yet it sums up our experience better than anyone had in the month prior to its release: “Fetch the bolt cutters/ I’ve been in here too long.” The imperfect setup that is Fiona Apple’s in-home recording studio lends to the spacey, empty ambiance that feels so familiar these days, now that most of the sounds we hear play out as subtle reverberations throughout the home.

Anyone present on social media on April 17, 2020 can attest to the shift in atmosphere that day. Album releases never fail to feel like an event, especially when they are as long awaited as Bolt Cutters. But there was something uniquely special about this premiere that not many artists have endured before, something that might grow to be commonplace in the future. Before we were all bound to our homes, album releases tended to be a very individualized event. Maybe you stayed up until the record was available to stream. Maybe you drove around aimlessly for maximum auditory punch. Maybe it wasn’t until you went to your friend’s place three weeks later that you heard the album and instantly fell in love.

Prior to this, our album release origin stories were varied, diverse, distinctive. Now that we are all living the same shared experience, however, the release of Fetch The Bolt Cutters proved to be much more uniform than ever before. In many ways, I think this is exactly how the album was intended to be received--it is, after all, an album written and recorded at home, sonically personifying the highs and lows that come with mental illness, with the intention of making an isolating experience into a communal one.

There are albums that make a cultural impact because they reflect the current circumstances, there are albums who make a cultural impact because they become a part of the current circumstances, and then there is Fetch The Bolt Cutters, which happens to do both and neither at the same time. When we look back on COVID-19 in ten, twenty, even fifty years, Fetch The Bolt Cutters will be the resulting art that will be discussed at the forefront, despite its complete lack of influence from the virus itself.

Apple’s eerie ability to accurately depict what life during COVID was like, before it happened, is a feat that no one will ever be able to accomplish or replicate. The future of the music industry is one big question mark at the moment, with venues closing their doors and artists like Lady Gaga and HAIM pushing their albums back to release in step with rescheduled tours. Whether they like it or not, COVID will forever be synonymous with the release of these projects, and future projects that were written entirely during lock down, a la Charli XCX’s upcoming record.

But history will choose to remember one album in particular after all this, and it’s the incomparable genius matched with the uncontested circumstances that will have the public talking about Fetch The Bolt Cutters for years to come. The symbiotic relationship that exists between Fiona Apple’s fifth studio record and the current global pandemic is unlike anything I have ever experienced in my lifetime; I implore you to begin immortalizing this sensation now before the moment has passed.