Right now, just about every publication is coming out with a year-end list, and just about every publication seems to agree that Fiona Apple’s Fetch The Bolt Cutters is the best album that came out in 2020! It’s slightly boring when the consensus is that overwhelming, but it’s true! Fetch The Bolt Cutters is really great! We have it at #1, too! And as a nice little bonus, Apple, who was extremely press-shy until recently, has been giving a few more interviews. She always has interesting things to say.

Pitchfork, which also just named Fetch The Bolt Cutters the year’s best album, just posted a long conversation with Apple. My friend Jenn Pelly spoke with her in October, when Apple and her friend Zelda Hallman were spending time at a farm in Alabama. The interview includes a lot of fascinating discussions of the lyrical and musical decisions that Apple made on Fetch The Bolt Cutters, and it also has a few bits that could almost be considered celebrity gossip. Naturally, we’re going to tell you all about the gossipy bits.

This summer, we learned that Apple played on the new Bob Dylan album Rough And Rowdy Ways. It turns out that she plays piano on the 17-minute Kennedy-assassination meditation “Murder Most Foul.” In the Pitchfork interview Apple tells the story of how it happened:

So I’m sitting here with Zelda in February, really relaxed, and we’re about to have dinner, and I look down at my phone and see [longtime collaborator] Blake Mills texting me. I hadn’t heard from Blake in months. And he’s like, “So I’m working on something, I can’t tell anybody about it, but we want you to come in and do something.” And I was like, “Um, I can’t I’m busy.” And he was like, “Can I call you?” So he called me and he goes, “OK, it’s Bob Dylan. Bob is asking if you will come here and record.” And I went: “When?” And he went: “Now.” And I said “FUCK” so loud that I could hear people on the other end of the phone laughing.

I was like, “I’m not trying to put myself down here, Blake, but you and I both know that I’m very underqualified for this job. There’s no point.” And he’s like, “He just wants you to come in to be you.” So I went in the next day. I’m only on “Murder Most Foul.”…

I couldn’t believe it. I had met him many years ago, but I don’t really know why I’m on the record. I was there a total of like seven hours. I told Bob I was really insecure about it, and he was really encouraging and nice. He was just like, “You’re not here to be perfect, you’re here to be you.” To have Bob Dylan say that before my record came out was a huge deal for me. And I mean, this was like the one person I could have met who’s alive right now where it actually would have meant something to me as a kid.

Apple also tells a story about the tattoo that she got for an ex-boyfriend, the magician David Blaine:

I have what they call a “tramp stamp,” but it looks cool. I got that tattoo for [ex-boyfriend] David Blaine, and for myself, because he had gotten a tattoo of my name on his shoulder, which is now covered up with the face of the devil, and I felt like I needed to do something in return. But I didn’t feel right getting “David” tattooed on me. I felt like we were kin, and he’s always going to be in my family. So it’s this symbol that I used to draw when I was a kid, and above it I put, “Kin.” But it’s half removed now, because another boyfriend didn’t want me to have it. It’s a faded tattoo now.

Also, I really like what Apple has to say about the overwhelmingly positive reception to Fetch The Bolt Cutters:

With this record — I haven’t looked at stuff, but I know it was received well. Knowing that, and knowing how many fuck ups there are, and how imperfect everything is on it — I feel like I’m in a good relationship with the world. I feel like I showed up for a date with no makeup on, like I banged my head and I lost my tooth and I showed up bloody and wearing half a T-shirt and one sock, and my date went, “Hey, I like you, come on let’s go. That’s OK with me.” Which is a great feeling. I’ll still kick myself for not being the kind of musician that I think is the cool way to be a musician. But I like that I finally went: “I’m me. I’m going to accept what I am and try to make something good out of that.” I’m proud of myself for getting to a place where I could say: “don’t wait until you’re perfect.”

The full interview is well worth your time, and you can read it here.