Illustration by Ashley Floréal
At some point in the fevered weeks of 1994, as Alanis Morissette and her co-songwriter and producer, Glen Ballard, were spinning the gold of Jagged Little Pill in his Hollywood studio – they aimed to write and record one song a day – Ballard turned to her and asked, “Are you aware of what’s happening right now?” Meaning, did 20-year-old Morissette know she was not just pulling back the curtain on young women’s lives but shredding it; that she was articulating their angst, anger, delights and sexuality in a way that was raw, literary, revolutionary?
“I said, ‘No, what’s happening? Other than me expressing myself?’” Morissette recalled earlier this month, during a 20-minute phone interview that burbled with laughter. “Here’s what I did know: I knew that I loved it. Every new song we were writing, I was lit up.”
Her record label, Maverick (then a new company, co-founded by Madonna), predicted the album would sell 125,000 copies, a number that blew Morissette’s mind. “I was like, ‘How am I going to deal with that?’ ” she says. “But there were prophetic images in my mind’s eye: I saw myself travelling around the planet. I saw myself performing and sweating. And I loved these songs. I knew I was going to show up big and honour them, and honour the place from which they came. I had no idea what was coming.”
What came is now legendary: Released June 13, 1995, Jagged Little Pill sold 33 million copies worldwide; hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts and stuck there for 12 weeks; won five Grammy Awards including album of the year; was re-released three times, in acoustic, deluxe and anniversary editions; made Morissette a guru for two generations of singers including Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Lainey Wilson and Olivia Rodrigo; and was adapted by Diablo Cody (who wrote the film Juno) into a Broadway musical that won two Tony Awards and was nominated for 13 more.
That musical, also called Jagged Little Pill, is coming to Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre from Oct. 24 to Nov. 26. Morissette talked to me from her home in Northern California, which she shares with her husband, the rapper Mario Treadway, their daughter, Onyx, and sons Ever and Winter. Here are highlights from our conversation.
Will you travel to Toronto for the opening?
I’d like to. I always feel happy – safe and at home – when I’m in Canada. I love Canadians. I love our way. Culturally, we’re not narcissistic. We’re not monologuers, we’re dialoguers. I feel like we finish each other’s sentences.
How involved were you in adapting the musical?
I wasn’t into a jukebox musical, and I wasn’t ready to write an autobiography from Jagged Little Pill onward; some time in the next 10 years I’ll write a one-woman musical to tell those stories. I met with many wonderful writers, but I felt a real resonance with Diablo Cody. She pulled characters out of the songs to create a cohesive narrative.
The musical spans a year in the life of a mother and her family, who move from hiding truths to embracing them. Your songs are so personal, though – was it hard to hand them over?
Diablo is a genius, so for me it was one yes after the other. I would lean in if there was something psychological or relational to comment on as the story was unfolding; other times I would lean out and trust. It didn’t feel vulnerable, because I was actively connected, and I had final approval. When I do the one-woman play, that will be incredibly vulnerable. [Laughs] But I’ll do it anyway.
As JLP exploded, the mostly male music press branded you an Angry Woman, as opposed to what I’d call you, a well-rounded human who’s legitimately angered by infuriating things.
Hah. The pervasive messaging when I was younger was, “You can’t feel anger, you can’t feel fear and you can’t feel sadness.” So what’s left? The idea that I would be reduced or one-dimensionalized is just in keeping with that patriarchal, misogynistic, woman-hating credo. But if I’m going to be reduced to anything, I love anger. I’m not a fan of the destructive acting-out of anger, but anger as a life force is delicious and important and moves worlds. Every activism I’ve ever been part of is fuelled by my being pissed off about something. Anger underlies every great activism on the planet. So I’ll never apologize about anger.
How does it feel when women cite you as their hero, as Olivia Rodrigo did in her recent New Yorker profile?
The mentorship element is just a frickin’ joy for me. I love being a mentor, I love having been mentored. I think the relationship is such a sacred one, the trifecta of maiden/mother/crone, how we all lean on and support each other. I’m in mother mode now; at almost 50 I’m moving toward crone. I think all of that is quite beautiful.
You are nowhere near crone.
Maybe a wisdom-keeper then. An owl.
Who mentored you?
So many. Annie Lennox, Carole King, Etta James, Whitney Houston. They weren’t formal mentors, they mentored me without knowing it. Then there are people outside music. I consider myself an essential-oils apothecary; Nadine Artemis, who founded Living Libations, mentored me. In psychology, it’s Richard Schwartz [founder of Internal Family Systems], Debbie Ford [self-help coach], Carl Jung.
What is it like to sing You Oughta Know now, and have hundreds of women of all ages belting it out with you?
My three biggest values are connection (that’s connection with life, with each other and within one’s own self), self-expression and the body. Singing that song hits all three. There are so many non-destructive ways to move rage, through music and art, movies and words, linguistics, dance. So when I see people in the audience being given safety and permission to feel angry with me, that’s just the greatest thing I could possibly ever provide. That’s everything to me.
I wish the anger wasn’t still so necessary.
Yes, it’s horrifying that we’re still having to have these conversations. I’m horrified at the snail’s pace of consciousness evolution. But it emboldens me to continue. Supporting the feminine in culture – that’s what I live and breathe for. I’m launching a new venture over the next year or two that is focused around trauma/sexual abuse/addiction recovery, generational trauma, attachment parenting, kids’ education, the brain, sexuality. All of these are feminist issues to me. They’re all about, “How are we with the feminine?” I mean feminine inside male bodies, female bodies, just the whole idea of how the feminine is reduced in our culture. As though it could be reduced. I think there’s a deep need for consciousness to continue to evolve to include the feminine – in anything, including business and money – because when we lose the feminine we lose soul. We lose the direct connection to spirit. My activism is through songs, performances, articles, workshops I lead, captions I write on social-media posts, keynote talks. I also love hands-on direct teaching, guiding meditations, workshops.
What’s the form of this venture?
We’ll be online. I’ll reinvigorate my podcast. We’ll dive ever more deeply into the human condition conversation, specifically around recovery, healing and wholeness. Just educative. Commentary on fame, the definition of success, myriad approaches to health, spirituality, philosophy, psychology, neurobiology, art.
Does it have a name?
I’ve come up with three or four but none are sticking. Once I have one, I’ll sing it from the mountaintops.
What advice do you give your kids around the feminine?
It’s amazing to have conversations with my 12-year-old son about how sneaky anti-feminism is, how it shows up everywhere, in language, in ads. I lovingly and sometimes pointedly point it out. My kids are all deeply thinking, deeply feeling, intense philosophers. So we really get into it. I’ll say, “That’s interesting, there are no women in that story.” That commentary is in our living room all the time.
The songs on JLP hit so many cultural touchstones. What are you paying attention to now?
I think this so-called wellness movement is dangerous. Hearing about wholeness, now that’s inspiring. But wellness has become a synonym for perfection. For someone who’s mired in depression or suicidality – which I can relate to – hearing “wellness” is like, “Great, another thing to beat myself up about.”
Help, I’m failing at wellness!
[Big laugh] That could be the title of my venture: Failing at Wellness.
I’ve noticed this phenomenon among your detractors: 25 years ago, you were too angry. Now you’re too serene.
If you’re an artist in the public eye, by default you’re a social activist. People define themselves in accordance to you. So when someone says, “You shouldn’t be post-Catholic,” or “Now you’re too soft!” I meet that with, “Okay.”
Has your experience of your songs changed? Do you sing them or feel them differently now?
Thankfully, I can stand by the value systems that I was growing in when I wrote them, so I can still sing them with conviction. What I’m angry about has shifted. Then I might have been angry about an ex-boyfriend’s behaviour; now I’m angry about the reduction of feminism in culture. The anger is a different form of activism as I mature. Well, as I mature in theory.
Maturing in Theory – another possible title for your venture.
Text me as they occur to you, okay? [laughs]
What are you writing songs about now?
My answer is always, “I have absolutely no idea. I’ll report back when I’m finished.” It’s always stream-of-consciousness – channelling, for lack of a better term. Once in a while I’ll start with a journal entry that’s a nice trailhead. But mostly it’s just sitting there, listening to the melody that’s coming through, the story. When I’m writing, the words and music come at the same time. It’s always felt like it happens through me.
How would you describe your current state of being?
At 49 years old, I feel very clear about my value system and my purpose, in a way that felt amorphous to me in the past. If ever I feel a little lost, unclear, agitated or restless, I return to connection, expression and being in the body. And because the experience of being human is so beautifully complex, there couldn’t be enough records written about the human condition. So I’ll keep writing until I can’t any more. I’ll write music until I’m an hour away from dying. [Laughs] And let’s be honest, probably still after that.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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