Alanis Morissette finally addresses 'Ironic' not actually being ironic
She speaks about the "onslaught of shaming"
Last updated 15th Jul 2020
Alanis Morissette has opened up about the “onslaught of shaming” she has received for her huge hit single ‘Ironic’ not being actually being ironic.
‘Ironic’ first appeared on Alanis Morissette’s debut album ‘Jagged Little Pill’ a quarter of a century ago and stood out from the other more intensely autobiographic songs on the blockbuster record.
Released as the third single from ‘Jagged Little Pill’ in early 1996, the hugely catchy ‘Ironic’ became a huge international smash hit. However, for all its plaudits, many mocked the track’s lyrics for being about misfortune rather than irony – for example “It’s a black fly in your chardonnay’.
Comedian Ed Byrne made an entire stand-up sketch deriding 'Ironic' in the nineties, and more recently, the hit Broadway musical version of Jagged Little Pill features a segment where the characters mock the lyrics.
Speaking about the ‘Ironic’ bashing scene in the musical, Alanis Morissette has admitted in a new interview with Rolling Stone they “nailed it”, before quipping: “Until the next generation kicks my ass! Until the next onslaught of shaming!”
Confessing she didn’t really like the song much initially, Alanis continued: “I didn’t even want it on the record and I remember a lot of people going, ‘Please please, please.’ So I said, OK.
“That was one of the first songs we wrote, almost like a demo to get our whistles wet. But people wound up really liking the melody, and I wasn’t that precious about it. And I came to realize later that perhaps I should have been. Whoops!”
She added: “I guess one of the things that is the scariest for us in terms of our collective shame is being (seen as) stupid or uneducated or ignorant. I can embrace, ‘I’m stupid,’ I can embrace that I’m really brilliant. It just depends on when you catch me!”
Last month, Alanis Morissette rescheduled her Jagged Little Pill 25th Anniversary UK tour for October 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The trek will now open at Birmingham Utilita Arena on Monday 18th October 2021 before hitting London The O2 (Wednesday 20th October) and Manchester Arena (Friday 22nd October).
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