Many people have joked about the fact Alanis Morissette doesn’t understand the concept of irony, but that song wasn’t even her worst crime against music. For example, her follow-up to Jagged Little Pill featured a song with the line, “How ’bout them transparent dangling carrots”. However, with her third album, Morissette completely forgot how songs work. Under Rug Swept, featured lyrics that weren’t merely bad, they were so verbose that you wouldn’t believe there was a melody in the world that would fit them. Read these lyrics aloud, and try to imagine how they could possibly be sung…

21 Things I Want in a Lover
Do you derive joy when someone else succeeds?
Do you not play dirty when engaged in competition?
Do you have a big intellectual capacity?
But know that it alone does not equate wisdom?
Do you see everything as an illusion?
But enjoy it even though you are not of it?
Are you both masculine and feminine?
Politically aware, and don’t believe in capital punishment?

CHORUS:
These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs, but qualities that I prefer

–

Narcissus
Dear momma’s boy
I know you’ve had your butt licked by your mother
I know you enjoyed all that attention from her
And every woman graced with your presence after

Dear popular boy
I know you’re used to getting everything so easily
A stranger to the concept of reciprocity
People honour boys like you in this society

–

So Unsexy
Oh these little rejections, how they add up so quickly
One small sideways look and I feel so ungood
And somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make
Me feel the way I though only my father could

Oh these little rejections, how they seem so real to me
One forgotten birthday, I’m all but cooked and
How these little abandonments seem to sting so easily
I’m thirteen again, am I thirteen for good?

–

I include the following lyrics, not because I think they’re particularly longwinded or bad, just because of the subject matter. Morissette found fame with her confessional songs that alluded to her real-life romances, but with this track she seems to be confessing to a more disturbing relationship…

Hands Clean

You’re essentially an employee
And I like you having to depend on me and
You’re a kind of protégé and one day you’ll say
You learned all you know from me

And I know you depend on me
Like a young thing would to a guardian
And I know you sexualize me
Like a young thing would and I think I like it

BRIDGE:
Ooh, this could get messy
But you don’t seem to mind
Ooh, don’t go telling everybody
And overlook this supposed crime

CHORUS:
We’ll fast forward to a few years later
And no one knows except the both of us
And I have honoured your request for silence
And you’ve washed your hands clean of this

It’s not just me, right? She does seem to be writing about having a relationship with an underage boy. Read them again!