"Fast As You Can" by Fiona Apple
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A chamberlain is an incredibly cool tape-based instrument from the 50s named after its creator, Harry Chamberlain. And I gotta say, I appreciate any time an instrument is named after the person who created it. It's a power move, but I respect it. Welcome to Strong Songs, a podcast about music. I'm your host, Kirk Hamilton, and I'm so glad that you've joined me to talk about music played on a chamberlain, music played on a Mellotron, and sometimes music played on a chamberlain that taped and recreated a Mellotron.

Strong Songs is an independent, listener-supported show. I make the show exactly how I want to make it with no interference because my only sponsors are you. If you think this show is cool and you want to support it, go to patreon.com slash strong songs to join up.

On this episode, a manic, metrically shifting tune that sometimes pauses for introspection. Written by one of my favorite living songwriters, joined by a particularly supportive producer, it's unstoppable. So, let's tune up the snare, wind up the chamberlain, and hit this thing. ♪

Some songs tell tales of love, some tales of loss. Some songs are a greeting, an enticement, beckoning the listener to come closer, to let the singer in. But some songs... Some songs are none of those things. Some songs can only be described as a warning.

On this episode, we're going to climb inside one of the grooviest, most percussive warnings ever delivered from one of the preeminent warners in all of pop music. The one and only Fiona Apple.

Specifically, her 1999 subdivisional super single, Fast As You Can.

I have been excited to talk about Fiona Apple on the show for years. She's one of my very favorite songwriters. So, of course, the challenge was, which song of hers do I pick? I spent the last few weeks, really the last couple of months, just listening to her discography over and over. There are so many great songs, but in the end, this one really stood out to me for a few reasons, and I am so excited to get into it.

Fast as you can, baby, scratch me, I'll free yourself fast as you can. Fast as you can, baby, scratch me, I'll free yourself fast as you can. Sometimes I don't need a shade.

Fast As You Can was the lead single off of Fiona Apple's 1999 album When The Pawn, which is a colloquial shortening of the full name of the album, which is in fact a poem written by Apple that, you know what, actually, let's do it. The album's full name is When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts, He Thinks Like A King. What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight. And it's a poem that's written by Apple.

And he'll win the whole thing, for he enters the ring. There's no body to batter when your mind is your might. So when you go solo, you hold your own hand. And remember that depth is the greatest of heights. And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land. And if you fall, it won't matter, because you'll know that you're right.

I don't know why people don't say the full name of the album. That's a great album name. Anyhow, When the Pawn is what most people call it, and it was a follow-up to her breakout 1996 debut record, Title. Like every other song on When the Pawn, Fast as You Can was written by Apple and produced by John Bryan.

Brian, who is one of my favorite musicians ever, and we'll talk about him more, don't worry, in a little bit. He played a bunch of different instruments on this track, most notably the bass. And he was joined by session musicians Michael Breaux on woodwinds, keyboardist Patrick Warren on the chamberlain and the Wurlitzer electric piano, and the great Matt Chamberlain on drums and percussion.

When the Pawn was a really significant album for Apple, it was a follow-up to a breakout debut and proof that she was a growing artist with an evolving voice and style. It was also written and recorded when her public profile had exploded compared to her first album when she was mostly unknown.

That huge increase in visibility can really be traced back to the beauty and power of her music and the honesty of her lyrics, exemplified by Tidal's biggest hit and Fiona Apple's best-known song to this day, 1997's Criminal.

Criminal is a great song. Seriously, go listen to it sometime with headphones on and be amazed at how cool a 90s song could sound. So it's no surprise that it made Fiona Apple famous. But by 1999, her profile had also risen thanks to

Frankly, her strength of character? I can't think of another way to put it. But Fiona Apple, if you know anything about her, you'd know that she is a zero-nonsense person. And a zero-nonsense person, particularly a beautiful, zero-nonsense 20-year-old woman, will almost always cause some friction in the nonsense-filled music industry.

particularly the late 90s music industry. I mean, there's always been a lot of nonsense in the music industry, but the late 90s, that might have been peak music industry nonsense. Apple's aversion to nonsense most pointedly made itself known in her now famous acceptance speech after she won Best New Artist at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.

And I just want to remind you that she was 20 when she gave this speech. And I want you to imagine yourself at age 20, having the guts to get up in front of, you know, the luminaries of your industry and say this. I didn't prepare a speech and I'm sorry, but I'm glad that I didn't because I'm not going to do this like everybody else does it. Because everybody that I should be thanking, I'm really sorry, but I have to use this time. See Maya Angelou.

said that we as human beings at our best can only create opportunities and I'm gonna use this opportunity the way that I want to use it. So what I want to say is everybody out there that's watching, everybody that's watching this world, this world is bulls**t and you shouldn't model your life, wait a second, you shouldn't model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what we're wearing and what we're saying and everything. Go with yourself. Go with yourself.

And there's just a few people that I want to say something to. I want to say, Mama, I love you. I'm so glad that we're becoming friends. Amber, I love you. You're my sister. You're my best friend. Andrew Slater, no one else could have produced this album and no one else did. And it's just stupid that I'm in this world, but you're all very cool to me, so thank you very much. And I'm sorry for all the people that I didn't thank, but man, it's good. Bye.

This is one of those things that watching her now with the advantage of almost 30 years of time and a lot more years of life, it's totally wild how courageous and honest she's being. She had this one moment to go on TV and say whatever she wanted to millions of people, and she chose to use the opportunity to tell millions of young people watching to trust themselves and be who they wanted to be and not who the famous people on TV told them they should want to be.

She later wrote on her website, this quote is lightly edited for cursing, "I felt that now, in the blink of an eye, all of those people who didn't care who I was or what I thought were now all at once just humoring and appeasing me, and not because of my talent, but instead because of the fact that somehow, with the help of my record company and my makeup artist, my stylist, and my press, I had successfully created the illusion that I was perfect and pretty and rich and therefore living a higher quality life.

I'd saved myself from misfit status, but I'd betrayed my own kind by becoming a paper doll in order to be accepted. It was, needless to say, an instantly iconic moment chewed over and analyzed by everyone and, of course, reviled and criticized by many as entitled, immature, the usual stuff. Later, Apple would tell Rolling Stone, I just had something on my mind and I just said it. And that's really the foreshadowing of my entire career and my entire life."

When I have something to say, I'll say it.

For my part, while I was aware of Apple throughout the 90s, my first real experience of her music was her third album, 2005's Extraordinary Machine, which just completely knocked me out and really still does every time I hear it.

Why did I kiss him so hard late last Friday night? Letting him change all my plans. I'm either so sick in the head I need to be bled dry to quit. Or I just really used to love him. I sure hope that's it.

Man, this is Timp's The Sick in the Head song off of that record. And I mean, you're kind of getting a little tour here of the various Fiona Apple songs that I might have talked about on this episode. Seriously, just listen to Extraordinary Machine. It's such a good record.

But again and again, I come back to Fast As You Can, which is such a burning song. So lyrically and melodically interesting. So rhythmically interesting. And it so perfectly reflects the wonderful and fruitful creative partnership between Fiona Apple and John Bryan. So that's the one we're going to focus on.

I am.

Fast As You Can was the result of a very particular writing and production process that John Bryan detailed in an interesting 2000 interview with Paul Zolo in Performing Songwriter magazine. He describes his production process working with Apple as being incredibly tightly knit and specific.

She recorded the vocals and piano parts to a click track, and then he added other instruments and brought in other musicians, most notably in this case drummer Matt Chamberlain, to record along with the tracks that she had already recorded to best support the song as she was already singing and playing it on the piano.

He stressed that the song came in fully formed. All the groove shifts and compound meters, all of it came in with Fiona when she first sat down at the piano. He just helped flesh it out. Each day, Fiona Apple would come in and they would listen to whatever he had done the day and night before. He says that she was pretty clear about having around three hours of focus on the emotional and musical contours of each song, and then he'd take whatever they'd come up with and he'd

play with those ideas. He'd tinker and explore for the rest of the day, and then they'd repeat it the next day. Honestly, it's a great interview. You should check it out. It sounds like it was a great process, in particular because how clearly Apple seemed to know and understand her own creative process and what she wanted from each song, what worked for her and what didn't.

Before we dig into it, just a quick word on John Bryan and Matt Chamberlain, the two musicians who, after Apple herself, had the most outsized impact on this song. John Bryan is someone whose music you've almost certainly heard, even if you didn't know it was him. He recorded with several great bands in the 90s. He turns up playing guitar on Jellyfish's 1993 opus Spilt Milk. Next to the box stop, promise you the biggest prize. Go ahead.

And the Wallflowers hit song One Headlight, among other places. He also briefly fronted the band The Greys along with the brilliant guitarist Jason Faulkner. As a producer, he has a very particular style. And throughout the 90s and early 2000s, he produced records for everyone from Amy Mann to jazz pianist Brad Meldow.

But the music of his that you've probably heard the most is actually his work scoring films. With his particular mix of instrumental skills, old synths, pump organs, keyboards, and mallet instruments, John Brand was and remains a go-to for indie auteurs like Paul Thomas Anderson, Michelle Gondry, David O. Russell, and Greta Gerwig, and he wrote fabulous scores for movies like Punch Drunk Love, Magnolia, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lady Bird, and my personal favorite of his, I Heart Huckabees.

It's a bizarre movie with a transcendent soundtrack. Matt Chamberlain, meanwhile, had by 1999 become a highly sought-after session drummer due mostly to his distinct ability to play incredibly tight drum machine-like grooves that layered human inflection on top of the precision of drum and bass music.

His discography is a pretty wild ride. I recommend looking him up. I think I first noticed him on Bruce Hornsby's record Spirit Trail, which Chamberlain played on just one year before Win the Pawn in 1998. This is likely future strong song King of the Hill. And I mean, just listen to Chamberlain's pocket on this. Oh,

Watching the boss man talking to his sister with dirty hands.

Brian said he immediately heard Chamberlain's drumming in his head after Apple showed him Fast As You Can. He sketched out a bass part and showed her the kind of drum groove he was envisioning, and she was immediately on board. And it was just the perfect call. Matt Chamberlain adds a ton to the overall impact of this song. And in fact, he's the one who kicks the whole thing off.

I let the beast in too soon. I don't know how to live without my head on his throat. I fight him always and still. But darling, it's so sweet to think, you know, how crazy, how crazy I am.

So while Brian actually recorded these tracks in the opposite of what you'd call the usual order, he recorded it piano and vocals first, then drums and bass. That's probably a longer discussion, but that's actually pretty interesting and something I've had success with at times as well. Anyways, I think we should rebuild this from the bottom up, starting with Chamberlain's drum groove.

You're hearing the drum track as I've isolated it using Logic's stem splitter. And before we get into the nitty gritty, I just want you to listen to how intensely close he holds the rhythm and the subdivision. He's such a terminator. His groove is so particular and so creative. He really does sound like a human drum machine. And I mean that with all the contradiction that it implies and with an equal weight on both of those elements. I also mean that 1000% as a compliment.

So here's the basic groove as I have been able to recreate it using drum samples and, I mean, okay, for our purposes, this will work, but I've been taking drum lessons for the past month or so. I've really been practicing drums now that I've got my dad's old kit set up in the studio and it's pretty wild to me how sample drums are often the thing that's easiest to get away with when you're recording music while at the same time, the degree to which samples actually fall short of the real thing is so massive.

The drum sample library I'm using has, I don't know, like half a dozen different snare hits. And just me, I'm not a good drummer, but I can make like 50 different sounds on the snare drum depending on where on the snare I'm aiming, how much of the rim I'm catching, how I've got the snare tuned, how tight the snares are, how high I'm raising the stick.

It's just all that timbral stuff that I've been on about, these little human choices that make up an instrument's tone or its sound. And here, Chamberlain is playing hyper-specifically and also so consistently. And while my drum samples are certainly consistent, they definitely lack his specificity. At any rate, this groove is all thumps and pops and sizzles. You can hear the thump regularly in the kick. The pops are on that high-tuned snare drum, all backbeats and ghost notes.

And the sizzle is a very particular hi-hat pattern. Hear it? While each of those individual parts is important, it's really all about how they fit together. The spark of this groove for me ignites right on that downbeat right here. He hits this open quarter note on the hi-hat, and for a single beat, this otherwise sprinting, busy groove skips into the air and floats above the ground. He does it twice, coming up, right here, and again. ♪

Here's another. It's so good, right? As far as I can tell, John Bryan played the bass on this track, and man, this is a part that I actually didn't appreciate enough going into making this episode.

Apple's piano part, of course, dominates the track. Chamberlain's drumming pushes it all forward, but I'd never really thought about the bass. It's super groovy. Listen to this. I believe he's playing an actual electric bass here with some sort of a filter on top. I can hear his fingers on the isolated track. It's possible it's some sort of synth or something, of course. Either way, it's a really cool bass line that outlines the half-step movement that defines this verse. ♪

We'll talk about the chords in a second, but starting just in the bass, this verse moves from an E, then up a half step to an F, and then back down to E, and then it just kind of keeps moving back and forth between an E and an F. It's this half step movement. It's very close, and that gives it this kind of sinister elbow slither quality that makes you make a certain face when you hear it.

Brian is playing these super tight little patterns as he dances between E and F and back to E. I love it. We're back to my recreation here, and I'll use my enhanced powers of isolation to let you focus on how the bass lines up with the thump in the kick drum. All right, let's keep the recreation going and add in the piano. Here we go. So in her left hand, Fiona is mirroring that half-step bass movement from E to F.

While if we take out those bass notes and focus on her right hand, that's where the harmony lives.

This verse is bopping between two dominant chords, an E dominant 7 chord and a G7 chord. However, Apple has been smart and very deliberate about how she's voicing that second chord, that G7, and by voicing I mean the order in which she has stacked the notes in the chord. Rather than playing that chord in a root position with the root note, the G on the bottom, which would sound like this...

She's playing the G7 as a G7 over F. So she's put the dominant 7, that flat 7, F, in the bass. And that gets her that slinky half-step movement away from the first chord, the E7. That one decision is the key to this entire song, certainly to the entire energy of this verse. Everything, the drum groove, the bass line, the entire slithering energy of this part of the song flows out of that one chord voicing decision.

Okay, so I want to transition from my recreation back to the original. And as we do, pay attention for each of those elements that we've just outlined. Those hyper-tight drums blitzing through 16th notes, the relentless bass bouncing back and forth and back and forth, the piano left hand matching the bass while playing longer notes, and the piano right hand outlining the harmony while catching a ride on the drums' rhythms. ♪

Ears on, here we go. It's just out of sight, especially considering how it was put together from the top down. It locks together like a jigsaw puzzle. And you know, this chord progression combined with this piano part, it actually makes me think of Thelonious Monk, which isn't the first time that Fiona Apple's music has caused me to make that association. ♪

Thelonious Monk, of course, an essential jazz pianist and composer who is at least temporarily associated with the bebop and hard bop eras of the 1940s and 50s, though his music has always existed a bit out of time and he was always a bit out of step with whatever popular jazz movement was going on at the time that he was playing and writing music.

Monk's piano playing is incredibly idiosyncratic. He has this stuttering, halting quality to the way he swings, and he was fond of half-step movements in his compositions, similar to the one that Apple is employing here in Fast As You Can.

What you're hearing right now is Monk's tune Epistrophe, a favorite of mine, with a verse built similarly around half-step dominant chord movement. But if you listen to any of his tunes, and especially if you learn them, you'll see similar tricks employed across loads of other songs. I don't know if Fiona Apple studied Monk at any point. I've never seen her talk about him. But it wouldn't surprise me if she was at least familiar with his music. The piano part on Fast As You Can, like so many of her parts, is fantastic.

pretty monkish, and I've always felt an association between the two artists, even outside of their respective piano playing. All right, so that's the instruments handled. Let's get into the melody and the lyrics. I let the beast in too soon. I don't know how to live without my hand on his throat. I fight him always and still. But darling, it's so sweet to think, you know, how crazy, how crazy I am.

You say you don't smoke easy, you won't go, but I know and I pray that you will. Fast as you can, baby, run free yourself up as fast as you can.

Oh, God. Okay, a lot happens there musically on, I guess, what is the chorus when she sings Fast As You Can. I just wanted to play that entire section since you can't really isolate the melody and the lyrics of that opening verse from that first brief chorus. The whole thing is so connected that lyrically I want to consider it as one piece, the first piece of the story that Fiona Apple is telling. ♪

I let the beast in too soon. I don't know how to live without my hand on his throat. I fight him always and still. Oh, darling, it's so sweet. You think you know how crazy, how crazy I am. I let the beast in too soon. I don't know how to live without my hand on his throat. I fight him always and still. Oh, darling, it's so sweet. You think you know how crazy, how crazy I am.

Fast As You Can is a song about painful self-awareness sung by a speaker who is all too familiar with her inner demons and the ways that they affect the people in her life. It's a song filled with tension, if not contradiction, as it bounces between several different subjects. There's I, the speaker, who I think it's safe to say is Apple herself, though as with all of her songs, there's something anyone can relate to here.

There's you, the person she's warning, later pretty explicitly shown to be a romantic entanglement. And then there's the beast itself, her inner demon, the thing that causes so much trouble, sometimes referred to as him, sometimes as it, and in the end, this thing. It begins with regret. I let the beast in too soon. I don't know how to live without my hand on his throat.

There's something interesting in the fact that from the start, Apple is the one with the agency over what happened. She let the beast in rather than having the beast imposed upon her. And she can't help but dismissively look at this new person in her life with a touch of scorn, something that she wrestles with throughout a lot of her songs. "'Oh, darling, it's so sweet, you think you know how crazy I am.'"

She knows you'll spook when you really get a look at her, so she's heading you off at the pass. Run as fast as you can. I let the beast in too soon. I don't know how to live without my hand on his throat. I fight him always and still. But darling, it's so sweet to think, you know, how crazy, how crazy I am. You say you don't spook easy, you won't go, and I pray that you will.

♪ Fast as you can, baby, run free yourself up as fast as you can ♪

Just as remarkable as the lyrics is the way that Apple is delivering them. She's doing something really interesting here. And in general, I think she is a wonderful and fascinating vocalist. What she's doing here is in line with her overall style as a vocalist. It's somewhere between spoken word, rapping, and singing. It's this machine gun delivery that adds an anxious, twitchy energy to an already twitchy groove. Like, really listen to this.

It's so rhythmically cool and so rhythmically precise. Check it out. I'm going to pull out her isolated vocals and try to sing along with her and match her rhythms.

I let the beast in too soon. I don't know how to live without my hand on his throat. I fight him always and still. Oh, darling, it's so sweet. You think you know how crazy, how crazy I am. I mean, who sings like that? I guess Fiona Apple is the answer to that question, but only Fiona Apple sings like that. I mean, just check out the amount of syncopation and rhythmic displacement that she's utilizing in that first phrase. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

She phrases like a jazz drummer. I let the beast in too soon. I don't know how to live without my hand on his throat. I fight him always and still. You see what I mean? And in addition to her rhythmic conception, there are all of these vocal techniques that she's doing. One in particular, she'll push her voice and add this really intense vibrato to certain notes. It's startling and ugly and perfect. Like, listen to how she sings the word throat. She sings, throat.

And again when she sings Crazy I Am. All right. All right.

Let's get into that chorus, which means let's get into the song's first big meter shift, the shift from a double time 4-4 groove on the verse to a triplet-y 12-8 groove on the chorus, which is to say the shift from the pulse being here, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, to here, triplet, triplet, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, digga-digga-digga-digga-bub-bub-digga-bub-bub-digga-hey.

It is extremely hip, just one of many extremely hip things that this song does, and a great opportunity to talk about meter shifts and shifting between a 4-4 pulse and a triplety 6-8 or 12-8 pulse. Now, this is something I've talked about before on the show, so it may sound familiar to a lot of you. It came up in my episode on Queens of the Stone Ages, No One Knows, at the very least. Also, Tears for Fears, Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Regardless, repetition never hurts.

I've been doing this long enough to know that if I get too far into trying to explain why one groove is called 4/4 and one is called 12/8, I'll spend like 10 minutes on it that I could have used talking about something cooler. So I'm going to make this a little simpler. There's one tempo for this song. This song goes at around 140 beats per minute. Without changing tempo though, the song goes through three different feels, three different meters. One is a four feel and two of them are three feels. By four feel I mean it's

primarily defined by groupings of two eighth notes, and by a three feel, I mean that it's primarily defined by groupings of triplets of eighth note and quarter note triplets. So a basic four feel at 140 beats per minute sounds like this.

You count it 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Now this feel, Basic 4-4, isn't actually in this song. The verse groove is more of a double time feel. It's got this syncopated second hit, boom-da-da-boom-bop, with a much busier hi-hat. That sounds like this.

The tempo hasn't changed even though it feels faster. It's still 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3. It's just the drums are playing double time, or double time-ish, so it feels twice as fast.

So with the chorus, this double time 4 groove switches to what I count as a 12/8 groove, which just means that you begin to count triplets, groups of 3/8 notes, or before you were counting groups of 2/8 notes. So you go from this... 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4... to this... 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, triplet, triplet. Again, the tempo hasn't changed, we're just feeling it differently. Let's switch back...

That's already pretty cool, but this song also goes into a third groove, a half-time three feel on the bridge, which is its own whole thing. This is what that sounds like. All right, we'll get into that when it's time to talk about the bridge. For now, let's just listen one time to the recording as they transition from that double-time four feel of the verse into the triplet-based 12-8 groove of the first chorus. ♪

Here we go. And then they're back to the verse. It's a real blink or you miss it thing on the first chorus, which I think is by design. It throws you off balance the first time you hear it, and you don't even have time to adjust to the new time feel before they're back into the breakneck verse groove.

Now I really like what's going on in the melody, the harmony, and the instrumentation on the chorus as well. Let's start with the harmony. Leading into the chorus, the harmony shifts from that back and forth half-step movement to an upward climb. It goes from E7

to G7 over F, familiar so far, to G in root position, to B minor, and then up to this classic descending progression. E minor, E minor over D sharp, it's an E minor major 7, then E minor over D, and then E minor over D flat, before landing on the first chord of the chorus, a C. And then that C immediately jumps back to the same kind of chromatic movement. D sharp to D, to D flat,

to C7, and then it resolves back to the E to start the verse again. Now that sounds really complicated when I say all the chord names, and it is, but it also feels pretty logical when you play it all at once. It gives a neat view into how Fiona Apple feels out her chord progressions as she's writing on piano. As jerky and angular as this whole thing can sound, it's actually very logical and filled with familiar jazz voice leading, and it's pretty fun to play it on piano.

So listen along to those chords in the song and I'll play just the relevant voice leading so you can follow the arc of it as we go. ♪

So it's all very chromatic and very orderly in its disordered way. This chorus is when I start to notice the other instrumentalists on this track, Patrick Warren's keyboards and I think Michael Breaux's flute. I'm pretty sure that's what he's playing, though he's just credited with woodwinds. I'm hearing what sounds like a flute over on the left along with the chamberlain. And then there's some sort of organ playing over on the right.

the right. There's some other stuff in here as well. They've definitely recorded some other percussion instruments that Matt Chamberlain is playing. I'm not totally sure what, just a variety of hand drums and other small high-tuned drums that are then EQ'd way down. They're kind of all over the place, and I'm not going to pick them all out. That's just sort of a more forensic job than I want to get into. But I do want to talk about the Chamberlain, the Wurlitzer, and to a lesser extent, the flute.

So the Chamberlain is a fantastic sounding instrument. It's a tape-based keyboard developed by Harry Chamberlain and first released in 1956. You're hearing a demo of a Chamberlain from Soundspace Studios on YouTube.

And if you're noticing that it sounds a lot like a Mellotron, that's because the two instruments are closely related. The Mellotron came much later, and there was actually a whole legal battle about it because it was developed based on the Chamberlain's design. Both instruments are beautiful, and both use tape to create those haunting sounds. They add a really lovely energy to any piece of music. ♪

In addition to the chamberlain, Brough's flute plays that ascending line over to the left, and you can hear this really groovy keyboard. It kind of sounds like an organ over on the right. Let's isolate those three instruments, the flute, the chamberlain, and the organ, from the bass and the drums as best as we can anyway using the stem splitter and see if you can hear them. ♪

Thank you.

This stuff is all classic John Bryan, and I don't want to get too much further bogged down in the particulars, because the broader point is that one of the things that makes him such a great producer is his ability to seek out these incredibly specific oddball instruments that sound unlike anything else. And while he was making this music at a time that was very different from today in terms of the tools and sounds that are easily available to music producers, I think there's still a lesson in here for people making music today.

It's so easy to fall into just using the plugin or the sample library or whatever it is that thousands of other people also have access to. And there's nothing wrong with that per se. I mean, you can make great music using just stock sounds on whatever DAW you have installed. But...

Remember, we've been talking about timbre so much on this season. The timbre of John Bryan's specific chamberlain or his pump organ or his mellotron or whatever other instrument he is using on any given day in any given session. Those all really add up to something and they give this song a unique spark that it otherwise wouldn't have. Fast as you can, baby, run free yourself up as fast as you can.

All right, let's keep going and get into the second verse, followed by the second chorus. ♪

Dude, so first, just to reiterate, no one sings like Fiona Apple. No one writes and delivers lyrics like this. Like, just listen to this. Listen to the words that she's saying and also try to follow the rhythmic and melodic phrasing. I'm going to double her just to give you an appreciation for what she is doing here, especially what she's doing rhythmically. So listen close.

♪ ♪

Like, are you kidding? There are a lot of ways to say, eventually, I know that being with me will bum you out. And she chose to go with, my pretty mouth will frame the phrases that will disprove your faith in man. Sick. All right, so now let's take a look at what she's singing on this second chorus, which has double the runtime of the first one.

Fast as you can, baby, scratch me, I'll free yourself fast as you can. Fast as you can, baby, scratch me, I'll free yourself fast as you can.

So let's loop this for a minute because the groove here is better defined than on the first chorus. You can hear everything in its place. Over in the left channel, you can really hear the Wurlitzer and the Chamberlain combining to stack more harmonies through these chords.

The bass and the percussion, led by a nice shaker, are actually keeping the regular beat, regardless of the triplet subdivision, just steady beats. The triplet rhythm is there, but it can afford to be subtle because Apple's melody is so triplet-y. She's singing these strong quarter note triplets.

It's so good. Let's bring the keys back in. Fast as you can.

And after this supersized second chorus comes the bridge. This bridge is wild. It's another total shift in harmony, groove, and timbre that somehow feels totally organic despite really representing a radical transformation.

The drums sound completely different here. Chamberlain is at least, I think, playing a differently tuned snare drum, if not a whole different kit. And of course, the groove he's playing is a laid-back 6-8 feel. 1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-3-4-5-6, like a halftime version of the 12-8 groove on the chorus. The bass has gone to these nice descending bass lines that match up with the new descending chords. ♪

G major to F major to C major 7 over E. Apple has transitioned to big, grand piano chords here, accompanied by an even richer arrangement of the other keyboards and winds. It gives this section a peaceful, introspective quality that wonderfully supports the lyrics.

Here, the narrator sets aside the urgent warning tone of the verses and takes a moment to reflect on herself. She acknowledges the times when she feels okay and envisions a future when she can finally just swallow the beast inside and let herself be.

Pay attention to that as we listen. Really try to hear what she's saying. Sometimes my mind don't shake and shift, but most of the time it does. And I'll get to a place where I'm begging for a lift or I'll drown in the past. I'll drown in the wonders and the was. And I'll be your girl if you say it's a gift, if you give me more of your drugs. Because I'm so tired of whys. I'm choking on whys. I just need a little because. ♪

Listen to her say it. And I'll be your girl, you say. And you give me some more of your drugs.

And the bridge closes on this beautiful augmented chord, a lushly old-fashioned and tense transition chord that tells us this was nice, but the time for introspection is over and the original point stands.

She let the beast in, tried forgiving him, but it's too soon, so she'll fight again and again and again. Sorry, man. She let the beast in, and then I even tried forgiving him, but it's too soon, so I'll fight again, again, again, again, again. And for a little while more, I'll start the uneven winds, complaining, blameless, sterling. But if you're getting any bright ideas, quiet, dear, I'm moving within.

That final verse somehow feels triumphant to me, despite the speaker realizing that it's too soon. She's not ready and she could try making peace with her demons, but she knows she'll just have to fight them again. And I guess that triumph comes from the power of self-knowledge. You know, it's very confident. There's this confidence in the way that she says, but if you're getting any bright ideas, quiet, dear, I'm blooming within. But if you're getting any bright

ideas quite dear, I'm moving within. Fast as you can, baby, wait, watch me, I'll be out fast as I can, but at least about fast as you can, leave me, let this thing run, it's about fast as you can. Fast as you can. You can, as you can.

I love all the ways that she's playing with the rhythms and the phrasing on Fast As You Can during this final chorus. It feels very improvised to me, and every time she does this live, she sings it a little bit differently. It's so cool. Listen to this. It's pretty much just a jam from here to the end. And while the keyboards add some nice textures and ideas...

I've always felt like this section could use something more. Like a soprano sax solo. So yeah, I recorded one. Yeah. Alright, alright. Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. This song always ends on a paradox, an unresolved feeling that stretches out over an extended killer groove.

And the song itself, a warning as yet unheeded. Fast as you can, she says, run away from me, scratch me out, fast as you can. But will we? When it comes to Fiona Apple, for all her self-aware warnings, for all her cool appraisals and candid dismissals, the fact remains that her songs are so good. Her words speak to something so intense and relatable inside each of us.

I mean, we may run away for a time, but we'll always be back, fast as we can. And that'll do it for my episode on Fiona Apple's Fast As You Can. I had a ton of fun making this episode, and I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope that it gave you a new appreciation for Apple, her collaborations with John Bryan, and for Matt Chamberlain's unstoppable drumming.

I hope you're enjoying season seven overall. It has been a lot of fun so far. The next episode focuses on a song that hits pretty hard, relatively speaking. It's all about a band that I have planned to talk about on the show since the very beginning and have only just now finally decided to take on. And you can go listen to it right now if you go sign up for the Patreon, patreon.com slash strong songs. Support this show. Help me keep this thing going. I really hope that you go check it out.

I'm glad that some of you have been enjoying the new designs and products in the Strong Song store as well. Emily is a real Shopify whiz, and she helped me make the store a whole lot better than it used to be. And there's a ton of really cool new things in there. So if you haven't checked it out, go take a look. There is a link for that down in the show notes, and I bet that you'll find something that you like.

Last thing to all of you out there with a musical practice, whatever your level, whatever your goals, just remember to find time to play every day. You really got to nurture that connection to your instrument.

Strong Songs is recorded at the Caldera in Portland, Oregon with production support from Emily Williams. Our show art is by the great Tom DJ. For a list of all the tools and software I use to make the show, check out the link in the show notes where you'll also find social links, my newsletter, a link to the Strong Songs Discord, and a bunch of other good stuff. That'll do it for now. I'll see you all in two weeks. Until then, take care and keep listening. ♪