Watch out for that octopus!

Do you ever have those nights where your brain turns into an especially deranged episode of Wacky Races: Dozens of hairbrained ideas and schemes fighting for dominance when all you really want is to go to sleep?

Fiona Apple does. In fact, she's written a song about it.

Every single night I endure the flight
Of little whims of white flame
Butterflies in my brain
These ideas of mine percolate the mind
Trickle down the spine
Swollen belly swelling to a blaze.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that a woman who's latest album is titled The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, finds it difficult to switch off. My advice would be to go easy on the Red Bull cocktails in the future...

Musically, Every Single Night is initially disorientating - but it crystalizes with eerie beauty after a couple of spins. Video director Joey Cahill takes his cues from the lyrics, placing Apple inside a series of creepy dreamscapes. The singer explained the inspiration to Pitchfork.

"I told Joey just to come up with a bunch of things and just do things to me and put me in situations and surprise me. One thing I wanted to have happen was to be covered in snails. I laid in a bed of soil and they put snails all over me. And then they brought in shit that I would not have asked for. He put a dead squid on my head."



The Idler Wheel can be streamed in full on the NPR website. It's released on 18 June.

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