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CMU Approved
Approved: Fiona Apple – Dull Tool
By Aly Barchi | Published on Wednesday 21 November 2012
An Approved doesn’t seem enough to do justice to the grand scheme of dog-loving chanteuse Fiona Apple’s smart artistic savantry (‘Every Single Night’ says it all), so I’ll just talk narrowly about her new track ‘Dull Tool’ instead.
Commissioned to feature on Judd Apatow’s arch new marital satire ‘This Is 40’, its lyrics are at odds with Apple’s at times unfathomable ‘Idler Wheel…’ LP in that they’re comparatively straight. Lines like “You don’t kiss when you kiss/You don’t say what you mean” spar against bouts of orchestral brawn in this loquacious and sinuous ‘fuck you’ to… well, whoever it’s to, and one that Apple – who despite being still shy of 40 and unmarried, has inevitably stared love (and hate) in the face in her time – is over-qualified to author.
After an apparent fracas between Apple and her label, the official version of ‘Dull Tool’ will also appear on the movie’s soundtrack when that’s released in the new year. In the meantime, a slightly unofficial SoundCloud version will have to do:
