Fiona Apple has 5 studio albums spanning almost 30 years, 1996 – 2020 and I’ve picked my favorite song from each. Related: what genre of music Fiona Apple makes.
Top 5 Songs by Fiona Apple
Here are my picks for the best songs by Fiona Apple.
5) “Slow Like Honey” from Tidal (1996)
“Slow Like Honey” is a sultry, jazz-inflected meditation on desire, power, and emotional mystique, one of Fiona Apple’s earliest and most haunting compositions. Written for her debut album Tidal, the song unfolds like a slow burn, with Apple’s voice gliding over vibraphone and piano as she conjures the image of a woman who knows she’s irresistible but remains enigmatic.
The lyrics, “It’s my big secret, keeping you coming / Slow like honey, heavy with mood” reveal a tension between vulnerability and control, fantasy and reality. Apple stretches herself “like a bridge,” pulling the listener to the edge of understanding, only to leave them suspended in longing.
4) “I Know” from When the Pawn Hits… (1999)
“I Know” is Fiona Apple at her most quietly devastating, a slow, smoky ballad that aches with unspoken truths and emotional restraint. Released on her 1999 album When the Pawn…, the song paints a portrait of a woman who waits in the wings, offering unconditional support to someone not yet ready to choose her.
Apple’s metaphor, “So be it, I’m your crowbar” casts her as both a tool of liberation and a silent witness to another’s emotional mess. The lyrics drip with patience and pain, as she sings of burying secrets in her skin and pretending not to know sins that she clearly sees. It’s a masterclass in lyrical subtlety, where love is not loud or demanding, but quietly enduring, even if it never gets its encore.
3) “Oh Well” from Extraordinary Machine (2005)
“Oh Well” is Fiona Apple at her most scathing and self-aware, a lyrical autopsy of a relationship that left her emotionally gutted and spiritually wiser. The song, from her 2005 album Extraordinary Machine, opens with the brutal line, “What you did to me made me see myself something different,” setting the tone for a reckoning that’s both personal and poetic.
Apple doesn’t just mourn the betrayal, she dissects it, tracing how her peace was stolen and her unconditional love wasted on someone who “doesn’t believe in the stuff”. The track’s emotional climax likens the lover’s sudden retraction to a “hypnic jerk,” a jarring, involuntary spasm just as one begins to fall asleep. It’s a metaphor for the false comfort and abrupt abandonment that defines the relationship.
2) “I Want You to Love Me” from Fetch the Bolt Cutters (2020)
“I Want You to Love Me” is Fiona Apple’s metaphysical love song, an ecstatic plea that transcends romance and dives into the pulse of existence itself. As the opening track on Fetch the Bolt Cutters, it sets the tone for an album that refuses to be polite. Apple begins with a quiet vulnerability, tracing the footprints of her emotional journey, but soon erupts into cosmic awareness:
“I know when I go / All my particles disband and disperse / And I’ll be back in the pulse.” It’s not just about wanting love, it’s about wanting to matter, to be felt, to be chosen while still in this fragile body. The song builds from delicate piano to a primal crescendo, ending with a raw vocal run that feels like a soul trying to escape its skin.
1) “Werewolf” from The Idler Screw… (2012)
“Werewolf” is Fiona Apple’s lyrical bloodletting, an emotionally complex track that turns heartbreak into myth and metaphor. From her 2012 album The Idler Wheel…, one of the best albums of all time, the song opens with a biting confession:
“I could liken you to a werewolf / The way you left me for dead / But I admit that I provided the full moon.” Apple doesn’t just cast blame, she implicates herself, acknowledging the volatile chemistry that made the relationship combust. Her metaphors evolve from werewolves to sharks, chemicals, and volcanoes, each one revealing a layer of pain, complicity, and transformation.
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