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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
All rights reserved

Alanis Morissette - Fifth time Around
There are only two artists who are not cut into five second strips by
the Tee Vee Flicker Device that I operate with surgical glee: John
Lennon and Alanis Morissette. In the case of the latter, the decision
was instantaneous: it was love at first sight. The only one to really
knock me for six in the last twenty years. In the case of the former,
I guess that's where I become a supposed infatuation junkie.

Today the new Morissette album came out. We estimated our joint
domestic requirements at three copies, and Susanne was first in line
at the record store. Tomorrow it's my turn with Mr Lennon (although we
have this annoying horse race in Melbourne that creates a public
holiday tomorrow -- that might get in the way of delivery).

Track sixteen on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie hits the Beatle
content bell square-on: Heart Of The House.

If Alanis wanted to choose a Lennon song for inspiration, she could do
no better than build on Norwegian Wood, the same song that Dylan
recycled when he wrote Fourth Time Around. Lennon understood the
connection at the time, but was too paranoid to reply to Dylan in
song (although I've never really looked -- maybe that's who the New
York Dr. Bob was on the next album?).

Set in the same key with the same lilting 12/8 on acoustic guitars,
Morisette's tune also descends third's wise with a modal sub-tonic
cadence:

        d  f#   g   e   f#  a b c               Tune
        D       C       D       a               Chord
        d       d       d       d               Bass

The acoustic guitar introduction sounds like it's trying to point out
the link when it repeats adds a G at the end of A-B-C, pointing to the
distinctive C-G-C-B-A of Norwegian Wood.

Like Lennon's and Dylan's songs, the lyric progresses independently
across verse and bridge. It shares the same four-square four bar
periods throughout.

The song is one of the five for which she wrote the music without Glen
Ballard. Most of her solo tracks are frighteningly simple in the
chord department. Three are written entirely against repeated ostinati
(riffs). Four are lyrical and deeply passionate.

Lennon may have provided the opening inspiration, but I hear more of
the McGarrigle Sisters and other women who explored the territory of
women singing for women. But the song is, of course, wholly owned by
this remarkable artist and was written for her mother:

        we left the men and we went for a walk in the gatineaues
        and talked like women to women to women would
        womyn to womyn would "where did you get that from
        must've been your father your dad"
        I got it from you I got it from you

Well, I've always missed the McGarrigle sisters (Blanche Comme La
Neige etc gave me aural comfort for many years when I was on the
road), so I'm bound to like the track. And I'm happy to see a
tradition grow. 

I'm stretching it, but I do hear a little Dylan in lines like this:

        do you see yourself in my gypsy garage sale ways?

Now a quick question: which John Lennon songs have been bootlegged
from Ms Morissette's last tour? Answer: Happiness Is A Warm Gun
(yep) and Norwegian Wood. I haven't heard the boots yet, but I think
I have a fair idea now how her version of Norwegian Wood would run.

ian hammond
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"in my lack of colour coordination"