Alanis Morissette

On her introspective new album, her empathy for addicts, and how she finally came to terms with ‘Ironic’

- BRIAN HIATT

As with the rest of humanity, Alanis Morissette’s big plans for 2020 haven’t quite worked out. With the hit musical of Jagged Little Pill running strong on Broadway as the year began, she was going to release her first album in eight years, the wrenching Such Pretty Forks in the Road, in May and then tour for the 25th anniversary of her debut. The new album is still coming out — now on July 31st — but the rest of it has evaporated. “It’s the classic stages of grief,” says Morissette. As for the nearly decade-long wait between studio albums, there’s an all-too-simple explanation, she adds with a laugh: “I think it’s straight-up having three children.”

The introspection of your new album feels well-suited to the times. What was your thinking in delaying it from the spring?

I just thought it intuitively doesn’t feel right to be putting a record out about one woman’s crisis when we’re in the middle of a pandemic. I got a fifty-fifty reaction depending upon which friend I told that information to. One would say, “Yeah, wait, please. I can’t take any more.” And then other friends said the total opposite thing: “Are you kidding me? I want to lose myself in your story and in your words.”

When you were 20, you sang, “I haven’t got it all figured out just yet.” It feels like part of this album’s message is that it’s still OK to feel that way later in life.