In the latest episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Alanis Morissette discusses her powerful new album, Such Pretty Forks in the Road, 25 years of Jagged Little Pill, and much more, including a moment when she laughingly addresses years of “shaming” over those dubious examples of irony (a black fly in your Chardonnay?) in her hit song “Ironic.” To hear the entire episode, press play below:
In any case, Morissette was never particularly attached to “Ironic,” which largely stood apart from the autobiographical narrative of the Jagged Little Pill album. “I didn’t even want it on the record,” she explains. “And I remember a lot of people going, ‘Please please, please.’ So I said, OK. That was one of the first songs we wrote, almost like a demo to get our whistles wet. But people wound up really liking the melody, and I wasn’t that precious about it. And I came to realize later that perhaps I should have been,” she admits, laughing. “Whoops!”