Chaos Theory

We’re in the library of the Culloden Hotel in Holywood, Co. Down and, having just scanned the bookcases (port-coloured first editions of Parliamentary speeches, some Sommerville and Ross, Henry Irving’s Shakespeare, lots of bibles), the stunning view offered from the third floor window is now demanding our attention.

In a former life, this sumptuous pad was built for the delectation of the Bishop of Down, and from this particular vantage point – looking out over a huge, rolling drop of a lawn that fades on approach to the hazy, blue expanse of Belfast Lough – you can understand how it would encourage thoughts of higher things.
These days, of course, it’s a five star hotel and the view that was once solely the preserve of senior orders of the clergy, is now, theoretically, available to all – at least all of those ordained in the requisite tax bracket.
Such as, for example, the internationally-renowned pop star currently sitting by my shoulder.
One wonders what the old bishop would have made of having a self-avowed feminist, who made her name singing about blow-jobs in public places, perched merrily on his window-sill. However, as we will later discover, perhaps the pair would have more in common than you would imagine.
“Isn’t it beautiful,” says a giggly, Alanis Morissette. “Even though I’m quite sure it’s not giving me a rounded view of Belfast.”
There are, for better or worse, certain mid-90s visual relics that were burned into the retinas of even the most unwilling music fan. Try it – close your eyes and you’ll still be able to see them: Liam Gallagher’s bowlegs, for example; Jarvis Cocker’s spectacles; the be-hatted Karl Hyde, rocking back and forward in a bath – lager, lager, lager.
Prominent amongst this debris was the hairdo of a young, caterwauling Canadian. A lank, thick, spine-touching, dark brown mop that got tossed around like a weapon as its, well, owner laid into every complacent lay or defective boyfriend that had hitherto darkened her doorstep. As Alanis Morissette’s debut album Jagged Little Pill sold 20 million copies and launched into ubiquity, so the sight of her hunched forward, microphone in hand, swaying that mane around her knees in an angsty frenzy, established itself as one of the decade’s most recognisable pop postures.
Five seconds into the video for ‘Everything’, Morissette’s first single in almost three years, a passer-by grabs those very same locks and, producing a pair of scissors, cuts them smartly off. The singer smiles serenely while it happens and walks on, looking (just as she does here today) like an older, Mocha-drinking sister of one of Girls Aloud. If, on launching her fourth LP, Morissette wanted to signal a change in attitude, it’s difficult to imagine how she could be more direct.
Not, of course, that she claims to be so calculating.
“Oh no,” she says. “It was all very spontaneous. I actually did it over two years ago. It was something that I was always going on to my friends about and they were like ‘Yes, Alanis, whatever you say’. But one night I was watching the Oscars, a little bit bored, and just decided that I wanted to do it. Then I just kept chopping – bit-by-bit over a period of a few months. It was entirely painless. It’s something I should have done a long time ago.”
Her new album, So Called Chaos, seems to have benefited from a similar weight being lifted. If Jagged Little Pill’s success stemmed from the crafty way it melded commercial, grunge-lite pop with surprisingly bile-filled lyrics, then the inability of Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie and Under Rug Swept to match that feat can be explained, in part, by the fondness displayed on both records for laboured dirges and incomprehensible (therapy-inspired) thematic conceits.
As her last two albums struggled to match the impact of her first, the space cleared in the MTV woods by Morissette, has been filled by the likes of Avril Lavigne and Pink. So Called Chaos, with its leaner, punchier modus operandi sounds like a conscious attempt to reclaim lost ground – favouring directness over formlessness, and presenting a view of its writer more varied than any previous release. On ‘Doth I Protest To Much’ it even seems like Alanis Morissette is taking the piss out of herself.
“I hope people can recognise that I’ve changed,” she says. “This record was all about me taking responsibility and trying desperately to become whole. I’ve stopped trying to be 100 % good, 100% empathetic. Stopped coming down hard on myself when I screwed up. So, there’s a lot of humour there, self-effacement, sarcasm. Really, I’m just struggling desperately to love all the different parts of me – from the most stupid things, to the most inspiring.”
Anyone fooled by the titular reference into thinking that Morissette’s standard preoccupations have extended towards global politics need not fear. This is still a record wrapped up in boy-girl problems. That’s not to say, though, that she considers it artistically evasive.
“I think all conflict – whether it’s inter-personal or on an international level – stems from a failure or refusal to communicate. Personally, I think that by approaching the subject microcosmically – writing about two people who may nurture violent emotions in regard to one-another – you can extrapolate a broader significance. I’ve been having this discussion with my friends. I know people will disagree with me, but I’m prepared to argue my case.” However, even though she has no intention of writing a concept LP based on the Middle East conflagration, it hasn’t stopped Morissette falling foul of the powers-that-be Stateside. On release, the essentially harmless ‘Everything’ found itself subject to an American radio ban – the word ‘asshole’ (as in: “I’m the biggest asshole that you’ve ever known”) proving too hot (or lukewarm) for some stations to handle. Electing not to circle any wagons for a show-down (“If I’m going to fight a battle, it will be the battle”), she decided to replace the offending word with “nightmare” – a term, she claims, that has a much more unsettling charge than the one it acted as substitute for.
“I’ve been listening to some of my male friends,” she says, tucking her legs beneath her on the chair. “And the way they spoke about women or old girlfriends – this word kept recurring. I know for a fact that there are people from my past who would regard me in that way. This is my way of embracing that facet of my character – holding my hands up and admitting it. So, in a strange way, having to change the song has, creatively speaking, worked out okay.”
If the episode provided a minor cameo in the wider battle taking place in U.S culture at the moment between neo-con puritans and liberal dissenters, then Morissette – a supporter of Amnesty International and an anti-death penalty activist (recently acting in the penal drama ‘The Exonerated’) - has already signalled which side she intends to turn out for. How are you finding election year?
“I’ve never conformed to the Republican/Democrat dichotomy. In my wildest, most utopian moments, the ideal form of government that I wish desperately for is a Green one. But first things first. Yes, I want to get from A to G, but at this moment in time I think what is most important is to get from A to B.”
As a resident of the States for most of your adult life now, how have you found the last few years?
“Depressing, for many of the obvious reasons but also incredibly inspiring in that I’ve witnessed lots of people thinking for themselves and becoming active in all kinds of ways. It’s difficult to see anything positive coming from what’s happened over the course of the last few years, but I do think that people have been mobilised – by that I mean setting up websites, organising talks and meetings, joining progressive organisations. The election is too close to call and that’s been really positive. It’s meant that people have been afraid of being complacent – they aren’t just prepared to sit back and let the same thing happen again.”
And what about rumours that Morissette herself has been “getting active” in an unusual way? Any truth in the rumour that you have enroled as a religious minister on the Internet? She smiles, although noticeably not too widely.
“Two friends of mine were getting married and asked me if I would like to perform the ceremony. At first I was like ‘Are you kidding?’ But no, they said they were serious. So, I signed up on-line. It was an honour. I was humbled.
A bit of a come-down, though?
“What do you mean?”
“Well, after playing God (in Kevin Smith’s Dogma).
“Right, perfect training. People are going to get ideas about me…”
The angle put on this was that you were protesting against Bush’s attempts to ban gay marriages.
“That’s a bit of a spin. What I said was that I could perform gay marriages. But I haven’t yet. No-one’s asked me.”
And if they did?
“If I liked the couple? There’s no reason why not.”
The old room seems confused. Wonder if the Bishop can hear?