Fiona Apple - "Pale September"

Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, and poet. An eight-time Grammy Award nominee and one-time winner, her albums have reached the top five on the U.S. chart in four consecutive decades.

The youngest daughter of actor Brandon Maggart, Apple was born in New York City but was raised alternating between New York and her father's home in Los Angeles. Classically trained on piano as a child, she began composing her own songs when she was eight years old. Her debut album, Tidal, containing songs written when she was 17, was released in 1996 and received a Grammy Award for Best Female Vocal Rock Performance for the single "Criminal". She followed with When the Pawn... (1999), produced by Jon Brion, which was also critically and commercially successful and was certified platinum.

For her third album, Extraordinary Machine (2005), Apple again collaborated with Brion, and began recording the album in 2002. However, Apple was reportedly unhappy with the production and opted not to release the record, leading fans to protest Epic Records, erroneously believing that the label was withholding its release. The album was eventually re-produced without Brion and released in October 2005. The album was certified gold, and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. In 2012, she released her fourth studio album, The Idler Wheel..., which received critical praise and was followed by a tour of the United States and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2013. Apple's fifth studio album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, was released in 2020 to widespread acclaim.

She has sold over 10 million albums worldwide and has received numerous awards and nominations, including a Grammy Award, 2 MTV Video Music Awards and a Billboard Music Award.

So today, waving goodbye to a year spinning madly away from us, I choose Fiona Apple’s “Pale September” as my, cool like a heatwave, a pool of ice, a fire I froze inside of, song for a, creep on at a pound of flesh per inch, like glass for gravel, hurry on winter and warm me up, Wednesday.