For Alanis Morissette, 1996 single Ironic was a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it gave her a massive hit, but on the other, she’s had to spend the past 30 years defending the song’s lyrics and explaining that, yes, she does actually know what irony is.
Speaking on a new episode of MGM+’s Words + Music, though, Morissette suggests that she’s no longer bothered about what people think. Looking back on the song’s release, she says: "People got really triggered by the malapropism, or whatever the word. I am a linguist. I'm obsessed with linguistics. I also love making up words, and I also don't care."
Fair enough - but Morissette does go on to say that she has spent some time pondering what all the fuss was about.
"Where I go when people are triggered by anything is I quickly go to ‘what's at the epicentre of this - what is everyone really up in arms about? Why is everyone laughing?’” she says. “And I think we're afraid to look stupid.”
Morissette goes on to say that she wasn’t precious about the lyrics or people’s reaction to them. In fact, she’s previously got herself in on the joke herself, both in comedy skits and during an adapted performance of Ironic on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2015, when she added the line "it's singing 'Ironic', when there are no ironies."
"I think a lot of lyrics around the planet, many, many artists, most of us aren't being wildly precious about it,” she says now. “So I'm 90% grammar police, which is the real irony. And then 10% I really couldn't care less. So I think the 10% won over on that song."
So, is it ironic that someone who likes to police other people’s grammar was called out for a malapropism? We’ll leave that for you to decide…
