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She does play the harmonica, though. The next song, which features a long harmonica solo, isn't on the Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie lyric sheet. I can't understand a single word of it (except for the phrase "how inappropriate," which keeps popping up like raisins in rice pudding). Half way through, Alanis hunches over and goes into her harmonica riff, swaying from foot to foot with her hair over her face. This makes me squirm, even on my own living-room sofa; she's baring it all for them, acting out some sort of breakdown. When she straightens up and launches back into the words of the song, the crowd goes wild.
They scream for five solid minutes before the band can transition into the next tune: a pretty, haunting melody, very traditional and structured, like a ballad. The words are a deliberate contrast, wandering and incoherent ("Zen-like," one reporter calls them, kindly), never meeting the tune at the same place twice. "As we were talking outside it was cold, we were shivering yet warmed by the subject matter, my wife is in the next room, we've been having troubles you know … and I said I haven't been eating chicken or meat or anything and you said yes, but you've been wearing leather and laughed and said we're at the top of the food chain and yes, you're a fine woman and I cringed, I was hoping, I was hoping we could heal each other."
"Eh?" my husband says.
I decide that this is a good time for an ice-cream break; I can hear the nice traditional tune and chord progression from the kitchen, and the words (which I can't understand unless I follow along) are apparently irrelevant. I'm still scooping cookies and cream into a bowl when the band goes into Alanis's soundtrack song from City of Angels. The melody is hauntingly beautiful, and when I come back into the living room to watch, the camera is panning over the girls in the crowd; they sing along with her, their faces twisted into absolute ecstasy.
I didn't go to see City of Angels because angel-come-to-earth movies annoy me. (Beautiful actresses playing heart surgeons annoy me even more.) But these girls aren't crying because of the theological resonance of the lyrics; this is the song of a woman with a gorgeous man at her feet, a woman who can choose to love or turn away. "Like anyone would be, I am flattered by your fascination with me … I don't think you're unworthy, I need a moment to deliberate." One college-age woman, sitting on her boyfriend's shoulders, is weeping hysterically; by the time the song ends, she is gasping for air. It's so weird, so compelling, that I rewind the tape and watch it twice more.
Alanis now introduces the band, a group of sweaty muscular guys who occasionally hawk and spit into the wings. I try to watch this process with an outsider's eye, and I see, not just a band, but a team of supporting players working in almost complete harmony, a crowd of men focusing all the light and glory onto one young woman at the center of the stage. No wonder all those girls go wild. "Sometimes on stage I'm like a mirror," Morissette says. "My music becomes less about me and more about what the audience sees in me that reminds them of themselves." The weeping girl is still sitting on her boyfriend's shoulders; he's starting to stagger a little under her weight.
But now it's time for something really big: the performance of "You Oughta Know," Morissette's unbelievably platinum song of hatred and revenge. The crowd sings every word, even the obscene ones, identifying with every twisted emotion. "You seem very well, things look peaceful. I'm not quite as well. I thought you should know. Did you forget about me, Mr. Duplicity? … It was a slap on the face how quickly I was replaced."
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