Q - March 1999
Interesting observation about shared pronounciation. Thank You for Hearing Me was written after her breakup with Peter Gabriel and was released on 1994’s Universal Mother. Thank U was written in 1997 and appeared on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie two years later.
Toward the end of the second leg of the Jagged Little Pill tour—known as the Intellectual Intercourse Tour—she began dropping unreleased songs into her setlist. One of those was a song called King of Intimidation, a Ballard-Morissette collaboration penned on the road only months before its 1996 debut. (I first heard about in Barry Grills’s book and was super intrigued by the lyrics.)
In the closing stanza, she rhymes off a rapid-fire list of adjectives aimed at the hypocrite(s) in the song’s crosshairs. One of those was si-lence, sung in exactly the same, slanted way.
In 2019, O'Connor claimed that Madonna, head of Maverick Records, had told Morissette to mimic her vocal style. Although similarities abound, a quick listen will reveal that Morissette’s style was pretty well cemented as early as 1984, when she recorded her first demos for what was supposed to be her first album (at only 10!)
Further listening to the Jagged Little Pill demos, which were cut with Glen Ballard in ‘94, will also reveal a style all her own. There may have been some unconscious imitation of O'Connor, but that’s all it would have been. It certainly wasn’t done at Madonna’s behest. Morissette had had trouble finding a label until she caught Madonna’s ear; by that time, most of the songs had been recorded with a full band, and all used the original demo vocals.
Another tidbit for those who are wondering: The spoken-word introduction to King was taken from the 1950 documentary, “A Date with Your Family.” Clip starts at 1:06. There is also a MSTK3 version!
