Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette is being turned into a musical and I'm kind of devastated.
Why? Well, I was completely obsessed with the album when I was a teenager and I think this will ruin it a bit. Growing up, it was a big deal to me and I remember buying it more clearly than bits of my wedding day (it makes sense - being 13, I wasn't blitzed on prosecco).
It happened in Woolworths after finishing my Saturday shift at a local greasy spoon. Pay in hand, I was determined to spend and almost opted for Moseley Shoals by Ocean Colour Scene. But there was Jagged Little Pill next to it. So cool. So edgy. There's no one called Alanis where I'm from.
And for seven years this uniquely named woman held my hand when I got furious, when I got sad, when my period was a total nightmare. When I decided not to be Catholic anymore, when I'd had a bad night out, when my parents were doing my head in. Through leaving home, starting university and meeting friends who I'd basically fall in love with. Alanis was there.
If I wasn't singing Wake Up in my room - raging against the machine that, in my mind, was my parents - I was belting out You Oughta Know with an equally frustrated, gin-fuelled friend after something had gone tits up.
Because that's what Jagged Little Pill was about - letting it all out in a female way and not pretending everything wasn't shit. It let you stare into another girl's eyes and yowl your pain away together - every woman worth her salt knew all the words to Jagged Little Pill. There was no pretending everything was fine and keeping face. So what if the truth was ugly anyway?
But now it's going to be a musical and I hate this. The musical will tell you what the songs are about - give them context - and if you ask me, this will kill it. Jagged Little Pill feels so personal, I don't want to believe it's soundtracking anyone else's post-grunge angst except mine (and Alanis', of course). It feels wrong people will watch an actress sing these lyrics, clap politely and then maybe have a Starburst.
The saving grace is Alanis herself is very involved in the process which hopefully means the end product will be pretty exciting. In a statement about the forthcoming musical, she said: "I look forward to taking the heart of Jagged Little Pill and expanding its story, fleshing it out into ever deeper layers of emotionality, specificity, humanity, power, physicality, spirit and fabulist."
God I love her - who knew "fabulist" was even a word?
I don't like it, it's makes me uncomfortable and I can't see how it will retain the rawness of the actual album. But in truth I'll probably go see Jagged Little Pill the musical anyway - if anyone can make this an amazing thing, it's got to be Alanis, right?