Fast as You Can
| "Fast as You Can" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Fiona Apple | ||||
| from the album When the Pawn... | ||||
| B-side | "Across the Universe" | |||
| Released | 1999 (US) November 20, 1999 (Japan) February 14, 2000 (UK) |
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| Format | CD single | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 4:40 | |||
| Label | Epic | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Fiona Apple (lyricist and composer) | |||
| Producer(s) | Jon Brion | |||
| Fiona Apple singles chronology | ||||
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| Alternative cover | ||||
US promo CD
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"Fast as You Can" is a song written by Fiona Apple, and produced by Jon Brion for her second album, When the Pawn.... It was released as the album's lead single in late 1999 in the United States and in February 2000 in the United Kingdom. It became one of Apple's most successful singles in both countries, and its music video, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, was well received. The video and track were popular on MTV Europe's US Top 20 resulting in some popularity for Fiona Apple across Europe.
Apple said that with the song, she wanted to explore different moods and the "ups and downs" of a relationship. "When you get to the middle [of the song], that spell of confusion takes you out of the element for a minute, which is, of course, what happens emotionally. But the beat never changes." Apple said the song is "really just thoughts that were running through my head that were in that rhythm".
Jon Brion said he knew "exactly" what he wanted the song to sound like. "I knew I wanted it to be Matt Chamberlain on drums", he said. "He can play all this beautiful machine-influenced stuff, but with human feel." Brion played a "very busy bass line idea" for Apple on a keyboard in his kitchen, combining the line with a "groove" in the style of Chamberlain's work. Apple became excited and said, "That's great! That feels exactly like it!" Brion and Apple stressed in interviews that it was Apple, and not Brion, who created the time-changes and structure in the song were already present when he worked on it. "All I did was to heighten pre-existing things", Brion said. "In terms of the color changes, I am coordinating all of those, but the rhythms are absolutely Fiona's."
The Philadelphia Inquirer described the song as "slightly off-kilter, perpetually destabilized ... an intricate suite of shifting moods that starts as a '60s soul-jazz stomp, then is connected by a rueful ballad interlude to a sauntering triple-meter chorus."The New York Times wrote that it "signals its mood swings — love me, fight me, don't go, get out while you can — with tempo changes and unlikely interludes, from a blunt hip-hop drumbeat to [flute-like] 'Strawberry Fields' keyboards."Newsweek characterized the song as "galloping" and "syncopated", and Spin magazine called it "skittery".
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