Length 3:33 Writer(s) Fiona Apple | Label Epic | |
Released April 24, 2012 (2012-04-24) Format 7" Vinyl, music download Recorded Stanley Recordings
(Venice, Los Angeles)
NBB Studio
(New York City) | ||
"Every Single Night" is a song written and performed by American alternative singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. It was released on April 24, 2012 by Epic Records as the lead and only single from her fourth studio album The Idler Wheel... (2012).
Contents
Background and release
"Every Single Night" marked Apple's first single in six years since "Get Him Back" (2006). Apple began writing and recording the song in secret, unbeknownst from her label. Apple and producer Charley Drayton opted to use minimal musical arrangement in the song by performing in a celesta and a marimba. The song chronicles what Apple used to dream every night in which she remarked "Every single night's a fight with my brain." Apple first performed the song during the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas in 2012. The music video of the song premiered on the Sundance Channel on June 10, 2012 and was directed by Joseph Cahill in Paris, France. It features scenes of Apple in a bed with a Minotaur, with snails, feeding an alligator, wearing an octopus for a hat. Michaell Cragg of The Guardian remarked of the video "The singer seems to have gone Gaga with her new video, in which she sports a squid headpiece and snail ensemble." Rolling Stone compared the video to Apple's controversial music video of her single "Criminal" (1996) remarking "It's sort of like her breakthrough video for 1996's "Criminal," if it took place at a wildlife preserve instead of a seedy house party."
Chart performance and critical reception
Following the release of The Idler Wheel..., the song debuted at 72 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart on the week ending July 21, 2012, marking her first entry on the chart. Even though the song failed to enter any of the Billboard charts in the United States, the song has received critical acclaim from critics, with some citing it as the highlight of the album. Jillian Mapes of Billboard commented, "Needless to say, Apple's single isn't a "Criminal" sequel, and radio airplay doesn't appear to be the goal here. Yet it's fair to deem "Every Single Night" a triumphant comeback by being exactly what Apple's cult of devotees has been yearning for." She also remarked following the album's release that "Musically, the song straddles the line between childlike and eerie, led by a music box toy piano and Apple's own tribal yodeling." Robbie Daw of Idolator offered a mixed review by calling the song a " delicate and quirky track". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic commented on the song's non-single nature, remarking that "Some hooks are stronger than others -- "Periphery" cuts to the quick, whereas "Every Single Night" surges—but what was rumored about Extraordinary Machine (2005) is actually true about The Idler Wheel..: there are no singles here, nothing concise and concentrated to facilitate an easy sell... Lacking either ornate production or a pop single, The Idler Wheel... plays like Fiona Apple at her purest and that's plenty complicated."
Track listing
- "Every Single Night" - 3:33
- "Every Single Night" - 3:33
- "Anything We Want" (live version) - 4:40