The 15 songs that influenced Fiona Apple the most
When Fiona Apple marched back onto the scene in 2025 after half a decade with the incredible protest song, ‘Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)’, the world sat up and listened.
The song kept it light and simple on the instrumentation front, to allow Apple’s political lyricism ample space to shine. She wrote about the devastating impacts of mothers being held in pre-trial detention despite being presumed innocent, all because they can’t afford bail. The song cemented Apple as an artist with a worldly flair, an unwavering, empathetic core, and an unyielding, fierce commitment to storytelling.
Where did that all come from? Sure enough, Apple’s sense of self shines through in everything that she does, but sonically, she hasn’t grown in a vacuum. For Apple Music, the star delineated the 15 top songs that inspired her journey, one which, most recently, ended with a furiously inspiring song that reminds us why she always has been one of the greats.
Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Money Changes Everything’ kicks off the list, followed by Bill Withers’ ‘Use Me’. Withers’ track explores the messiness of a give-and-take relationship, shaped by his time working under a tough boss at a factory. Lauper’s song, on the other hand, tells it straight with a relationship turning sour after the woman leaves for someone wealthier.
The Jimi Hendrix ‘If 6 Was 9′ and The Roots’ ‘What They Do’ inspired Apple equally. Jon Brion’s ‘He Needs Me’ featuring Shelley Duvall from Popeye, as seen on the Punch Drunk Love soundtrack, is peppered with the same bare emotionalism we come to expect in Apple’s discography.
Apple also picks a live cover version of Frank Sinatra’s ‘The Best Is Yet to Come’ by Cy Coleman as an important track; indeed, we can hear the jazz sensibility strikingly as the double-bass keeps time beneath it all. “Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum / You came along, and everything started to hum,” he sings dashingly, lyrics that might’ve easily come from an Apple tune.
Though Apple has a penchant for songs that are off-the-beaten-track, she’s also one of us: Next, she picks ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles. Need I say anything at all about this? It might only be two minutes and 19 seconds long, but damn if Paul McCartney’s acoustic track doesn’t hit you in the stomach.
The beautiful Ella Fitzgerald track, ‘Love Is Here To Stay’, is also included in her top most influential song list, followed by Carmen Miranda’s ‘A Week-End in Havana’. Additionally, Apple deems Harry Belafonte’s ‘Maltilda’ an important track.
Anyone familiar with Apple’s work will know she has the utmost respect for the poet Maya Angelou. “My singing self was born out of singing Maya Angelou poems to myself at night, going to sleep,” she once famously confessed. As such, the recording of Angelou’s ‘Scandal in the Family’ is one of her absolute favourites.
Here come four more for the playlist: Laura Nyro’s ‘Stoney End’, Joan Armatrading’s ‘The Weakness In Me’ and Madonna’s ‘Live to Tell’ – all proper heavy-hitters in their own right. And rounding things off is Aimee Mann’s ‘Stupid Thing’, another one about a relationship falling to bits. Feel like you’ve got a better handle on Apple now? Same here.
The 15 songs that influenced Fiona Apple the most:
- ‘Money Changes Everything’ – Cyndi Lauper
- ‘Use Me’ – Bill Withers
- ‘If 6 Was 9’ – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
- ‘What They Do’ – The Roots
- ‘He Needs Me (feat. Shelley Duvall from Popeye)’ – Jon Brion
- ‘The Best Is Yet to Come (Live)’ – Cy Coleman
- ‘Blackbird’ – The Beatles
- ‘Love Is Here to Stay’ – Ella Fitzgerald
- ‘A Week-End in Havana’ – Carmen Miranda
- ‘Matilda’ – Harry Belafonte
- ‘Scandal in the Family’ – Maya Angelou
- ‘Stoney End’ – Laura Nyro
- ‘The Weakness in Me’ – Joan Armatrading
- ‘Live to Tell’ – Madonna
- ‘Stupid Thing’ – Aimee Mann
