The groundbreaking success of Alanis Morissette’s 1995 third studio album, Jagged Little Pill, is home to her most persistent hits.
It’s phenomenally rare—especially from that 1990s era where substance was still a cultural demand even in the pop arena—to squeeze so many singles out of one album.
But Morissette was seemingly unstoppable.
Alongside favorites like Ironic, You Learn, You Oughta Know, All I Really Want, and Hand in My Pocket, we find one of her most compelling tracks, Head Over Feet:
You’ve already won me over in spite of me
And don’t be alarmed if I fall head over feet
And don’t be surprised if I love you for all that you are
I couldn’t help it, it’s all your fault
I remember being struck by the “head over feet” lyrical decision over the traditional “head over heels,” even as a very young girl of eight or nine, when I was quickly growing an interest in songwriting myself.
I was learning, in that moment, that in compressed use of language like songwriting or poetry, using language in a more surprising and unexpected way would pay off exponentially in listener interest. I felt girlish delight in catching onto what we she was doing.
To this day, “head over heels” just seems like an old-fashioned figure of speech, but when I hear “head over feet,” there’s a playful visual that comes to mind unavoidably.
Alongside intuitive, interesting use of language in her songwriting, Morissette also regularly, as no one else really can, places emphasis on the unexpected syllables within words, or playing on the vowels in non-conventional ways. Arguably, no one else could get away with this, but somehow, for her, paired with her highly unique voice and general performance style, as well as its intentional repetition as a poetic device, it just works.
It becomes distinctly Morissette in a way that is difficult to replicate.
Good poets always make use of language in a creative way, and the bounds of breaking convention are an important topic. We have room for a few extreme exceptions—e.e. cummings comes to mind—but when we drift too far we lose all relationship to sense, or end up in the mediocrity common to a digital attention economy.
Morissette navigates this universally well. She is often notably strange in her choices, but just within bounds enough to express tangible feelings and experiences in a fresh way that still resonates without alienating.
She is not, at least not as a rule, deconstructive. She simply knows how to make things interesting enough to pay attention to.
There is beauty in honesty and hope, and Morissette understands this even at the young age at which she wrote and released the album and the song.
But one of her most brilliant instincts as a songwriter is to not overplay things, either. She doesn’t gush. She uses, instead, small clues and relational details to give away the plot—that someone sincerely asking how her day, holding the door, listening well strikes her as profound, and that these are the makings of something great.
She correctly sees that little things are what make up a real and more mature love, rather than the emotional fireworks we are all taught to emphasize as paramount. She playfully uses the often disappointing phrase “best friend with benefits” to refer to an actual healthy stacking of elements: romance based in grounded appreciation for the other and sincere, close friendship. We infer laughter, comfort, and earnest connection alongside the necessary physical attraction. It’s a love that is “rational” and makes her feel not crazy, not overwhelmed, not overly excited, but instead “healthy.”
And so, Morissette is won over, in spite of herself, and it’s his “fault” because of his persistence, kindness, and humble choosing of her. He has earned access to her heart through his love.
Anyone who knows Morissette’s story a bit knows it took some time for her to really find the fullness of what she had started to experience at the time of “Head Over Feet.” But here we already see a real development of her own heart and what she wants, and an honesty about the things that will eventually form the basis of her marriage and family building down the line.
Songs like this can perhaps help another generation view love through a lens of peace, truth, and stability, valuing the real things over the fleeting and false.
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