Hearing Alanis Morissette’s lyrics is like listening to her private confessions.
“For me in art, there’s this no-holds-barred approach … ” she said. “As soon as I start to write, there’s this uncensored, unedited freedom to step outside of the shackles of some of the thoughts in my head around being ashamed. So if I could offer anything to anyone who would listen to my songs, it would be just a four-minute moment of dropping any shame around being human.”
Morissette will perform at 8 p.m. at DAR Constitution Hall, just days into her 38-city tour. She is promoting her first release in four years of original material recorded in the studio. The tour continues Tuesday in Baltimore at The Lyric Opera House.
The singer is best known among casual listeners for the ultimate angry female anthem, “You Oughta Know,” and other career-making hits off of 1995’s “Jagged Little Pill” — the 10th best-selling album of all time.
To the Canadian-born musician, “You Oughta Know” “was about reducing shame,” she said. “So as a woman, I had shame around being powerful. I had shame around being a warrior. I had shame around being angry. I had shame around being vulnerable and devastated and ugly and rejected and all these seemingly shameful things.”
Under go-bows, which are basically lights with words in them, Morissette will deliver her “hands-down favorite set list,” she said. “It’s a combination of wonderful self-indulgence that keeps me and everyone on stage really happy and then the songs that I want to make sure that I communicate with people because it will be like a familiar kind of home to some people.
“And there’s a fluidity through the first whole section of the set,” she continued. “It’s like water to me, where the lights and the sound kind of flow through one to the next. And then later in the show there’s an acoustic section, I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time, so we break down to this acoustic section and then we tie the bow with getting plugged in again right at the end.”
Morissette recently revealed she’s trying to find a way to encourage artists “who want to throw in the towel because of the business aspects of things — the logistical aspects, the climate changing, the whole branding conversation, all of that can really kill the soul of an artist in a way, focusing on that side of the brain … so I’m trying to figure out what to say to them to encourage them to keep creating art in a way that will allow them to survive financially and at the same time not kill their soul by having it re-enter them into an industry that they don’t necessarily resonate with.”
If you go
Alanis Morissette
When: 8 p.m. tonight
Where: DAR Constitution Hall, 1776 D St. NW, Washington
Tickets: $45.50 to $51.50 at ticketmaster.com
More info: 202-628-1776; www.alanismorissette.com
