I can't make heads or tails of Fiona Apple's new CD -- awkwardly titled The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw & Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do -- but I suspect if I could, there'd be monsters in the middle.

It's very strange. I mean, even for Fiona, it's wicked weird.

Starting off is OK, with a bouncy tune called "Every Single Night."

"Every single night, I endure the flight
of little wings of white flame,
butterflies in my brain...."

Cute imagery. It continues on to be about the distraction of creativity (I'm pretty sure ... the album's liner notes are real hard to read).

"Every single night's a fight with my brain...."

I know that up-all-night, burning sense of imminent creation well.

Next up, "Daredevil" is fun and jaunty, but a little prescient of the darkness to come.

"Don't let me ruin me,
I may need a chaperone...."

Indeed, as we come to "Valentine."

"While you were watching someone else,
I stared at you and cut myself...."

Whoa. Really? This shit just got serious.

The happiness just keeps on coming, as in "Werewolf."

"I could liken you to a werewolf,
the way you left me for dead,
but I admit I provided a full moon...."

It's actually a good song, and was my favorite on the album, before it abruptly erupted into a background scene of screaming and panicked chaos, above which she continues singing blithely.

What's missing here is the fun, sassy style that has always kept Apple's albums from going over the edge into some sort of emo morass, which she's finally done.

I've said before that she's like a friend for whom you just want something good, finally some good, to happen. But this is very, very bad indeed.