Introduction
I remember the first time I ever heard Erykah Badu was when I was about 13-14 years old, watching the Blues Brothers 2000 (which despite a lot of ridicule, happens to be one of my favourite films). It was in the film's version of "Funky Nassau" in which Ms. Badu, playing the part of voodoo witch Queen Mousette, sings an amazing verse (which if you haven't heard you should really listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqTHrwqQD-w). From that moment I fell in love with her voice and how she possess these smooth, sultry qualities that can become so soulful and powerful in the blink of an eye. After this I quickly took to YouTube to hear more of her work.
The first song of hers I ever came across was On & On which amazed me with it's minimalistic style, and thought provoking lyrics like "If your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well earned" and "You rush into destruction cause you don't have nothing left". This song then lead me onto other songs such as; Bag Lady, Honey, Tyrone, and the list goes on, then when I was 18, I finally decided to buy her album after being just a 'partial fan' for so long. The album I bought was Baduizm, I remember being so excited as I walked to the till and handed over my money to the cashier, as lame as that sounds.
Lyrics
As soon as I got to my flat I put my headphones in and put the CD into my laptop and just lay back and let the Queen of Neo-soul and her music play. Appletree is the third song on the album and I remember being instantly being taken in by The song opens with Ms. Badu's luxurious vocals politely informing us that she has some "food for thought" to share with the listener and that this has come through the shared knowledge she has gathered in her life, I particularly like the line "Since knowledge is infinite. It has infinitely fell on me" Because Ms. Badu is owning the fact that her lyrics are meaningful and clever but attributes this to the constant passing on of wisdom and knowledge, connecting her with the listener who she is now sharing this knowledge with.
The first line we hear in the first verse almost seems like Ms. Badu is setting the scene as if she were telling a story, telling us "It was a stormy night, you know the kind where the lightning strikes". This first verse is in keeping with the style of this opening line, telling us how she "was hanging out with some of my artsy friends" relaxing with them all night talking and burning incense until dawn of the next day. Once again this re-establishes Ms. Badu's connection with the listener as she prides herself being able to 'hang' with these people and enjoy their company all night until the next day.
After this first verse we're taken to the 'hook' or the pre-chorus. This section of the song focuses on Ms. Badu telling the audience that she "picks my friends like I pick my fruit" not allowing those who she sees as being negative into her life and try to hold her back from being "free like a willow tree" with their negative thoughts. This line is interesting as well as it ties in with the title of the song, Appletree, which I'm presuming is a reference to the Apple tree in the Garden of Eden especially with the recurring themes of knowledge and wisdom in the song, for example when she says "My Ganny told me that when I was only a youth", this is yet another instance of knowledge being passed onto Ms. Badu from a young age, to leave the 'bad apples' alone and only choose those truly worth her time. She also makes another interesting point by telling the
audience that she doesn't conform to fit in with others and isn't interested in being like anyone else with the lines, "I don't walk around trying to be what I'm not. I don't waste my time trying to get what you got".
After this we move onto the chorus in which the lines, "And if you don't want to be down with me, Then you don't want to pick from my apple tree" are repeated 3 times. To me this, this reads almost like a warning to the people who would critique her lifestyle and music. The first line "And if you don't want to be down with me" refers to people don't agree with her philosophies or ideas and put her down rather than 'being down' with her, she then goes on to say that these people "don't want to pick from my apple tree" which seems to mean that they can't actually comprehend the knowledge she is trying to share so they shouldn't even try. "Don't want to pick from my apple tree" also alludes back to the idea that Ms. Badu thinks of herself like the biblical tree of knowledge and that picking her fruit and accepting it's knowledge nourishes and strengthens those ready to receive it.
I particularly like the first line in the second verse, "I have a ho...And I take it everywhere I go" as it shows Ms.Badu's humorous side, by using the word "ho" as a double entendre before clarifying she's referring to a garden hoe, in the next line. When she says, "cause I'm plantin' seeds so I reaps what I sow", it shows that Ms. Badu understands that the knowledge she shares in her music does have an effect on her listeners and that she is prepared to 'reap what she sows' and accept the consequences of the effect of her words.
We are then treated to those 8 words that, if you're a fan of Erykah Badu (particularly the album Baduizm) you'll have become quite familiar with, "my cypher keeps moving like a rolling stone". It took me a long time
to actually figure out what she actually means when she says this in her music but I recently discovered that the word "cypher" is a term used to describe an on-going freestyle rap between two rappers (line for line) or the continuous 'flow' of one individual rapper by themselves and this flow is "moving like a rolling stone", so it's just goes on & on (no pun intended) and can't be stopped, an idea reiterated by Ms. Badu's powerful vocal proclamation "I can't control the soul flowing in me" referring to the idea that her music has so much 'soul' and 'feeling' that it cannot be controlled.
I think overall the lyrics are very cleverly written with intelligent references to the Tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden and that her knowledge is like the apple that Eve picked from the tree and that knowledge is like food that has to be planted and grown before being passed on to other people. However, despite being very cleverly written in some places there is also a great deal of repetition of lyrics, for example the last four sections of the song are just repetitions of what has already been said. Some individuals may see this as laziness on Ms. Badu's part, as we know she is very capable of writing intelligent and fitting lyrics that could've offered more to the song but she gets away with this laziness because her sultry vocal styling make whatever she's singing pleasant to listen to regardless of the lyrics actually are... On the other hand the repetition, of the pre-chorus and chorus, really drills the message of the song into the reader's mind, that Ms. Badu is out to live her life and not care about what others think of her.
Production
The production on this track was carried out my Ms. Badu herself accompanied by R&B producer Ike Lee III who has worked with many other notable artists (a list of which can be found here: https://www.discogs.com/artist/248939-Ike-Lee-III).
The lead vocals are clean and sit well above the other instruments on the track. There is only a slight amount of reverb that has been applied to the vocals, which can be heard clearest in the second verse on the line "I can't control the soul flowing in me". At the points 0:58 and 3:00 the "doo wee doo wee doo wee" parts have been double tracked giving an chorus-type effect to her vocals, however interestingly the "doo wee doo wee doo wee" part at 2:00 uses backing vocals instead of double tracking to maintain a similar effect. One more notable use of double tracking is at 2:33 when Ms. Badu is singing "Oh my". I suspect that a compressor has been used at 1:36 to when Ms. Badu hits a high note but I can't be entirely sure.
All of the backing vocals on this track have been provided by Ms. Badu herself, through the use of overdubbing. The backing vocals are placed sporadically throughout the track, however they are a fixture in the chorus on the line "Don't wanna pick from my apple tree". The volume of the backing vocals sits low in the mix so as not to distract from the main vocals but high enough to give a definite presence and emphasise certain lines or phrases of the track, in some parts it even gives the effect that Ms. Badu is talking to herself, for example at 1:26. The panning of the backing vocals is also done sporadically as it changes frequently to add texture to the otherwise minimalistic track.
The Bass is the next most prominent part of this track just beneath the vocals. The would say that the Bass has been DI’d, (Direct Injection is a form of recording where a sound is recorded directly into audio software rather than played through an amp and recorded with a microphone) and has been given a ‘clean’ sound but it is possible that some of the lower frequencies have been boosted to give a ‘deeper’ bass sound that is more suited to the style in which it is being played.
I know that there are two keyboards used to play the underlying melody in the song, I think the keyboard playing continuous chords and melodies throughout the song is a Hammond Organ, which has had a fair bit of reverb added to it but nothing that that disrupts the other instruments in the song. The Hammond organ sits towards the centre-right of the stereo-field throughout the song. The other keyboard voice I think has been used in an electric piano, which just plays stabbed chords every two bars, this two has had a fair bit of reverb applied to it but nothing intrusive to the rest of the mix. This sits towards the centre left of the stereo-field so there isn't a 'muddy' effect caused by the frequencies of the two keyboard sounds clashing.
The beat for this song is provided by a drum machine so the sound is constant throughout however, during the chorus more reverb is applied to the snare, creating a longer tail that 'brightens' up the chorus. During the parts where Ms. Badu sings "doo wee doo wee doo wee" as well as during the bridge, they replace the snare with a rim-shot, this is probably in an attempt to let Ms. Badu's vocals be the focal point of these parts, if the snare was present it would be overpowering and her vocals wouldn't sit at the forefront of the mix.
A whistling sample (possibly a bird whistle) is used to provide the main melody of the track. At the beginning of the track when Ms. Badu is doing her spoken introduction, you can hear bird whistles in the background of the track, panned to the right, this adds to the idea of nature and the Appletree referred to in the title. This whistle doesn't play constantly throughout the track it mainly occurs during the chorus' where it plays constantly, it also occurs once at the beginning of the first verse and second pre-chorus. During the bridge the whistle occurs again, however, in the bridge a delay effect has been added to the whistle, the tail of which can be heard in the right of the stereo-field.
It's also possible to hear a record crackle throughout this track although it sits very low in the mix and is primarily just there to provide 'depth' to the track as well as giving it a 'warmer' tonality.
Conclusion
For me this song shows exactly who Erykah Badu is as a musician and an artist. The laid-back, 'chilled', minimalistic vibe of this song can be seen in nearly every song that Ms. Badu creates, which some may see as a bad thing as she doesn't push herself as an artist to expand her music into new directions or reach new audiences, however, I would argue that even though this song is very reminiscent of many other songs by Ms. Badu, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The laid-back, 'chilled', minimalistic vibe is Erykah Badu's stylistic fingerprint that points out to the listener that "Yes this is an Erykah Badu song", for example, listen to the songs Other Side Of The Game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKa-lUp6Fak)and Rimshot (Intro) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT09wbZ6eqs); both of these songs still have that exact same stylistic fingerprint of Ms. Badu but are still fantastic songs in themselves and are different enough to maintain the listener's interest but at the same time similar enough to subconsciously 'please' the listener as there aren't any drastic changes that come as a big shock.
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This song is the third track of Ms. Badu's debut album Baduizm, the album is primarily a Neo-soul album that features heavy influences from Jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop and many other genres. I would argue that the song Appletree would appeal to fans of; hip-hop (as the beat features a lot of hip-hop elements), funk (this influence can be heard in the production of the bass and the way in which it's played) as well as the Jazz due to the vocals of Ms. Badu, which is evident from the style in which she sings as well as some of the techniques she uses, such as her scatting from 2:35-2:42.
I can think of a lot of other songs that are stylistically similar to Appletree, however, I have limited myself to the following three:
- D'Angelo is the male counterpart to Erykah Badu and the two have worked together on several tracks, his risqué lyrics are the main thing that set him apart from Ms. Badu but musically their songs are similar and should appeal to the same sort of audiences.
- Jill Scott is another big name in the Neo-soul genre, with her often love-inspired lyrics and gospel like approach to the genre, she bring a fresh approach to the Neo-soul genre.
- I have to admit I am a HUGE Lauryn Hill fan and I can't even count the amount of times I have listened to the Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, she truly is an amazing artist and I highly recommend everyone reading this go and listen to that album. However, I feel this particular track of the album is quite similar to Appletree with a hip-hop beat, funk inspired bass and incredibly soulful vocal provided by Ms. Hill.
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