Fiona Apple has written a handful of new songs lately, and the latest functions as the theme for the Apple TV series Lucky. “Horns of the Bull” is one-minute-and-forty seconds of pattering drums, warm piano chords, and Apple’s sing-spoken cadence that gives way to a mid-track growl. Listen to it below.
Lucky is a miniseries adaptation of Marissa Stapley’s 2021 novel about an international con-woman (Anya Taylor-Joy) on the run from FBI agents (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Mo McRae) and a ruthless crime boss (Annette Bening) after a multimillion-dollar heist goes wrong. Apple co-produced “Horns of the Bull” with Amy Aileen Wood, her drummer and the wife of Lucky showrunner Cassie Pappas.
“Horns of the Bull” is a far cry from the electro-pop song “Need It” that Apple recently co-wrote for model Cara Delevingne to sing. Otherwise, it continues the style she’s been carrying onwards since Fetch the Bolt Cutters, be it with her 2025 benefit single “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home),” her cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” or her vocal performance on the Waterboys’ “Letter From an Unknown Girlfriend.”
It’s been six years since Apple released Fetch the Bolt Cutters. If you’re wondering why she hasn’t released a new album since then, just know that she’s trying to untangle the “endless barrage of horrors” through music and is struggling to get it just right. “If you’re writing about yourself, it’s one thing. Nobody can tell you that you’re saying it wrong, nobody can get let down. You’re the authority. But when it concerns what’s happening to other people, it just becomes so important,” Apple said in a recent Instagram video. “I just didn’t want you to think that I was turning a blind eye or that I didn’t see what was going on or that I didn’t care. I fucking care. Or that I’m not trying, and I am trying and I don’t know if I’m going to succeed.”
Read about Fetch the Bolt Cutters at No. 1 in The 100 Best Albums of the 2020s So Far.
