Understanding Alanis Morisette's "Ironic" (Patreon)

Essay length: about 21 minutes

Few songs are as misunderstood as Ironic. Or maybe few songs are understood as correctly while still missing the point. It's a straightforward song, but one fateful choice has made it the subject of decades of pedantic debate and mockery. Which, don't get me wrong, I love a good pedantic argument, but I do think it's a shame 'cause once you look past the word choice, there's a lovely song there waiting to be discovered. Plus there's one really cool chord that I want to talk about. Can I please just talk about this one chord?