Choosing another song from When the Pawn… is both a simple and an impossible task. There are no bad choices, but how do you narrow it down to one? Today’s track, ‘The Way Things Are,’ is the first of a trio of songs that finish off the album (the closing track, ‘I Know,’ has already been featured as a Song of the Day — though the YouTube gods have since removed the video from rotation).

One thing that’s increasingly clear after listening to a lot of Apple’s music is that she must be one hell of a difficult girlfriend. So many of her songs pause in the midst of trashing some hapless man to point the finger back at herself. She even has a song called ‘Fast As You Can’ which advises a potential beau to get the hell away from her for his own good.

I believe that’s basically what’s going on in this song, though I suppose it could be read in a number of ways. I read it as a discussion following a breakup, with the man pushing for a reconciliation and the singer resisting — “I’m much better off the way things are.”

Things get more interesting in the chorus. I’m not sure what “kicking the crap til it’s gone” means, exactly, but the phrase “as soon as I settle, I bet I’ll be able to move on” suggests to me that she isn’t entirely done with this relationship either, and perhaps her only way out is to let him wear down her defenses, return to him and then find the ability to call it quits for good. Or not. What do you think?

My favorite part of the song, both musically and lyrically, is the bridge… “How can I fight when we’re on the same side? How can I fight beside you?” I adore her delivery of those lines, and they’re incredibly provocative. I also love how the piano, drums and guitar crescendo from that point into the next chorus.

This is the kind of music I love to just sit and listen to through headphones with nothing else going on. I feel that way about my favorite albums, that it almost cheapens them to listen while doing something mundane like driving.