When The Pawn... - Background

Background

The album came in special packaging that contained sheer red paper around the inserts. The title was written as a poem over Apple's face on the cover. The title is a poem Apple wrote after reading the readers' letters that appeared in Spin after an article had cast her in a negative light in an earlier issue. The full title reads:

When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight
And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring
There's no body to batter when your mind is your might
So when you go solo, you hold your own hand
And remember that depth is the greatest of heights
And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land
And if you fall it won't matter, cuz you'll know that you're right

The album's long title has become a source of trivia, and when it was released held the world record for longest album title (previously a record held by one of the volumes in The Best... Album in the World...Ever!. (Rolling Stone magazine made fun of the title/poem, calling it, "When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Oh the Hell With It".) However, in October 2007 Soulwax released their remix album Most of the Remixes, which has 100 characters more in its title. This was later surpassed in 2008 by the Chumbawamba album The Boy Bands Have Won..., with its full title containing 865 characters of text.

The first single, "Fast as You Can", was fairly popular and received moderate radio and video airplay. It reached the top 20 on the U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and became Apple's first top 40 hit on the UK Singles Chart. The follow-up singles, "Limp" and especially "Paper Bag", though it was nominated for a Grammy Award, were less successful. Apple's boyfriend at the time, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, directed videos for all three singles.