Fiona Apple says Bob Dylan was "really encouraging" about her contribution to "Murder Most Foul"

In a new interview with Pitchfork, Fiona Apple has spoken about how she came to contribute piano to Bob Dylan's 17-minute track "Murder Most Foul".

Apple recalled, "So I’m sitting here with Zelda in February, really relaxed, and we’re about to have dinner, and I look down at my phone and see [longtime collaborator] Blake Mills texting me. I hadn’t heard from Blake in months. And he’s like, "So I’m working on something, I can’t tell anybody about it, but we want you to come in and do something." And I was like, "Um, I can’t I’m busy." And he was like, "Can I call you?" So he called me and he goes, "OK, it’s Bob Dylan. Bob is asking if you will come here and record." And I went: "When?" And he went: "Now." And I said "FUCK" so loud that I could hear people on the other end of the phone laughing."

She continued, "I was like, "I’m not trying to put myself down here, Blake, but you and I both know that I’m very underqualified for this job. There’s no point." And he’s like, "He just wants you to come in to be you." So I went in the next day. I’m only on "Murder Most Foul"."

Expanding on what Dylan was like, Apple said, "I couldn’t believe it. I had met him many years ago, but I don’t really know why I’m on the record. I was there a total of like seven hours. I told Bob I was really insecure about it, and he was really encouraging and nice. He was just like, "You’re not here to be perfect, you’re here to be you." To have Bob Dylan say that before my record came out was a huge deal for me. And I mean, this was like the one person I could have met who’s alive right now where it actually would have meant something to me as a kid."

"Murder Most Foul" was released in March as Dylan's first new song in eight years.