Hot Knife

The Idler Wheel…'s closing track is close to a cappella song. It contains sprinklings of timpani rolls and classical piano lines whilst Apple sings lyrics in which she compares herself to butter and her lover to a hot knife. According to an interview with New York magazine's Dan Lee, she suspects the roots of the song lay in a Bach concert that she'd seen in New York, and the Supremes tune "Where Did Our Love Go?." Apple explained the inspiration is the place where two different types of music, "crack together," which has always given her "huge satisfaction."

Apple's older sister Amber, a cabaret singer who records under the name of Maude Maggart, joins her near the end of this song. Fiona told New York magazine they'd stood at the same microphone for hours, weaving their voices in what she called, "the most intimate moment of our lives together."

The song's music video was directed by filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, whose movie There Will Be Blood is largely regarded as one of the greatest films of the 2000s. Anderson has worked with Apple on several other of her visuals in the past including those for "Paper Bag," "Fast As You Can" and "Limp."