Songfacts®:

• Inspiration for this song came when Apple was in Los Angeles with her father, who was driving her back home from a recording session for her first album, Tidal. Looking out the window, she saw what she thought was a dove, and immediately started assigning meaning to it because that's how her mind works: she sees symbolism all around her. The Tidal sessions were miserable for Fiona - she was used to working on music by herself, and now she had to deal with a team under the strictures of professional recording. When she saw the bird, it lifted her spirits because she thought it was a sign that everything was going to be OK.
  
  But then the "dove" started falling... it was just a plastic bag.
  
  The image stuck in her head, and when she started writing for her When the Pawn... album, she used it as a metaphor for how so often in her life, something seems promising but ends up disappointing her - often a man. The plastic bag became a paper bag because it sings better.
• Apple is filled with desire on this song:
  
  I want him so bad, oh it kills
  
  But knows very well how she's perceived:
  
  I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up
  
  In the end, she decides it's not worth it:
  
  Hunger hurts but starvin' works
  When it costs too much to love
  
  The guy in the song isn't at her level - he's just a little boy who doesn't get her jokes. This could apply to many of her past relationships, but at the time the song was released, she was in a long-term relationship with the director Paul Thomas Anderson, an intellectual and artistic equal seven years older. They split up in 2002. Anderson ended up having four kids with the actress Maya Rudolph; he worked with Apple again when he directed her 2012 video for "Hot Knife."
• This was the third single from Apple's When the Pawn... album, following "Fast As You Can" and "Limp." By this time, it was clear Apple was not a pop star, and she was rarely heard on Top 40 radio. After burning out while promoting Tidal, she set boundaries for When the Pawn..., doing limited press and fewer concerts. This constrained her audience, but endeared her to fans.
• Paul Thomas Anderson, who also directed Apple's videos for "Fast As You Can" and "Limp," had her do some choreography for the first time in the "Paper Bag" video, where she dances among a troupe of 20 boys in their early teens. The whole thing has a 1940s look, with fashions from the era. The choreographer was Michael Rooney, who came up with the dance moves for Christopher Walken in Fatboy Slim's "Weapon Of Choice" video.
  
  The video was shot at Union Station in Los Angeles at what was the Harvey House restaurant until it closed in 1967. That space was used for special events and filming until it reopened in 2018 as the Imperial Western Beer Company.
• This is a rare Fiona Apple song with a horn section, which plays among the piano and drums. There is no guitar.
• Apple appeared on MTV's Total Request Live to debut the video on May 25, 2000. That show was typically the domain of Mickey Mousers like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, but MTV was happy to have Apple, who provided one of their most memorable moments in her speech at the 1997 Video Music Awards.
• This is used in the 2011 movie Bridesmaids in a scene where Kristen Wiig is soothing herself by making, then eating, a gourmet cupcake. There is no dialog in the scene, so the song stands out.
  
  Judd Apatow, who produced the film, asked Apple to use it, and she was happy to comply. In 2012, Apple contributed the song "Dull Tool" to Apatow's movie This Is 40.