Alanis Morissette Revisits ‘You Oughta Know’ in Intimate Performance for MGM+’s Words + Music
Alanis Morissette is marking three decades of “You Oughta Know” with a stripped-down performance that reexamines the song’s emotional weight and enduring cultural impact. The singer-songwriter appears in a new episode of MGM+’s Words + Music, offering a raw live rendition of her breakthrough single while reflecting on the creative and personal experiences that shaped her career.
Set to air on Dec. 21, Morissette’s episode places her onstage with a small group of accompanying musicians, creating an understated backdrop that lets her vocal performance and storytelling take the foreground. The arrangement is sparse by design, a deliberate contrast to the jagged, explosive sound of Jagged Little Pill and highlights the emotional layers that have kept “You Oughta Know” resonant since its 1995 release.
Behind Morissette, a screen cycles through archival images from her life on the road: festival sets, early television appearances, and quieter moments that trace the arc of a career that helped redefine mainstream rock in the mid-Nineties. The episode also includes new performances of other classics as well as previously unreleased material, all filtered through Morissette’s reflections on healing, anger, and her long relationship with performing.
Words + Music marks the visual expansion of the Audible audio series that launched in 2021. The original format paired intimate storytelling with musical performance; the MGM+ version builds on that foundation with a cinematic presentation that blends interviews, concert footage, and visual art. “Musicians express what we mere mortals think and feel, but they do it better and with a melody,” Gunpowder & Sky CEO Van Toffler said in a statement. He described the adaptation as an opportunity to bring viewers closer to the creative interiors of major artists. “The result is something as intimate as a backstage confession and as cinematic as a feature film,” he added.
Morissette’s episode follows installments centered on John Legend, Sheryl Crow, and Elvis Costello. Each entry in the series spotlights songs that defined an artist’s trajectory and offers new insight into the circumstances that shaped those works. MGM+ says episodes aim to present “portraits of how those songs, and the artists behind them, came to be,” situating the music within broader conversations about art, identity, and longevity.
“You Oughta Know” remains one of Morissette’s most enduring works, a song that, at the time of its release, pushed her from former teen-pop star to a defining voice of alternative rock. Over the years, she has discussed how its intensity was both cathartic and difficult to revisit onstage, yet it became a cornerstone of her live shows and a generational anthem.
New episodes of Words + Music air Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on MGM+, with each installment offering a focused look at a different artist’s catalog and career. Morissette’s contribution stands as both a tribute to a landmark album and a reminder of her continued influence across generations of listeners.
