"Smiling" is a song by Canadian-American singer Alanis Morissette co-written by Morissette and Michael Farrell. It was one of two new songs written for the Broadway adaptation of Morissette's 1995 album, Jagged Little Pill, and later released as the second single from her ninth studio album, Such Pretty Forks in the Road, on February 21, 2020.[1] The album's title is taken from a lyric in this song. Morissette subsequently released a duet version of the song featuring Jagged Little Pill actress Elizabeth Stanley with the rest of the cast on backing vocals.
In Jagged Little Pill, the song appears in the first act as Mary Jane Healy, the matriarch of a suburban Connecticut family. In this context, she is singing about her feelings of having to keep up appearances and remain strong while dealing with the pressures of motherhood and everyday life. The song is sung right after the pharmacy refuses to renew her pain medication prescription and she is forced to buy opioids off the street, beginning a sequence where she goes through the events of her day backwards as she struggles to hold on.[5]