The Ironic hitmaker reveals she was followed home by a man and forced to choose between giving him a backpack with cash in it or one containing the lyrics to her break-out album Jagged Little Pill.

"It was very surreal," she recalls. "They say you fight, flight, freeze, collapse or tend and befriend, so when he was coming toward me my whole body just went into this empathetic, 'Wow, what's going on with you to the point where you would threaten someone's life to get what's in my bag?'"

"I had two bags with me. One of them had my money... and then the other bag had all my lyrics for Jagged Little Pill. So basically I handed over the bag and I just remember thinking, 'I hope I live and please don't take my lyrics'.

"He told me to lie down and I walked away from him and laid down with my bag and he ran off. He took the bag with the money and left the backpack (with the lyrics) with me."