Music Monday: Tori Amos

There's a certain type of person, of a certain age, for whom this artist's debut album, "Little Earthquakes," was a huge, huge, huge deal. Formative, in fact. There are people who found out about her through her friendship with Neil Gaiman, and there are people who found out about Neil Gaiman through his friendship with her. I actually discovered them separately, with "Little Earthquakes" arriving as a record store recommendation (for younger readers, record stores were like itunes, but offline). I'm going to focus on that first album, but will also talk about some of her later work. This is Music Monday, and we're talking about Tori Amos.

Little Earthquakes

This album was a huge part of the soundtrack of my first year after mandatory military service. You will not, I suspect, be shocked to learn that military service was not for me. I survived it, got through the depression it brought with it. I dispensed many pants, and later instructed many people on the new software for managing the dispensation of pants (and other wares). So the naked emotionality of this album spoke to me, deeply. The album's first song, all about hating outselves, was certainly a gut punch. This is Crucify:

Sample lyric:

Got a kick for a dog
Begging for love
I gotta have my suffering
So that I can have my cross

The album's third song is a sharp one, with a delicate melody belying the bitterness of the words. It is absolutely gorgeous and sweeping, and another one with which I connected very strongly. This is Silent All These Years:
"Silent All These Years
Sample lyric:

So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts
What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?
Boy, you best pray that I bleed real soon
How's that thought for you?

The album's fifth song is a song about a loving dad, one who loved her more than she ever did herself, one who wanted desperately to prepare her for life, and may have failed. This is Winter:

Sample lyric:

Hair is grey and the fires are burning
So many dreams on the shelf
You say "I wanted you to be proud of me"
I always wanted that myself

It is quite telling that the cheeriest song in the album is about death, about how great it could be to leave everything behind. This album is dark af. This is Happy Phantom:

Sample lyric:

And I will never need umbrellas in the rain
I'll wake up in strawberry fields every day
And the atrocities of school I can forgive
The happy phantom has no right to bitch

The next song is about distance. Not so physical distance, but mostly emotional distance. It's pretty, but not my favorite. This is China:

Sample lyric:

Sometimes I think you want me to touch you
How can I when you build the Great Wall around you?
In your eyes I saw a future together
Oh, you just look away in the distance

The final song I'll feature here is the album's most powerful, most harrowing. In an album that is very autobiographical, this song is the most autobiographical. It's a song about rape. As you may know, Amos has been very active in RAINN, an organization I have supported financially in the past, and probably will again. And this song is her personal story. It is horrific. This is Me And A Gun:

Sample lyric:

Yes I wore a slinky red thing
Does that mean I should spread
For you, your friends
Your father, Mr. Ed?

Under The Pink

By the time Amos' second album was released, I had kinda moved on. None of her following albums would impact me the way the first one did (and I won't be featuring songs from all of them). It was all Nirvana and grunge and loudness then. But two songs from this album did touch me in their different ways. The first of which is a song that deals with the same attack from "Me And A Gun," but is engaged more with healing from it. This is Past The Mission:

Sample lyric:

Past the mission, behind the prison tower
Past the mission, I once knew a hot girl
Past the mission they’re closing every hour
Past the mission I smell the roses

The second song is one that is referenced directly in Neil Gaiman's Sandman, one of many touchstones and mentions to each other in Gaiman and Amos' work. In it, Amos makes a distinction between two kinds of women, using terms of her own invention. One of those is "raisin girls," which she identifies as. The other, is the title of the song. This is Cornflake Girl:

Sample lyric:

She knows what's goin on
Seems we got a cheaper feel now
All the sweeteaze are gone
Gone to the other side
With my encyclopedia
They musta paid her a nice price

Boys For Pele

This was the album where Amos lost me for a bit. I was young and foolish, and an artist making such a huge change was not something I was ready for. Specifically, in my 20s, I was a guitar, bass, drums kinda guy. So the electronic vibe of this album was one I totally didn't get. That said, this song - which is nothing like her earlier work - still holds up. This is Professional Widow:

Sample lyric:

Beautiful angel calling
We got every re-run of Muhammad Ali

From the Choirgirl Hotel

This is another album where not many songs have stuck with me, but the lead single - still one of her most successful to date - is gorgeous, and seems to combine the work she's done in previous albums. This is another deeply personal song, dealing with a miscarriage. This is Spark:

Sample lyric:

She's convinced she could hold back a glacier
But she couldn't keep baby alive
Doubting if there's a woman in there somewhere
Here, here, here

To Venus and Back

As I go through the albums and track lists, I discover Amos has continued to produce songs I've really liked for a long time, just not associating them with a specific album so much. This is the case with this album's absolutely terrific lead single, which is both somewhat joyful and somewhat science fictional. This is Bliss:

Sample lyric:

And I wonder if
You can bilocate
Is that what I taste
Your supernova juice
You know it’s true
I’m part of you

Strange Little Girls

Amos' sixth album was an album of covers, and such a great bunch of covers. All of the songs were originally written and performed by men, and all were given new interpretations from a female point of view. I really dig this one. And will start with the title song, a song I've always loved in the original version, and love in this one. This was originally by The Stranglers. This is Strange Little Girls:

Sample lyric:

She didn't know how to live in a town that was rough
(I'm done thanking you)
It didn't take long before she knew she'd had enough
Walking home in her wrapped up world
She survived but she's feeling old
'Cause she found all things cold

Most of the songs in this album aren't legally available on youtube, and well, neither is this one. But I gotta include it. Because this is such a fitting cover. This is Real Men:

Sample lyric:

What's a man now, what's a man mean?
Is he rough or is he rugged, cultural and clean?
Now it's all changed, it's got to change more
We think it's getting better but nobody's really sure

Scarlet's Walk

This was a concept album about a post 9/11 America. As such, I think it best to experience as a whole, so I'll only include the lead single, the troubling (the video is super troubling) and pretty Sorta Fairytale:

Sample lyric:

And I'm so sad like a good book
I can't put this day back
A sorta fairytale with you
A sorta fairytale with you

The Beekeeper

This was the first Amos album in a while I really connected with. We were both a little older and a little wiser, I guess. It's considered a lesser work, apparently. But I dug it. Here's the lead single, Sleeps With Butterflies:

Sample lyric:

Balloons look good from on the ground
I fear with pins and needles around
We may fall then stumble
Upon a carousel
It could take us anywhere

Later works

I am not as familiar with these albums. But in researching this post, I found some lovely songs. I don't have much to say about them, but I will share them.

American Doll Posse

This is a pretty great song. It's very Kate Bush. This is Bouncing off Clouds:

Sample lyric:

Make it easy
Make this easy
It's not as heavy as it seems
Wrapped in metal
Wrapped in ivy
Paint it in mint ice cream

Abnormally Attracted to Sin

See "Gold Dust" later on.

Midwinter Graces

I mean... it's kind of a Christmas album, innit?

Night of Hunters

This is an album in which Amos reinterprets classical music pieces into songs. There's some lovely stuff here. Based on The Girl with the Flaxen Hair from Préludes I by Debussy, here's Carry:

Sample lyric:

You will not ever be forgotten by me
In the precession of the mighty stars
Your name is sung and tattooed now on my heart
Here I will carry, carry, carry you
Forever

Gold Dust

This is an album with classical interpretations of some of Amos' own previously released pop songs. A standout of those is a song I didn't know before, from "Abnormally Attracted to Sin". It is SO GOOD. I am so happy I did this post! This is Flavour:

Sample lyric:

Battle of the minds
Cries Below cries Above
You must pick a side
Will you choose fear?
Will you choose love?

Unrepentant Geraldines

After a few concept albums, this was Amos' return to alternative pop. The lead single is classic Tori Amos, lovely and bouncy and melancholy. This is Trouble's Lament:

Sample lyric:

Trouble needs a home, girls
Trouble needs a home
She fell out with Satan
Now she’s on the run

Native Invader

This is Amos' latest album, released just last year in 2017. And I listened to songs from it for the first time for this post. And, again, I am delighted that I decided to write this one, because I got to connect with this album, which is really quite great! This album came out of a trip to the Smoky Mountains, and also the 2016 US elections, which made it much darker than it was going to be. First up, the album's lead single, Cloud Riders:

Sample lyric:

Underneath the stars above
I said, "No stop
I am not giving up on us."
And I am not going anywhere soon

The actual first track in the album is dark and haunting. This is Reindeer King:

Sample lyric:

Your mind has been divided from your soul
Now you say you are that stranger on your shore
Grief it brings need the naked freeze caught in the frost
Numb unbearable thoughts your inner need fire not lost
No way, not lost

For the last song I'll feature here, Amos recruited her daughter Natasha Hawley to sing with her. It's a song about nature, and how much we've messed it up. This is Up The Creek:

Sample lyric:

Gone, when hope is almost gone
You know that's the time we must stand
Strong, every girl in every band
Every cosmic cowboy in the land
To the Earth will you show mercy?

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