The third track is called Black-dove (January). It is another live favorite, never missing from Tori’s setlists. I was unable to find the album version anywhere online, but there are two live versions out there: one from 1998 and the other from 2003.
Like Spark, Black-dove (January) has a circular structure, with a very similar beginning and ending. The intensity grows gradually with the lyrics, which deal with her frequent nightmares caused by the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
“When I sleep I often have nightmares. I see a black dove. I see its face clearly. The dove is transparent, like it is made of ice. I can see my hand through it. An auger goes through it and it is bleeding water… The nightmares agonized me since my childhood. I am the daughter of a Methodist preacher and as a child I was sexually abused by a friend of the family. I think that the nightmares are telling me things about me I need to know. And I try to understand what they mean. Maybe so I can get to know something more about my soul.”
[excerpt from an interview with Tori, published in the German newspaper 'Die Zeit', 1999]
Fourth song on the list is Raspberry Swirl, the album’s third and final single, and it is completely different from what you’ve listened so far on this album. Here’s the official video:
You can also watch an amazing live performance from ‘Storytellers’ and one from Glastonbury 1998.
The lyrics are very diverse, mixing sexuality with irony towards men, all laid on top of a dance song.
“A song like ‘Cruel’ came to me out of my anger”
Moving forward to track 2 from the album – Cruel. Click here to listen to the album version.
There are two decent live versions available, one from Live with Jools Holland and another one from Glastonbury festival. There’s also a more recent extended live version from her 2007 tour, video quality is low but the sound is ok and it’s totally worth watching. And to make the Cruel listening experience complete, check out this live mellow version from 2001 – voice and keyboards only. An extremely sensitive and touching version of the song, highly recommended. Listening to this version reminds me of Alexandrina Hristov, a female singer/songwriter from the Republic of Moldova, pointing out towards where she probably gets some of her inspiration and influences. Here’s a sample of Alexandrina’s work, a great song and video entitled ‘Printre flori’.
Musically, the album version of Cruel sounds very differently from the opener, Spark. The electronic/industrial sound of the drums, percussion touches (I’m hearing marimba and bongos) and distorted bass carve up towards the chorus, which brings a more melodic feel, with its haunting keyboard lines.
Lyrically, Cruel is again tied to Tori’s miscarriage, this time dealing with other people’s reactions. In an interview, Tori said: “When you start talking to people who have that kind of loss, somebody piping up, going ‘Well, the angels were there for us during this time.’ Well, that’s beautiful. But people have to understand that they’re not there for everybody all the time. They get lost on the way. That’s why in “Cruel”, when I say, ‘I don’t know why’ I really don’t know why the angels aren’t there for everybody, but they’re not.” The lyrics are pretty cryptic and can be interpreted in multiple ways. If you want, you can follow and join the discussion here.
Once again, give this song the proper treatment and listen to it with headphones on or on a good set of speakers, following the lyrics, listening for all the instrumental and vocal details. They’re all over the song and I’m sure you’ll hear new details and delicate touches that you have been missing so far.
I have detailed the album selection method on the Introduction page, so I’ll skip it here. I’m quite pleased that this album came up, as I never got around to listening to Tori’s music in depth until now, although I’ve always been planning on it.
Today, the RYM 1998 yearly chart has “From the Choirgirl Hotel” at #53, with an average rating of 3.88 out of 5, from 1340 ratings. The album also stands at #2443 in the overall all-time albums chart. The RYM album page mentions the album release date – 4th of May, as well as a load of musical genres: Singer/Songwriter, Pop/Rock, Piano Rock, Art Pop, Electronic, Alternative Rock. The album features 12 tracks. This is the first Tori Amos album featuring a full live band and it is also the first album being recorded in her home studio.
The RYM artist page reveals that she was born in 1963 in the US, but she lives in the UK, owning a recording studio at her house in Cornwall. This is her fourth studio album, second by rating, following her debut “Little Earthquakes” from 1992.
Tori’s Wikipedia page reveals that “From the Choirgirl Hotel” received a Grammy nomination for the Best Alternative Music Album.
The album opens with Spark.
Spark was the first single from the album. By looking on the album’s last.fm page, Spark is clearly the most popular song on this album, with the highest number of listeners. It is also a song that always makes it into her live setlist, even after 12 years since the release. Which makes this song an essential Tori Amos listen.
I also recommend watching some live versions of Spark. They aren’t the highest quality, but they are worth watching for giving a new dimension to this amazing song. There’s the version from Live on Jools Holland and another one from the Live Show with David Letterman. And there’s this live performance, preceded by a short interview with Tori, where she explains the title of the album and touches a bit on the meaning of Spark.
Which brings me to the reality behind Spark and this whole album. Tori suffered a miscarriage at the end of 1996 and writing this album was her way of getting out of it, of moving on. “As I was going through the anger and the sorrow and the why, the songs started to come. Before I was even aware, they were coming to me in droves”, Tori mentions in an interview from ’98. If you didn’t pay attention to the lyrics yet, I recommend listening to the song with headphones on and closely following the lyrics. The song description on last.fm explains some of the lyrics in this song.
Details about the next songs will follow soon. For now, enjoy Spark…
Welcome!
I have decided to start up this blog for discovering amazing music, and sharing that experience with anyone. I’m going to use all the online tools and sites available to pull out the relevant information about every artist, album and song, creating a complete picture for the listening experience.
It will be a slow process. Most music blogs and websites pile up tons of new music every day and write reviews of albums that were listened to merely once or twice. And that doesn’t do justice to an artist’s work, considering the months and even years taken for composing and arranging their songs, writing meaningful lyrics, spending weeks and weeks in the studio to record the songs, etc.
I’ll be selecting great albums, with no discrimination whatsoever regarding the musical genre or release date. I will be using a mathematical algorithm to select each album. The source for the album selection will be the website www.rateyourmusic.com, which in my opinion is the most complete online music database. There are yearly charts on RYM, based on the ratings given by RYM users.
To select an album, I have to pick up a year and a chart position. I will use the current date as a starting point. I will use the product between the day and the month to come up with the decade. For example, I started yesterday, on 30.12.2009. The product is 30*12=360 and 3+6+0=9, so I’m choosing the nineties. Next, for the year, I’m doing the sum of the day and the month. So 30+12=42 and the product 4*2=8. So I’ll be looking at the yearly chart from 1998.
I will choose only ‘popular’ albums, i.e. having at least 500 ratings. Going from high to low, I will choose the Xth album (current date). In this first case, that album is Tori Amos – From the Choirgirl Hotel, currently ranked #53.
Some might argue that the album selection method is not the best, but time will prove if picking the albums from the RYM charts is indeed as effective as I believe.
