ALONG COMES MARY

I was driving home on the 405 last night, blasting Tori Amos’ From the Choirgirl Hotel on Spotify & found myself struck at what a legend of an album this is. While The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, even Joni Mitchell, continue to make the best-of lists for their ground breaking work, it is rare (& sad) that you will see Amos on those kind of compilations & countdown lists. I feel Choirgirl belongs in this club, people.

I have written about Tori Amos a lot, I know, & especially my love for her 1991 debut, Little Earthquakes (Which I am actually playing at the moment) yet 1998’s Choirgirl, Amos’ 4th effort, is definitely just as grand, if not more, than her first. Let me attempt to explain…

This album has it all. Not only are all 13 tracks outstanding (as I just mentioned on my Garbage post that this is a must for me) as far as Amos’ never ending lyrical ability, but, she took poems that could have easily been low-fi, acoustic, sob stories, & made them 3 to 5 minute mini rock operas, each with their own individual plot, while still managing to weave each tale into the next. I know, it sounds crazy, but trust me.

The opening track, Spark, definitely sets the mood for what Tori has described as, “An album of sorrow”, & has explained that in 1997, “The songs started coming. Besides the emotional loss (of a miscarriage),you’re crashing on so many levels. And the drugs don’t take away the pain. Crawling into the pain (through the music) was the only way out.” She begins by singing, “Shes Addicted to nicotine patches” & “Shes convinced she could hold back a glacier/but she couldn’t keep baby alive/I’m getting old”. As this opening, somewhat mellow song turns into a full-fledged anthem, simply through her piano keys progression, we seg way through some dark roads.

One of my most favorite Tori Amos songs is track number 2 from this album: Cruel. While for Amos it was the ultimate anti-lullaby to her unborn, mis-carried child, it can easily take on any meaning to the listeners who have experienced rejection, loneliness & anger. Which is all of us on earth, no doubt. She begins Cruel with a Peter Gabriel-esque intro, that never fails to make me feel as if I am in the ocean, a Siren, perhaps, about to be taken out of my sea to experience the cruel world we sometimes live in. As she sings the chorus, “I can be cruel/I don’t know why/Why can’t my balloon stay up in a perfectly windy sky?” there’s a vulnerability there, much like a child’s ideals, being crushed. Much like most of Amos’ catalog, she has managed to keep a song like Cruel fresh & new since its debut; there have been live versions like that of its recording, subdued, piano only takes, a mosh pit interpretation that found Amos dressed up as Pip, a black leather loving ‘Warrior Woman’ homage to Goddess, Athena & most recently, with a string quartet (below) in 2011, which was one of the most haunting performances I have ever seen live.

While Tori has never been afraid to cause jaw dropping since day 1, some songs that definitely showed her cock-rock side are on this album; there is Shes Your Cocaine & Raspberry Swirl, which brings to mind Led Zeppelin, one of Tori’s biggest influences. On Raspberry Swirl, the character is addressing the ever-growing ‘norm’ of females being bi-curious, “Things are getting desperate/when all the boys can’t be men/Everyone knows I’m her man” she sings, then on Hotel, an electronica, piano mash-up that finds her recalling a one night stand, “You were wild/where are you now?/I have to learn to let you crash down” she howls while bringing a Ziggy Stardust vibe to mind.

Then, the song that got me thinking last night about this post: Jackie’s Strength. A beautiful strings ballad of Amos recalling her childhood & life leading up to her wedding day, & praying to have the strength that she witnessed a generation of women in the 1960s long for as well, as they idolized Jackie Kennedy Onassis, “This wonderful boy had asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes,” Tori once said, “but I was shocked. You know, there was a part of me that had sworn that would never happen. You fantasize about what it would be like on that day, and then you fantasize about never having that day. Then you’re a vigilante and you will never have it. The, all of a sudden, there it is, and you’re wondering, ‘are we going to make it? half of all marriages end in divorce. is that us?’ That was all going on as I got lost on my wedding day.”

While many of her videos are on the abstract side, Jackie’s Strength tells her story beautifully:

If you have not yet heard From the Choirgirl Hotel by Tori Amos, do yourself a favor & give it a listen. I would love your thoughts on what is one of my most favorite records. xo