nayad's Full Review: Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos
Wielding words like swords and slashing at her past, Tori Amos sings through a range of emotions: anger, guilt, fear, defiance, pain, regret, and isolation. This is not a happy album, but with her beautiful voice, Tori builds to a kind of transcendence. In singing about them, she attains power over the events that inspired each song.
I first heard Little Earthquakes during a turbulent time in my own life, and it was the perfect music for me to hear just then. With powerful, yet somewhat ambiguous lyrics, the songs have meaning of their own, but are also open to the interpretation of each listener. The music provokes an emotional reaction of its own, in an amazing combination of piano and a voice that growls and soars from whispers through screams in volume, yet manages to retain an eerie beauty at all times.
[The following song descriptions are my own interpretations, and they’ll likely differ from other people’s, but since this is my opinion on the subject, I’m stating them as fact. Feel free to leave a comment or post your own opinion. One of the things I love about this album is that everyone is likely to have a different read on the lyrics as they hear them through the filter of their own experiences.]
Crucify is a search for salvation from guilt and insecurity.
Girl is a quest for independence, or a search for self-knowledge.
Silent All These Years evokes a difficult relationship, loyalty, and the perils of poor communication, as well as the importance of standing up for oneself.
Precious Things is my favorite song on this album. I’ve never met anyone who claimed to have had an easy time in junior high school; this song rages at nasty experiences in the seventh grade, and it might just appeal to any girl who’s ever attended junior high. It certainly covers my feelings about that time in my life, from cruel treatment at the hands of arrogant boys to cruel treatment at the hands of the “pretty girls.”
Winter confuses me a bit – it seems to combine nostalgia for a childhood relationship with dad, with some thoughts on adult relationships with men.
Happy Phantom explores thoughts on the release of death, and how that freedom might allow a person to forgive the “atrocities” of life. It’s one of the most lighthearted-sounding songs in this collection.
China is about the distances that can exist between people even when they’re right next to each other physically, and how those distances can grow.
Leather is about love – feeling that love isn’t present where you want it to be, and wondering why you want it to be there in the first place.
Mother is another one that I don’t understand very well, but it seems to be about trying to differentiate into an individual, or learning to follow your own path instead of someone else’s.
Tear in Your Hand is about a relationship ending, and how a dissatisfied partner may be leaving without having seen everything about the person who’s being left.
Me and a Gun is a song about rape and extreme vulnerability.
Little Earthquakes is about the little things in life that can bring us pain and tear us apart.
Tori Amos does remarkable things with her music, delving deep into the most personal of emotions and sharing them in a way that allows listeners to access and understand their own. A description of this album can sound quite grim, but the music is absolutely beautiful and the lyrics can lead to personal insights. I would recommend Little Earthquakes to anyone who enjoys listening to a gorgeous female voice. No one is like Tori Amos, but I’d also recommend Bjork, Heather Nova, Fiona Apple, Concrete Blonde, and the Throwing Muses for similar reasons.
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