From: owner-precious-things-digest To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V1 #24 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Monday, 11 March 1996 Volume 01 : Number 024 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Diva music, lyrics and some other stuff ;) DC tix Tori on Friday Night lyrics? Bells For Her Ticket Sales..a simple idea Forward to PT & RDT Re: lyrics? Re: Bells For Her Scanned Images from Promotional Brochure ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Donald G. Keller" Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 12:37:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Diva I found =Diva= magazine by a bit of luck with random newsstand scanning at Barnes & Noble. It's a British lesbian magazine, which gives the interview an unusual angle. A pretty interesting piece, though the magazine is a bit expensive. Thanks to Paul Tweedy for updating the set list! That's more like it: at least an hour for the regular set, and =two= substantial encores. Wow. Glad to hear she did "Bells for Her" on harpsichord--I'm really looking forward to hearing it. ------------------------------ From: beninten@ix.netcom.com (Tori Lover) Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 13:45:07 -0800 Subject: music, lyrics and some other stuff ;) Hey Guys, Not much in the Tori scene around here lately. I did pick up a nifty new Tori poster. It kinda has a pinkish tinge to it and she's wearing a flannel in the picture. Pretty cool... went for about $6... I believe it's new, I saw it in IGG. I also ran into a cd called "Even More Rarities" and I had to hold back from buying it because it had "If 6 was 9", "Strange Fruit", and the "Tea With The Waitress" interview. Plus.. a whole bunch of other rarities and some nifty art. One of the kewler boots I've seen... but I'm holding back... the sucker was $30 and I dont like buying boots too much. Back to that question of the day... about 5 days ago. ;) I agree that her music and lyrics go hand in hand. I have to admit, the music is usually the first thing that touches me though. There are parts where the melody can just evoke a certain feeling in me without any words and I'll sit there and float away... or cry or whatever I need to feel. Her lyrics are very important though... those lines that I just crumble to... "hold on to nothing as fast as you can".... "doesn't take much to rip us into pieces"... etc. I really enjoy her lyrical puzzles too... trying to find out what she intended. Also, just listening to the words and feeding from them... just knowing what they mean to me, and that being enough. Also, thanks Paul for updating us on the set list! I hear she's been doing "Losing My Religion" quite a bit... I'd really like to hear her perform "Wrapped Around Your Finger" so that would probably be the cover I'd request, although "Landslide", "Purple Rain", "A Case Of You", and "I'm On Fire" are some of my faves... god.. now I've gotten all confused and I dunno which one I'd rather hear. ;) Here's a question I know one of you Toriphiles out there must know the answer to... who did the original "Saturday Afternoon 1963"? I have a really bad recording of Tori covering it... but I love the song. Hugs and Chocolate, ~Angie dont stop now what you're doing ------------------------------ From: Maleen Ivy Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 16:18:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: DC tix Hi, My sister lives in Virginia, and I was going to get her Tori tix for her birthday. I was unable to get tix to either of the DC shows. Does anyone have one or two xtras or know what the chances of tix going on sale for the 3rd show, currently listed as option, are? Thanks a lot, Maleen ------------------------------ From: MATH TRIED ERR Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 20:06:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tori on Friday Night Hi! I just heard that Tori was on NBC's "Friday Night" show this past Friday. Did anyone see this? Better yet, did anyone tape it? Please e-mail me privately if you did. Thanks! +===========================================================================+ |Meredith Tarr meth@delphi.com| |Boonton, NJ USA http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/meth/| +===========================================================================+ | "nothing's gonna stop me from floating" - Tori Amos | +===========================================================================+ ------------------------------ From: MATH TRIED ERR Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 19:54:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: lyrics? Hi! Maleen Ivy implored: >I have a feeling most people on here are on RDT as well so I won't bother >reiterating past ideas, but I do have a big favor to ask: I'd like to nip this misconception in the bud, if I may. The reason this list exists is because there is a large group of people who have neither the time nor the patience for RDT, yet want a forum dedicated to the discussion of Tori's music. Please don't decline to post something useful here just because you've already posted it to RDT, or rec.music.tori-amos, or whatever! I know there is overlap between both lists, but there are plenty of people here who aren't on RDT and therefore won't have seen it before. If it's a rehash of something for some, they can just pass over it -- but please don't leave the rest of us out just because some people will have been over it already. abbe mused: >I can vaguely see what meth said about Talula being the >girl making the journey in BfP, the main character of the story the >album tells, or whatever (sigh..i should listen to the World Cafe >thing somehow...) but I always thought Talula was someone else... >either metaphorically or actually, she'a a child in Tori's womb. My >scattered thoughts on this... Hmmm -- interesting. I was just quoting what Tori herself said about it. But who knows -- it's entirely possible that sometimes she doesn't even know what she's talking about. ;> Marion reported: >In an interview with a Dutch newspaper (Het Parool) she talked >about that, and she said (re-translated from Dutch, so they >may not be Tori's exact words): > > "It wasn't until recently that I've begun to get loose from > it. [the piano] > I haven't just changed from a girl to a woman, but I've also > changed from a musician to a human being. For a long time I > couldn't communicate in any other way than through music. I > could play the piano before I could talk. I didn't speak > with people of my age, I spoke with the grand piano. That > thing was more human than I was. > I play a Bosendorfer. That's the most beautiful instrument > there is. But I've finally found out that it's nothing more > than that: an instrument." *Very* interesting! For the longest time Tori was going on and on about how the piano is a living thing capable of communicating on its own. I think it represents a milestone for Tori in that now she's getting away from that. This is not to place a value judgment on her previous opinion, mind -- it's just interesting to see her showing growth in her views in that area as well. Back to Maleen: >Well, a part of the song that's been haunting me a little bit is the line >"Russians die on the ice." I was trying to figure out if she was >referring to the death of Russian skater Sergei Grinkov. I think that happened well after the album was in the post-production stage. >Another really >strange possibility for this line is a little weird bit of history that >I seem to remember from the 10th grade. I remember learning about a >Russian political figure by the name of Trotsky (back in the days of >Joseph Stalin) being murdered by the opposing political party by getting >an ice pick to the head. Considering her knowledge of weird little bits of history WRT Anastasia and in general, this may not be too far off. :) Adam inquired: >What do you like about Tori the most? >Her music, or her lyrics? Ooooh, that's a hard one. I'm definitely a lyrics person, and that's what drew me in to her music to start off with, but the beauty and complexity of her music, and the fact that it just flows from her like a river (and it does, too -- she can't go near a piano without sitting down and playing something) is very important as well. Like Don, I would gladly buy any album or attend any concert that featured her just playing and not singing a note. I guess I'd have to say that at this stage, her music is what I like the most, but only by a very very very small margin. :) >I knew what most of the answers were going to be like, I just wanted to >hear more opinions about her musical ability. There can be no question that Tori Amos is one of the most gifted musicians and composers out there today, no matter what the genre. Period. There aren't too many people who can say that they were playing Gershwin before they even started kindergarten. There also aren't too many people who can just sit down and write a song as it's being recorded and have it end up as a coherent piece, both musically and (mostly ;) lyrically. Which brings me to a neat tidbit I picked up the other day: "Marianne" is another one, like "Thoughts", "Humpty Dumpty", and "Bells For Her", that was written as it was recorded, in one take. (The orchestration was obviously added later.) "Marianne" is Marianne Curtis, a high-school friend of Tori's who died a long time ago, either by suicide or accidental overdose, apparently no one is sure. (This must have affected Tori deeply -- Marianne shows up in other of her songs as well, most notably "Sister Janet".) Valerie opined: >In fact, that's why, although I still love BfP and UtP, they'll never be my >favorite albums. Tori's lyrics have gotten so obscure and bizarre, that I don't >feel as strong a connection to the songs. It doesn't mean that I don't >appreciate the lyrics, just that they don't make me go, "Yes, that's it!" And >that's why I will forever be just a little disappointed in both of these albums. I agree with Neile on this one -- just because she's not presenting her point on a silver platter any more doesn't mean her point is any less spot-on. (Though I fail to see why so many people are branding the lyrics on BfP as "obscure and bizarre" -- how much clearer can you be than "boy you're still so pretty when you're putting the damage on" and "happy for you and I'm sure that I hate you"?!? Sure, the first few lines of "Marianne" are rather weird, but she didn't exactly have time to craft them into high art as she was going along.) She's said that she is so sick of music that spoon-feeds it to the masses -- she wants to make people think, to actually use their brains as they listen (hey, what a concept!). On her recent WHFS appearance, Tori addressed this issue directly, when asked her response to people who complain that her lyrics are too weird for them. "When people look at me and say, What ARE you talking about?!?, I just want to say, Hey, go get yourself a bottle of red! After a while, you'll know *exactly* who Ratatouille Strichnine is -- and yes, she *is* a friend of mine." ;> ;> ;> Debbie wondered: >would someone tell me how to find out where world cafe play on my >local radio of if you know where it plays? (i am in teh dc area) Go to the World Cafe website and look at the station list. It's http://members.aol.com/radioradio/worldcafe (that's actually a mirror site from where it actually resides at UPenn, but I can't remember what the real URL is -- if you get lost, go to my page and link to it from there: http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/meth/methbio.html). Richard posted: >break down and purchase the "SPIN" that interviewed her. I was surprised >that she speaks like she writes. It could get difficult in this world if >one communicated this way all the time... perhaps she felt comfortable >enough with the interviewer to "let loose"? Got news for you, Richard: she's like that all the time. Isn't it great? :) >I am almost regretful that I don't watch the >toob, since so many of my fave artists occasionally make appearances >there... I don't think I could stomach the commercials >:~P Do like we do: tape it and then watch it later, so you can fast-forward through all the commercials. Makes life a lot easier to deal with, that way. :) Does anybody out there know when tickets will go on sale for her show at the Palace Theater in New Haven, CT? Tickets for Boston are already on sale, and that show is happening *after* the New Haven gig, so I'm starting to get nervous... +===========================================================================+ |Meredith Tarr meth@delphi.com| |Boonton, NJ USA http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/meth/| +===========================================================================+ | "nothing's gonna stop me from floating" - Tori Amos | +===========================================================================+ ------------------------------ From: Richard Holmes Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 18:29:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Bells For Her Hi everyone! Does anyone find "Bells for Her" to be one of the most moving and sad songs... hints of magic and its loss are the images which prance before my ears when I hear this. And the threat of this as being inevitable. Does anyone else feel this way about the song... - -Richard. \@/ | Richard A. Holmes (rholmes@cs.stanford.edu) \|/ | "Drum to your future, Sing your dreams alive!" , , | , , ' ' ' ' ' Loreena McKennitt / Kate Bush / Tori Amos / Katell Keineg / Happy Rhodes / Dar Williams / Renaissance / Sheila Chandra / Laura Love / Jane Siberry / Fairport Convention / Kiva / Libana/ Danielle Dax / Dog Faced Hermans ------------------------------ From: abbe@MIT.EDU Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 20:47:24 -0500 Subject: Ticket Sales..a simple idea My guess is that whoever it was who posted the complete up-to-date list of when tickets go on sale found out information pretty simply: by calling up the theaters that she's playing at, and asking. The Wang Center in Boston, for example, had a nice friendly recording with a menu item for Tori Amos that said that tickets would go on sale at 10am on March 9 and could be bought at the box office or through ticketmaster. (Go for the box office if you at all can, they have *much* better tickets... I was a good hours' wait into the line and still got fairly good seats. *bounce* *bounce*) I'm really glad the info got posted, in any case. I didn't think the Boston tickets would go on sale so soon, and wouldn't have called this soon if I hadn't seen it posted, and then I would definitely have missed it. And as the Boston tickets illustrate, timing is pretty unpredictable. So call and find out from the theater. =) - -abbe ------------------------------ From: "Mike Harris" Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 21:56:30 GMT-5 Subject: Forward to PT & RDT Dear Fairies, I was reading the _Aquarian Weekly_ interview with Tori and two things caught my attention that I thought I'd bring up for discussion. "Well, with boy blood, you'd show up at the dinner table and you'd try and make sure that your lipstick matched the stains in the corners of your mouth." My first instinct was to take it metaphorically -- if so, what would she be saying by this symbolically? If not, could Tori be referring to an instance of oral sex or of vampirism? Another interesting quote I thought I'd bring up -- there was discussion on Really Deep Thoughts concerning the _Out_ listening parties. Tori says on this: "I just like communicating with people. And, I wanted to communicate with people who I think have taken a very truthful stand--in the face of a lot of judgement. Because I wasn't a part of that world that much, I didn't see how fierce it could be in this day and age. It shocks me sometimes. And, it comes through in my work--like with 'Hey Jupiter', 'Are you gay / Are you blue'." Thoughts, reactions, comments? Mike ------------------------------ From: Richard Holmes Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 19:08:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: lyrics? Meredith mentioned that not everyone's on RDT! That's me for sure... this is the only tori-only forum I'm on! Meredith also says.... >I agree with Neile on this one -- just because she's not presenting her point >on a silver platter any more doesn't mean her point is any less spot-on. >(Though I fail to see why so many people are branding the lyrics on BfP as >"obscure and bizarre" -- how much clearer can you be than "boy you're still >so pretty when you're putting the damage on" and "happy for you and I'm sure >that I hate you"?!? Sure, the first few lines of "Marianne" are rather weird, >but she didn't exactly have time to craft them into high art as she was going >along.) She's said that she is so sick of music that spoon-feeds it to the >masses -- she wants to make people think, to actually use their brains as >they listen (hey, what a concept!). I'm impressed by her lyrics, the more I listen to them. I think that her later efforts impress me more... I'm listening to Under The Pink now, and its incredible. >On her recent WHFS appearance, Tori addressed this issue directly, when asked >her response to people who complain that her lyrics are too weird for them. Well, this is cool, I wish I could catch more of the stuff she discusses, but I guess I get just the right amount, given the amount of time I have to process it... of course, I'll go look at any online sources for interviews that anyone cares to post... =8^) >Richard posted: > >>break down and purchase the "SPIN" that interviewed her. I was surprised >>that she speaks like she writes. It could get difficult in this world if >>one communicated this way all the time... perhaps she felt comfortable >>enough with the interviewer to "let loose"? > >Got news for you, Richard: she's like that all the time. Isn't it great? Well its no wonder some people get freaked by her lyrics... we aren't used to people who practice this sort of activity in our society. But her lyrics speak the truth; she may get her words by journeying to the land of Faery, but that makes them more tuned to the spectrum I tend to pick up on... ~8*) >>I am almost regretful that I don't watch the >>toob, since so many of my fave artists occasionally make appearances >>there... I don't think I could stomach the commercials >:~P > >Do like we do: tape it and then watch it later, so you can fast-forward >through all the commercials. Makes life a lot easier to deal with, that >way. :) Yes could be a saver! - -Richard. \@/ | Richard A. Holmes (rholmes@cs.stanford.edu) \|/ | "Drum to your future, Sing your dreams alive!" , , | , , ' ' ' ' ' Loreena McKennitt / Kate Bush / Tori Amos / Katell Keineg / Happy Rhodes / Dar Williams / Renaissance / Sheila Chandra / Laura Love / Jane Siberry / Fairport Convention / Kiva / Libana/ Danielle Dax / Dog Faced Hermans ------------------------------ From: Neile Graham Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 21:00:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Bells For Her Richard wrote: > Does anyone find "Bells for Her" to be one of the most moving and sad > songs... hints of magic and its loss are the images which prance before my > ears when I hear this. And the threat of this as being inevitable. Does > anyone else feel this way about the song... Yes! It's my favourite song on UtP. I find it very affecting and I can't pin down why--the haunting tune and lyrics just hit something in me every time I hear it. I can't believe Tori did this in one take--and then I can't imagine how anyone could put a song like that together other than in one take--totally intuitively. Amazing & magical and very, very sad. - --Neile neile@u.washington.edu http://weber.u.washington.edu/~neile/ ------------------------------ From: abbe@MIT.EDU Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 23:59:56 -0500 Subject: Scanned Images from Promotional Brochure I got a promo booklet at the Out/Atlantic release party in Boston at the end of January, and I've finally scanned in some of the pictures. If anyone has seen the booklet, it's an orange, cd-case sized book labeled "TORI AMOS" in black letters in the corner. The book slides out of an orange cardboard box that also seems a lot like a CD single case... The picture I scanned are on the web at http://www.mit.edu/people/abbe/orange.html or from my own homepage at http://www.mit.edu/people/abbe/home.html enjoy! - -abbe ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V1 #24 ************************************