30 Days 30 Songs - Day 1 - Winter

So I’m doing this 30 days 30 songs challenge thing cos I heart music. I’m posting the songs on facebook each day, and then writing a blog about each one, which will probably come sporadically, rather than every day. Anyway, here’s a little about my favourite song:

Winter
(written, composed and performed by Tori Amos, orchestra arranged by John Philip Shenale)

I’m fairly certain this was the first Tori Amos song I heard. It was 2005 and I was in Chemistry class, which was my favourite class because I sat on a bench with my best friends and we always had such a fun time together, and we loved the teacher, who we dubbed “The Party Queen.” Anyway, my best friend had recently started listening to some artist I’d never heard of, who had influenced Amy Lee, called Tori Amos, and she was pretty obsessed with her. So she brought the CD into school with her, big CD walkman and everything (those were the days xD) and told me I HAD to listen. And she’s not the kind of girl you refuse when she tells you you have to do something :P. So I listened, and I was immediately struck by the beauty of the song, which is something that never happens for me on a first listen. I finished listening and told her it was really beautiful.

A few weeks later my friend made me a CD which included some of her favourite Tori tracks, Winter obviously being among them. I listened to that CD so much. She put some of the most gorgeous songs on it. The beauty of many of the earlier compositions and recordings of Tori Amos is indescribable. Winter is the most beautiful of all in my opinion.

From the very opening motif, beautiful. So delicate. And it stays in your head. Tori’s voice: so very delicate, almost childlike, yet so full of feeling and strength. Her internal anguish is so evident in the chorus, “you say that things change, my dear”. The gorgeous orchestration cannot be forgotten either: though the piano accompaniment can hold its own, the Little Earthquakes album version with the strings, horns and drum has a completely seperate dimension that isn’t present in solo performances. The instrumental climax leading to the third verse is breathtaking, and when I play the song on the piano, I always include the part played by the strings and horns, because it just takes me to another place, even higher than the piano part alone.

The lyrics. I can’t even begin to describe their beauty and meaning. The chorus goes like this:
“When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
Cos things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
You say that things change,
My dear.”
That’s just a snapshot, the imagery used in the verses is fantastic, so evocative. I can’t even talk about it, you have to hear it. I urge you to go and listen to the song if you don’t know it. It is beautiful.

http://www.we7.com/#/song/Tori-Amos/Winter