Re: tori amos

[woj@remus.rutgers.edu (l.l. cool bean)]

satyr!buck@apple.com (Michael Butler) sez:
>woj@remus.rutgers.edu (l.l. cool bean) writes:
>>KaTe sings of fantastical stories and tori sings of gritty reality; 

>I could fight this one.  Fantastical stories?  Absurd.  What's
>fantastical about "The Kick Inside", "Infant Kiss", "Empty Bullring",
>"Night of the Swallow", "Ran Tan Waltz", the "Oh To Be In Love"
>trilogy...  Arrrgh!

not fantastic, but fantasies. perhaps i wasn't clear enough in my wording,
but the point is this: KaTe's songs are for the most part stories about
things that have probably never happened to her and probably never will.
tori's music is for the most part coming from her experiences. big differ-
ence.

>Anyroad--look hard at, to take just one minor example, *which I
>enjoy*, "Happy Phantom" and see if it can't be held up to the light as

amusing that this song is the most KaTe-like on the criteria that i describe
above - "happy phantom" is a fantasy (or a fiction, if that word fits on
your palate better).

>a curious complement to *at least* three of The One True Goddess's
>works, considering music and lyrics (two hints: "You can't hear
>me/here in the room with you now", "I look at eye level/it isn't good
>enough"...).

okay, so "watching you without me" and "happy phantom" have a common con-
text: the spirit of a person observing the real world. but how does a 
lyrical similarity like this make tori a raving KaTe-wannabee? does every
song with a similar kernel of an idea indicate this? does that mean that
robyn hitchcock is guilty of KaTe-wannabeism since his "globe of frogs" has
a simliar idea?

woj