SONG TITLE: CRUCIFY
PERFORMER: TORI AMOS
SONGWRITER: TORI AMOS
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1991
COMMENTS: The first song on Tori Amos first real album is a song of personal realization. She is a particularly twisted chick, but she's got a brain in her head, conservatory musical training and a willingness to let it all hang out emotionally. Broadly, this song is about owning up to her own psychic perversity.
This is a premium example of her basic style, which is oddly difficult to classify. It doesn't seem like she should be so hard to classify; she's writing more or less normal songs - it's not like she's Captain Beefheart or something. Hell, even Beefheart is relatively well described as singing a kind of blues. Tori doesn't quite fit the normal categories.
The nearest way I can describe this is as a "power ballad," though there's no way you would mistake her for Bon Jovi or Poison. She is way too musically sophisticated to just start pounding blunt rhythms based on two or three basic chords. Her graceful melody and dynamic rhythms tend to make me think of it as a "ballad." However, her rhythms make me want to dance and pump my fists to the beat way more than those other idiots whose names cannot be mentioned twice in one essay. It is noteworthy that she has frequently covered or carried on about heavy metal type bands, notably Nirvana and Led Zeppelin. You might say "Crucify" is a ballad in much the same way that "Stairway to Heave" is a type of ballad.
The emotional content runs a gamut of internal turmoil. From the start, she is describing a public panic attack. "Every finger in the room is pointed at me." The BOOMs punctuating the verse are mostly only simple acoustic piano chords, their meaning amplified by the context. There are calmer, more reflective shades. ("you're just a cage girl...") Then there are expressions of frustration (with herself, mostly). "Nothing I do is good enough for you."
The
lyrics
describe
this
state
sometimes
directly
and
some
times
metaphorically
as
religious.
She
seems
to
think
of
religion
as
largely
an
avenue
for
co-dependence
and
masochism.
"I've
been
searching
for
a
savior
in
these
dirty
streets,
looking
for
a
savior
beneath
these
dirty
sheets."
She's
looking
for
someone
to
sacrifice
herself
too.
She
sees
this,
and
reduces
religious
ideas
as
a
kind
of
masochism.
Yet
even
knowing
better
she
ends
the
song
with
"Please
be,
save
me,
I
cry."
Again as elsewhere, my description of her work sounds like the work of a hopeless, pathetic whimpering neurotic, but it absolutely is not. There is a power in her presence that will not be mistaken for the work of a wimp. It's more like bravely facing your demons publicly. Neither the melody nor the lyrics are helpless, but more like a boast of how far she'd come.
"I've got enough guilt to start my on religion."
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