[panholio]

ebony beauty
pass this shade
the looking glass relects
then a voice calls me back,
"this is just circumstance it is not
personal", oh no it never is.
then you ram your hand in your bag
for a little friendly substance

By the time you're 25
they will say, "you've gone and blown it".
By the time you're 35, I must confide,
you will have blown them all
Right on cue just act surprised
when they invite you to take
your curtain call
you climbed China's wall
your
curtain call

I have done what I've done
and it has the ultimate consequence
then a voice calls me back,
"this is not business, no,
its more like spiritual"
is that what it is
Then you ram your hand in your bag
for a little protection

By the time you're 25
they will say, "you've gona and blown it."
By the time you're 35, I must confide,
you will have blown them all
Right on cue just act surprised
when they invite you to take
your curtain call
you climbed China's wall
your curtain call

ebony beauty
pass this shade
the looking glass reflects



I was listening to this the other day after taking a peak in the AATS thread. I have my own issues with that album. I feel like it has her best production out of the three clunkers, and I feel like it has some of her better songwriting as well, but the album itself frustrates me because never before have I thought that there was actually a great album suffocating beneath the weeds. Now, I do have my own edit of this album - and Curtain Call is most certainly a part of that.

I remember when clips of the album began to leak this was one of the tracks that got peoples attention. The piano line is so simple at the beginning, and so unfettered by guitars - it almost seemed too good to be true. I also remember in the first clip that was released that the song stopped right as the first cheese chord was struck by Mac and people started shitting themselves - how can she do this again? But when we finally heard the whole song, the guitar is surprisingly well mixed it. In fact, the guitar on this song, as well as the production makes it feel like an intentional revisiting of Little Earthquakes production - and in many ways I feel like this is the kind of music I could imagine her making at this age when I first heard something with Precious Things. The song has a lot in common with Precious Things for me, structurally, as well as musically - the tone forms a dark vignette of a woman who is recounting her experience with the music industry. Weary, tired, beaten down. This is the sort of hard boiled story I expect from 90's Joni Mitchell. Tori has written plenty of songs about her battles with the music industry but I feel like this is the most successful, if only because she lays it out with no confusing babble like she did on The Beekeeper ("well, Hoochie Woman is about my record company" - uh, right). Plus it has that killer line (killer-ish) "By the time you're 35, I must confide, you will have blown them all." Not to come off all Molly Kavanagh, but if any line was going to rival precious things in her later work it would be this one (I bring home de bakon lol).


The song isn't without its flaws, but it sounded great live and solo and she was obviously really feeling it at the time. I wish she'd had the balls to release it as a single or something, because it's really from a side of her that I don;t think we'd heard from in a while and though I don't need to hear her retread her pain in order to enjoy her music, I felt like I was actually listening to Tori Amos singing about something that had hurt her, probably for the first time in years. No sugar coating. As well as that, I love how she uses her voice in this song. She's not trying to hit the high notes, she's not trying anything that she can't deliver live, but she is still singing with a fragile intensity. I feel as if it's that moment when you're about to lose it with someone, with someones actions, and you have to use every fiber in your being becuase you know to erupt at this point will just cost you everything. The lyrics are totally straightforward - not muddled or muddied with confusing metaphors: Seeing her reflection in the piano, book ending the song - the one thing that has reflected her back (literally and metaphorically) throughout her career - the deadpan remarks from the suits "This is not personal," the references to the crutches of drugs, the noirish image of putting your hand in your bag to feel for you gun, all beautiful images that come to life without being overwritten, the reference to China (which was the first song she wrote for Little Earthquakes). My favourite part is when she sings "I have done what I have done." There's a total moment of professional self-forgiveness there that really rings out for me.


I actually think the visualette is one of the more successful ones on the album. Again, there's a complete lack of narrative, but it's one of the more visually interesting. Weird to see Pip again though. And weird to see her trying to look butch drinking a Tiger beer or whatever. The one thing I love about the visualette is the rain, and I made my own version of this with some rain sound effects and put it on my version of the album. It just takes the ambiance to a whole new level.

Anyway. That's all. I don't have a massive amount to say but I'd love to hear other people chat about it.