Thursday, November 6, 2014

NWC Day 6: Favorite CD

I'm participating in a daily writing challenge during the month of November. It's fun and similar to NaNoWriMo, except that I'm not beating myself up every day for not being a better fiction writer. Freedom!

---

Prompt #6: What is your favorite CD or record of all time? Why?

Oh my God. I think I'm actually going to say it.

I am going to be THAT lesbian.

Okay.

Put on your fangirl hats.

(Jeez.)

I think my favorite CD might just be Tori Amos' debut, Little Earthquakes.

(I TOLD YOU.)

To clarify, it's my favorite CD to write to. I can hear the music and sing/hum along AND write. That's how well I know it.

I first bought the cassette (CASSETTE!) when it came out in 1992. I discovered Tori on MTV (blah blah joke they used to play music blah) when she was performing for a very small group of clearly confused young women. Tori, if you don't know, has a tendency to sit halfway on her piano bench, legs splayed, and basically sex her way through her songs. The video below gives you a bit of an idea:



I discovered her music at a very pivotal time in my life. I was about a year out of high school, 18, in college, living away from home (at least until I chain-smoked and euchred my way through my freshman year and was invited by the university to not return the next semester), and moving away -- albeit slowly -- from the tragic, melodramatic poems I wrote during my adolescence. I think it was Tori's writing that first grabbed my attention. Her songs would be poignant and sometimes just downright weird and I was so into her strangeness. I remember flipping out when I spilled something all over my first cassette and went to a music store to buy a replacement. And then I got the same album (and several of her others) on CD. And now I listen to her on Spotify, even though I still own the CDs. It doesn't matter that they're all burned to my hard drive. I just don't want to give them up.

All of that said, I'm not the rabid fangirl who can tell you every Tori fact there is to know. I've only seen her in concert a couple times and the last time was probably 15 years ago. I guess the point is that I remain a fan more than 20 years after discovering her and can turn to Little Earthquakes when I want to listen to music and pound out some words. Even after two decades, the wicked piano playing in "Precious Things" almost always stops me from writing long enough to play along. Mock-playing near my laptop keyboard, that is, as all I really know about the piano is how to identify one. (Black. Shiny.)

I also have a sense of humor about Tori's theatrics and greatly enjoy this parody of her on "Bob's Burgers":


What can I say? I love her.

No comments: