[MUSIC] Tori Amos, "Professional Widow"
Jan. 27th, 2011 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldTori Amos' song "Professional Widow", off of her 1996 album Boys for Pele, is difficult but rewarding. Against a harpischord, Tori Amos sings about a woman married to a famous man--rumoured to be, respectively, Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain--who's pushing her partner towards catastrophe for her own sake.
The narrator's tough: "As I got to know Widow, I began to really adore her candor. She was so cut off from so many other parts of being, but here she is, deliciously convincing him to kill himself so she doesn't have to leave fingerprints on his body. She'll make sure he showers before this all begins. She's ready to extract what she wants from him, the current won't be what she wants until he's dead. Whatever his addiction is, she's convincing him that mother mary will supply it." Unusual instrumentation and lyrics aside, it's a good song.
Then, towards the end of 1996, mixer Armand van Helden did a remix.
It was a huge dance hit, in 1996 "the most played club tune around the world" though only the rhythm and a snippet of the lyrics arguably remained. Amos' long complicated saga was reduced to the amusing salacious paired lyrics "C'mon honey put it close to my lips yeah" and "Gotta be big". (van Helden knew his audience, I assume.)
I own the single, and, I admit, I usually head past the album version to van Helden's remix, track #2. The song's a dance hit; the song's meant to be heard in the context of a busy dance club, dozens or hundreds or even more people reacting to the song, to each other. It's the sort of genre that--remember disco--is positively queer.
It says something about my peculiarly individual and personal relationship with popular music that the van Helden remix doesn't bring up those associations for me. Should I change this, I wonder?
prism perfect
honey bring it close to your lips
yes
what is termed a landslide of principle
proportion boy it better be big boy
starfucker just like my daddy
just like my daddy selling his baby
just like my daddy
gonna strike a deal make him feel
like a congressman
it runs in the family
The narrator's tough: "As I got to know Widow, I began to really adore her candor. She was so cut off from so many other parts of being, but here she is, deliciously convincing him to kill himself so she doesn't have to leave fingerprints on his body. She'll make sure he showers before this all begins. She's ready to extract what she wants from him, the current won't be what she wants until he's dead. Whatever his addiction is, she's convincing him that mother mary will supply it." Unusual instrumentation and lyrics aside, it's a good song.
Then, towards the end of 1996, mixer Armand van Helden did a remix.
It was a huge dance hit, in 1996 "the most played club tune around the world" though only the rhythm and a snippet of the lyrics arguably remained. Amos' long complicated saga was reduced to the amusing salacious paired lyrics "C'mon honey put it close to my lips yeah" and "Gotta be big". (van Helden knew his audience, I assume.)
I own the single, and, I admit, I usually head past the album version to van Helden's remix, track #2. The song's a dance hit; the song's meant to be heard in the context of a busy dance club, dozens or hundreds or even more people reacting to the song, to each other. It's the sort of genre that--remember disco--is positively queer.
It says something about my peculiarly individual and personal relationship with popular music that the van Helden remix doesn't bring up those associations for me. Should I change this, I wonder?
