[MUSIC] Tori Amos, "97' Bonnie and Clyde"
Oct. 12th, 2005 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldTrack #2 on Strange Little Girls, just after "New Age", is Tori Amos' cover version of Eminem's infamous "'97 Bonnie and Clyde."
Said Tori Amos back in July 2001, "When I first heard the song, the scariest thing to me was the realization that people are getting into the music and grooving along to a song about a man who is butchering his wife. So half the world is dancing to this, oblivious, with blood on their sneakers. But when you talk about killing your wife, you don’t get to control whom she becomes friends with after she’s dead. She had to have a voice."
Neil Gaiman's accompanying ficlet deserves to be read, since it does go some way towards giving Slim Shady's victim a voice. "Now that she is dead, she tries to remember only the love. She imagines every blow a kiss, the make-up that inexpertly covers the bruises, the cigarette burn on her thigh -- all these things, she decides, were gestures of love."
Tori Amos' song does a much more complete job. The most remarkable thing about her rendition is that she doesn't change the lyrics--she doesn't add phrases, drop words--but keeps them in their entirety.
I've heard Eminem's original once or twice, and that song struck me as out of control. Amos' version is nothing but control, simple sweeping strings and her spoken voice. It's the voice that carries the song, reinterpreting Eminem's original lyrics with nothing more but changing intonations. We hear, in the voice of the victim, bitter irony ("you know you're mama/she's one of those type of women, that do crazy things/and if she don't get her way, she'll throw a fit") and fear ("don't play wit da-da's toy knife honey, let go of it"), vengefulness ("see honey, there's a place called heaven and a place called hell/there's a placed called prison and a place called jail/and da-da's probably on his way to all of 'em, except one"), even relief ("there goes mama, spwashing in the water/no more fighting wit dad/no more restraining order") and foreboding ("now we'll go play in the sand, build a sand castle and junk/but first, just help dad with two more things out of the trunk").
The original was a rant; this cover is a much better song, a spooky and almost frightening song, a recounting by a mourning woman of her feelings about her death and her fears for her daughter made complicit in the murders. You can tell that her heart is breaking.
If only Strange Little Girls had lived up to the promise of its first two songs. Even as things stand now, though, we at least have those two.
Said Tori Amos back in July 2001, "When I first heard the song, the scariest thing to me was the realization that people are getting into the music and grooving along to a song about a man who is butchering his wife. So half the world is dancing to this, oblivious, with blood on their sneakers. But when you talk about killing your wife, you don’t get to control whom she becomes friends with after she’s dead. She had to have a voice."Neil Gaiman's accompanying ficlet deserves to be read, since it does go some way towards giving Slim Shady's victim a voice. "Now that she is dead, she tries to remember only the love. She imagines every blow a kiss, the make-up that inexpertly covers the bruises, the cigarette burn on her thigh -- all these things, she decides, were gestures of love."
Tori Amos' song does a much more complete job. The most remarkable thing about her rendition is that she doesn't change the lyrics--she doesn't add phrases, drop words--but keeps them in their entirety.
baby, your da-da loves you
and i'm always gonna be here for you
no matter what happened
you're all i got in this world
i'd never give you up for nothing
nobody in this world is ever gonna keep you from me
i love you
I've heard Eminem's original once or twice, and that song struck me as out of control. Amos' version is nothing but control, simple sweeping strings and her spoken voice. It's the voice that carries the song, reinterpreting Eminem's original lyrics with nothing more but changing intonations. We hear, in the voice of the victim, bitter irony ("you know you're mama/she's one of those type of women, that do crazy things/and if she don't get her way, she'll throw a fit") and fear ("don't play wit da-da's toy knife honey, let go of it"), vengefulness ("see honey, there's a place called heaven and a place called hell/there's a placed called prison and a place called jail/and da-da's probably on his way to all of 'em, except one"), even relief ("there goes mama, spwashing in the water/no more fighting wit dad/no more restraining order") and foreboding ("now we'll go play in the sand, build a sand castle and junk/but first, just help dad with two more things out of the trunk").
The original was a rant; this cover is a much better song, a spooky and almost frightening song, a recounting by a mourning woman of her feelings about her death and her fears for her daughter made complicit in the murders. You can tell that her heart is breaking.
If only Strange Little Girls had lived up to the promise of its first two songs. Even as things stand now, though, we at least have those two.
