I'm so sad
like a good book
I can't put this Day Back
a sorta fairytale
with you
A sorta fairytale is the second track on Scarlet's Walk, followed by Wednesday and preceded by Amber Waves. The song was also released as a single, and the radio edit has been played on the most inconceivable stations on the ether - for many of them it must have been the first time ever they played a song made by Tori Amos. Is this because all popular radio stations have made a revolutionary change in their music style in the past few years? I doubt it.
More than that, this shows how different Tori's latest album is from her previous work, I guess. Gone are the shrieking bits which my boyfriend says give him a head-ache. In this song, at least, the piano work is played down and guitar and drums take the lead. A sorta fairytale is air-wave material, plain and simple. It's got a beat. It's got a chorus. And it's mainly about love, sweet love, and the ending of it.
I knew then it would be
a Life Long thing
but I didn't know that we
We could break a silver lining
This is not a song about true love. Instead, it's about all those times where you think you are in this perfect romance, only to wake up and find yourself struggling to get along with someone you cared for once. It's almost like a fairy tale, but not quite. It's a sorta fairytale.
The way fairy tales often take place in a dream land where magic is everywhere and nothing is as it seems, the first flash of love can be so blinding that it becomes impossible to see the other person clearly. Yet the partners both think they're seeing the real thing, and that the best thing in the world has happened to them.
This is the finished story of Scarlet's first love on the album, pieced together from the song lyrics and Tori's comments about it:
Mission accomplished with her friend Amber and the Northern lights, Scarlet finds herself free in
Los Angeles. Happy people often attract other people, and in this case she finds herself together with the man of her dreams. But how can one city be big enough to contain their happiness? They rent a classic car and hit the road.
things you said that day
up on the 101
the girl had come undone
I tried to downplay it
with a bet about us
You said that-
You'd take it
In the beginning, everything is going perfectly fine. They're both having the trip of their life, following the Ventura, also known as the Pacific Coast highway, or US Highway 1 and 101 (or something like that - this roadmap is becoming most confusing). They had originally intended to go to San Francisco. But on the way they realize that they'd be much happier together alone, surrounded by nothing, and so they cut off from the main road and go west into the desert. There is a lot of desert on this album, maybe because of its lack of distractions.
Down New Mexico way
something about
the open road
I knew that he was
looking for some Indian Blood and
find a little in you find a little
in me we may be
on this road but
we're just
Impostors
in this country you know
So we go along and we said
we'd fake it
The desert is where the masks fall, the blinds in front of their eyes are opened, and they see each other for what they are. Immediately, their illusion crumbles. Everything that was is over. It's not about not having enough love for each other, they had that. But they had invested themselves so deeply in an image of the other person that when it broke, they lacked the strength to pick up the pieces and start again.
And I rode along side
till the honey spread
itself so thin
for me to break your bread
for me to take your word
I had to steal it
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