I watched Citizen Kane earlier tonight. What a movie! I'll probably write up a log entry for it tomorrow.

Just got through an intense listening of Tori Amos's Strange Little Girls. That packs a hard punch. I wasn't really planning to consciously delve into the lyrics, interpretations, and stuff until several background listens. The theory being that it would be better for my brain to have the musical patterns somewhat etched out, before looking deeper. But fate wouldn't have it that way.

I threw it on again to play in the background while I surfed the web. Then that song came on again. The one which I would discover was a cover of Emimem's '97 Bonnie & Clyde. Even with the volume just turned up halfway, and brain focusing on other stuff, the ambience of it was just so. . . eerie. Partial phrases registering into my consciousness over the string instrumentation....

"What IS this?!?"

I turned up the volume, and altered my course to find out about I was hearing. After finding some basic information about the album, a little more searching found a page which became a very handy listening companion, featuring abundant Tori quotes about each song/character, lyrics to both the original and Tori-ized versions, and the corresponding picture for each song (also on the cd insert).

Including, of course the lyrics to the one inducing the proverbial shivers into my soul. eek. A complete reading of the words revealed that my instinctive reaction to the vibe corresponded well with the tone of the narrative. (Shaded, of course, by Tori's expression of it.) Now I'm terribly curious to hear Eminem's original rendition. Wither ye Napster. Hmmmm... I'm sure a copy of it can be found somewhere.

Of course, with the momentum underway, and my interest fully piqued, I went through all the rest of the album, reading the lyrics, notes, and accompanying quotes which had been assembled on the page.

Yeah. It packs a wallop. A lot of dark stuff. Quite amazing too. All songs, taken (almost) verbatim from other sources, and put together in a unique way to form another picture.

Some of the quotes on the page were eerily timely too. Well, at least somebody was paying attention to what was going on in the rest of the world prior to September 11. This one, about her cover of Slayer's Raining Blood, speaks for itself. There's nothing I could really add to it.

"Beck's bass player (Justin Meldal-Johnsen) suggested I do a cover of Slayer's Raining Blood. I was reading about what was going on in Afghanistan - the way women were being oppressed, the destruction of religious statues. And when I heard that song, I just imagined a huge juicy vagina coming out of the sky, raining blood over all those racist, misogynist fuckers."

...

Anyway . . . . I'm at a loss right now. I need some sleep. Peace.