you for a while

Silent all these Years

Music, lyrics, and commentary by: Tori Amos

“First of all, that piano was definitely an art piece. It couldn’t play. But I guess if you are going to spray paint a piano, you gotta figure that it might just affect the sound of it.”

“I would say that the idea of finding a voice you have to go back to children because most of us, when we were children, we didn’t think about ‘I need to find my voice’ because you said what you wanted to say. I will say that rolling around in a box was not the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But I had been photographed in this box by Cindy Palmano, and I think in 1991 when this was shot, um, the whole saying “thinking out of the box” wasn’t really so cliche and I liked the idea of ‘music box’…trying to break out of it as a musician.”

“This was the first video Cindy and I did together. We were quite close at this point…we were forming a bond. And I guess I was able to sing and reveal things because there was a trust level and a respect level. This was really Cindy’s vision…all this, um, you know the details…every detail came from Cindy’s mind. We would talk for hours and hours and hours,e at dinner together, hang out at her house. So things like the metallic and gold-looking elements meant something to her. But to hear her speak and talk about it, of course it made sense. And when we saw it, I felt it.”

“This video was very much a collaboration–me as the songwriter and her interpretation of what I was singing about. Um, Cindy has a scientific mind…we think very differently. And I think that was part of the marriage we had. She was intellect and I was emotion. Um, imagine the fellowship of our separate rings. Thats what made our marriage. I didn’t always know what she was doing but it didn’t matter. Because you make an agreement in a creative marriage. You don’t always know what your lover’s doing…and you shouldn’t or you’re a spy. And that doesn’t work. So there needed to be a freedom. And we both needed to hear our own voice. And it wasn’t just about hers and it wasn’t just about mine. There was room for both. And thats what, really, the song was about.”

~Tori Amos on Silent all these Years (Fade to Red)