Silent All These Years

I've had several number ones over my lifetime.

The Promise by When in Rome, Into Deep by Genesis I had for five editions, Space Age Love Song by A Flock of Seagulls, She's Got a Way by Billy Joel was number one for a long time, as was Silent All These Years by Tori Amos, Song Away by Hockey, a very little known one, but it will be in this top hundred somewhere.

was one that I had for several editions, as was Dreams by the Cranberries and Hand in My Pocket by Alanis Morissette.

All right, there's my spiel.

As Lily writes, "...the ruler's act of raping the seal of her voice so that she cannot speak the truth was an attempt to mute the victim who speaks the truth and to stop her from naming her abusers." So the Gnostics, way ahead of their times, and I'm sure we could all relate.

I'm not sure if any of you remember this song by Tori Amos, Silent All These Years.

Tori Amos is influenced by the Gnostic Gospels, very open about it, but Silent All These Years is about her being sexually violated as a child and keeping silent about it until she finds her divine voice at the end.

Same can be said by the song.

I don't know if you guys remember the song by Sarah McLachlan, Possession.

But, um, that was the first one in rehearsals I specifically was, like, choking up, like crying.

I was like, "Oh, I don't know," like, "what's happening?" [laughs] I just, I think it's a beautiful song, and she, just the way she was singing it in rehearsals, there was like, it, it was some day where she was, like, feeling particularly really connected and she, just her face, like, I was just like, "Oh." Um, another one is Silent All These Years.

That's a huge one for me.

I just, I love that song so much, and I think especially it's, it's a great example of one of those songs that shifts meaning, like, throughout her, her life-

Yes.

Tori Amos song that you like for Tori Amos to sing?

[gasps] Silent All These Years.

I know-

... composed seven new tracks, swaps them out from the original, and that resulted in what I call one of the most formidable debut records of the '90s, Little Earthquakes.

And this single, Silent All These Years, came out only a few months after the Anita Hill story broke, and Tori says it caught a sort of cultural zeitgeist of anger and rage, and the song just kinda catapulted.

So I think it's quintessential Tori, and it's an impressive feat for a first record.

Let's listen.

I'm excited.

Yeah.

Silent All These Years.

Here we go.

Well, yes.

Angel Shark, Mary, Pandora's Aquarium, Silent All These Years.

Virginia.

Oh, the one-two punch of Little Amsterdam and Little Earthquakes.

Tori Amos started tonight as she always does with Shaka Malife and Beautiful Lips.

She opened the real show with Sacrifice, Overgreed, Acid Rain, Nautical Nuns, Shush.

That's what we call silent all these years.

Shush.