Scarlet's Walk
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| Scarlet's Walk | ||
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| Studio album by Tori Amos | ||
| Released | October 28, 2002 | |
| Recorded | Cornwall, February 2002 to spring 2002 | |
| Genre | Alternative/Americana | |
| Length | 74:09 | |
| Label | Epic | |
| Producer(s) | Tori Amos | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tori Amos chronology | ||
| Strange Little Girls (2001) |
Scarlet's Walk (2002) |
Tales of a Librarian (2003) |
Scarlet's Walk is the eighth album released by singer and songwriter Tori Amos. It is an 18-track concept album that details the cross-country travels of Scarlet, a character loosely based on Amos, as well as the concept of America post-September 11th (2001). The album was the first released by Amos on Epic Records after her split with former label Atlantic Records.
The first single from the album was the catchy and radio-friendly track "A Sorta Fairytale." It was followed by the song "Taxi Ride," for which fans were asked to direct and submit music videos for a contest. The third single, "Strange," was released in a redone version to radio. It was given a Country and Western feel with twangy guitars and additional vocals.
The album also provided entry to "Scarlet's Web" (cf. Scarlet's Web) a massive web site that was the sole source for special concert ticket offers, photos, merchandise, and unreleased B-side tracks. This hardly deterred people from illegally copying the website-only material and distributing it. There was a limited edition version released in a special box with a bonus DVD, a map detailing Scarlet's journey, and a bracelet-charm.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
(all songs written by Amos)
- "Amber Waves" – 3:38
- "A Sorta Fairytale" – 5:30
- "Wednesday" – 2:29
- "Strange" – 3:05
- "Carbon" – 4:33
- "Crazy" – 4:23
- "Wampum Prayer" – 0:44
- "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas" – 4:51
- "Sweet Sangria" – 4:01
- "Your Cloud" – 4:30
- "Pancake" – 3:54
- "I Can't See New York" – 7:14
- "Mrs. Jesus" – 3:05
- "Taxi Ride" – 4:00
- "Another Girl's Paradise" – 3:34
- "Scarlet's Walk" – 4:16
- "Virginia" – 3:55
- "Gold Dust" – 5:54
[edit] Website exclusive tracks / B-sides
- "Tombigbee"
- "Operation Peter Pan"
- "Seaside"
- "Mountain"
- "Indian Summer"
[edit] Scarlet's Hidden Treasures (released with Welcome to Sunny Florida DVD in 2004)
- "Ruby Through the Looking-Glass"
- "Seaside"
- "Bug a Martini"
- "Apollo's Frock"
- "Tombigbee"
- "Indian Summer"
[edit] Bonus DVD
- "Gold Dust" (video version)
- "A Sorta Fairytale" (video version)
- Polaroids
- "Taxi Ride" (audio bed)
- play all
- chapters
- audio options
- Tori audio commentary (on)
- Tori audio commentary (off)
[edit] Description (from promotional materials)
"The CD's about America -- it's a story that's also a journey, that begins in LA and crosses the country, slowly heading east. America's in there, and specific places and things, Native American history and pornography and a girl on a plane who'll never get to New York, and Oliver Stone and Andrew Jackson and madness and a lot more. Not to mention a girl called Scarlet who may be the land and may be a person and may be a trail of blood." - Author Neil Gaiman
[edit] Sample lyrics and song descriptions
"Amber Waves" (attempts to correlate the life of a porn star with the history of America; in the song the character Amber has lived her life making pornography and feeling glorious and important, only to realize that she has put her life in the hands of people whose intentions for her may not be altruistic):
Well he lit you up like Amber Waves in his movie show/Fixed you up real good 'til I don't know you anymore/From ballet class to a lap dance straight to video/And the poolside news was that he would be launching you into every young man's bedroom
"A Sorta Fairytale" (Scarlet, the album's protagonist, recounts how a relationship has dissolved during a road trip because of a difference in opinion between herself and an unnamed lover):
And I'm so sad/Like a good book, I can't put this/Day back/A sorta fairytale with you/Down New Mexico way, somethin' about the open road/I knew that he was lookin' for some Indian blood/Find a little in you, find a little in me/We may be on this road, but/We're just imposters in this country, you know
"Wednesday" (in a short song with a Beatlesque feeling, Scarlet takes up residence with a brief fling after her previous breakup, only to be haunted by the ghost of her failed relationship):
No one's at the door/You suggest a ghost, perhaps a phantom/I agree with this (in part) /Something is with us/I can't put my finger on/Is Thumbelina size 10 on a Wednesday?
"Strange" (Scarlet pontificates on the fact that her last two relationships were not what they seemed to be, and that it actually may be her own fault):
Just stay/You said we'll build a nest/So I left my life, tried on your friends/tried on your opinions/But when/the bridges froze and you/Did not come home/I put our snowflake under a microscope
"Carbon" (Scarlet meets a manic-depressive and they travel together through the Black Hills of Dakota to Wounded Knee, scene of one of the darkest episodes in Native American history. She's on a path to destruction, and though Scarlet takes her to a ski resort, for this girl the normal parameters and boundaries have ceased to apply, and Scarlet walks away with the situation unresolved):
Carbon-made only wants to be unmade/Blade to ice/It's double diamond time/Just keep your eyes on her/Just keep your eyes on her horizon
"Crazy" (Scarlet meets a man called "Crazy". After her encounter in "Carbon", she is looking for some stability, so even though it's evident he may not be the best person for her journey, she stays with him until he abandons her):
Found that I crave it all/Saw me melt into your Native Shelter/Where you call my name/Paper tigers/Scared me and came alive/...and as soon as you have rearranged the mess in your head/He will show up looking sane, if I know Crazy
"Wampum Prayer" (Scarlet continues her journey alone and visits the site of a massacre of the Apache people. She hears the ghostly voice of a surviving Indian woman and this prayer enters her thoughts):
In our hands an old thread/Trail of blood and Amens/Greed is the gift for the sons of sons/Hear this prayer of the Wampum
"Don't Make Me Come to Vegas" (Scarlet gets a call from her sister: her 18 year old niece, living in Las Vegas, is in an abusive relationship, and Scarlet knows that to return to Vegas means confronting a history with an old flame there who treated her poorly):
My old flame was a jester/and a joker/and a dealer of men/They called him the Prince/of blackjacks, and of women, and of/anything that slipped through his hands/...don't make me come to Vegas/don't make me pull you out of his bed
"Sweet Sangria" (While in Texas, Scarlet meets a Latino revolutionary fighting United States intervention in Latin America. But the more Scarlet is drawn into the fight, the more she begins to see that she can't go along with hurting people on either side):
Before sundown the Mexicans leave San Antone/The car will then drop him at the Border (the breaking point) /I know you know people have suffered time and time again/but what about, I ask you now, the innocents/on both side
"Your Cloud" (Scarlet leaves the revolutionary behind as she travels through Memphis and up to Philadelphia. Observing the cracked Liberty Bell, she muses on the concept of "body maps" and the idea that no matter how you split things apart, a trace will remain connecting some things that are inseparable):
If there is a horizontal line/that runs through the map of your body/straight through the land and shooting up/right through my heart/will this horizontal line/when asked know how to find/where you end/where I begin?
"Pancake" (Here Scarlet meets a messiah-like character with whom she quickly becomes disillusioned. If the man from "Sweet Sangria" was all action, this man is all talk, and he is swollen with power):
I believe in defending what we once stood for/It seems en vogue to be a closet misogynist homophobe/You could have spared her oh, but no/Messiahs need people dying in their name/You say "I ordered you a pancake."
"I Can't See New York" (Scarlet meets a woman in an airport while in Boston, and they take separate planes into New York. After landing, Scarlet witnesses the plane explode in mid-air):
From here no lines are drawn/15,000 and holding/swallowed in the purring of her engines/tracking the beacon here, is there a signal there/I can't see New York/as I'm circling down through white clouds and falling out
"Mrs. Jesus" (Scarlet needs to leave the chaos of New York and she hitchhikes with a man called "Mrs. Jesus; he is a Christian, but one who doesn't judge or inflict his beliefs on others, and he sheds some light on religious fanaticism for her):
Life lines and suicide crimes/he found me in a state/grabbed my purse and hitched a ride with Mrs. Jesus/...made my bed of cut roses/by understanding that the cause/it just comes first with Mrs. Jesus
"Taxi Ride" (Scarlet meets several women in Chicago who have lost a gay mutual friend. She is disillusioned with their reactions and realizes many of them are two-faced. The plot arc reflects Amos' own loss of gay makeup artist and friend Kevyn Aucoin):
Just another dead fag to you, that's all/Just another light missing/In a long taxi line/and down to your last cigarette/and this "we are all one" crap/as you're invading this thing you call love/she smiles too much
"Another Girl's Paradise" (Scarlet passes back down through New Orleans, making it to Florida and eventually Hawaii. She envies the women who make their homes there and realizes that it's possibly true that we can never ever be completely altruistic)
You caught me lingering in another girl's paradise/The way she paints the world/ I want that in my life/Emeralds, you should know, are renting in the meadow/With a stroke, beauty lives/How can I resist? You are desire
"Scarlet's Walk" (Scarlet travels up the east coast, tracing the steps of early European settlers, and imagines what it might have felt like to welcome them in only to have them take over your land):
If you're a thought you will want me to think you, and I do/Invited a guest up until you announced that you had moved in/What do you plan to do with all your freedom?/..I will follow her on her path/Scarlet's Walk through the violets
"Virginia" (Scarlet goes up through Virginia into Washington, D.C., wondering how a land built on the idea of freedom could deny it to the Native Americans, and imagining a young Indian girl following the settlers into a new frontier):
So hundreds of years go by/The red road carved by sharp knife/and she loses a little each day/to ghetto pimps and presidents/who try and arouse her turqouise serpents/she can't recall what they represent
"Gold Dust" (Scarlet settles into D.C. where she gives birth to a daughter. It is never established which of her many lovers gave her this child, but the character's journey comes to fruition as she realizes that the things that are lasting are not lands, or towers, or even lovers, but that which is within):
Letting names hang in the air/What color hair?/Auburn crimson/Autumn knowingly stared/and the day that she came/I'm freezing that frame
"Operation Peter Pan" (recalls the crisis in 1960-62 when 14,000 children were evacuated from their home in Cuba on Pan Am flights, some never to be reunited with their families.)
Hola Rojo, mornin' to you/You always helped me chase demons away/Don't know what I'd do without you/So Pan is the name of the plane/Second to the right, straight on 'til morning
"Ruby Through the Looking-Glass" (a disturbing encounter during Scarlet's pregnancy.)
Running through the house screaming/girl unstrung/you could always play that one/baptized of fire/and every beat in the bar/hymns for her/feel her kick me from the inside
"Seaside" (an account of a bombing.)
There at the seaside, fifth of December/we chased the tide as her treasures were gathered/I had to laugh as she gave sand a bath
"Bug a Martini" (evokes the lounge-style bossa nova of classic American spy films.)
Bug a martini/send me to Moscow/lounge and return/echo can't hear you/and as you wander/through perfume and pathways/your version - coercion/my version - elixir of quietude/line up the dots/music to spy to/music to die to
"Apollo's Frock" (draws parallels between Greek mythology and a modern relationship)
You and your predators were warned/if the cubs were drawn in/for the last time you would officially cross my line/you could never see Apollo's frock/was always as beautiful/always as beautiful as the saddest rainstorm/Apollo, your frock was always as beautiful/always as beautiful as your sister's that your light shined on
"Tombigbee" (Scarlet discovers the full extent of the Native American horrors in the South.)
To you it's another day/To me it's a grim reaping/Just another shooting star/strung out on your wire
"Indian Summer" (tackles the subject of female empowerment through masturbation.)
Indian summer/fresh mown grass/girls in the attic/looking on them/Indian summer/call me back/someone tell me there is another way/Yes another way/Another way to pray
"Mountain" (Scarlet learns another Native American tale)
Run he said/the shore will take them/but offerings won't alter this/Do you understand/Sure it matters if you are really/superfly's secret wife
[edit] Charts
Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Billboard 200 (U.S.) | 7 |
| 2002 | Billboard Top Internet Albums (U.S.) | 1 |
| 2002 | Official UK Album Chart (UK) | 26 |
| 2002 | German Top 100 Album Chart (Germany) | 9 |
| 2002 | Polish Top Selling 50 (Poland) | 10 |
| 2002 | Australian ARIA Chart (Australia) | 20 |
| 2002 | New Zealand's Top 50 (NZ) | 45 |
| 2002 | Irish Album Chart (Ireland) | 24 |
| 2002 | Finnish Album Chart (Finland) | 20 |
| 2002 | Austrian Album Chart (Austria) | 26 |
| 2002 | The Album Top 100 (the Netherlands) | 21 |
| 2002 | Top 100 Album Chart (Canada) | 13 |
| 2002 | Official Sales Chart (Norway) | 30 |
| 2002 | French IFOP chart (France) | 32 |
| 2002 | Belgian Top 40 Chart (Belgium) | 38 |
Single
| Title | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| "a sorta fairytale" (2002) | Billboard Adult Top 40 (U.S.) | 11 |
| "a sorta fairytale" (2002) | Official UK Singles Chart (UK) | 41 |
| "a sorta fairytale" (2002) | Canadian Singles Chart (Canada) | 6 |
| "a sorta fairytale" (2002) | German Top 100 Singles Chart (Germany) | 98 |
| "Taxi Ride" (2003) | Billboard Adult Top 40 (U.S.) | 35 |
| "don't make me come to Vegas" (2003) | Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play (U.S.) | 6 |
| "don't make me come to Vegas" (2003) | Billboard Hot Dance Singles Sales (U.S.) | 12 |
