Tori Amos Liner Notes:
JR's Best of Tori's Covers, Bootlegs, and Rarities - Disc 2

JR Notes: After I compiled the first edition of my "best of Tori" rarities CD, I found myself with a pile of worthy tracks that didn't make the cut the first time around. Yet these songs still stood out from the others in my collection. Thus this second "best of CD." After this second collection, the rest of the Tori songs I have are either readily available, redundant, or inferior.

This second CD lacks the juggernaut tracks that elevate the first CD, but there's still a lot of good stuff on here. And since my bar for this CD is a little lower, I am also more open to experimental tracks. As per the liner notes for the first CD, my focus is more on assessing the musical merits of each song rather than documenting its origins. But in most cases, I have noted where I found each track. If you need more info on individual tracks, email me directly.

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Annotated Track Listing:

(1) "She's Leaving Home" (Live) - One of Tori's most unexpected and inspired covers is this live treatment of an old Beatles classic. A widely-bootlegged gem.

(2) "Needle and the Damage Done" (Live) - It's hard to imagine someone covering this Neil Young staple more effectively. From an outstanding bootleg CD called Strange Little Live Covers.

(3) "Butterfly" (B side) - A really graceful B side. One level underneath her B side classics, but still worth seeking out.

(4) "Famous Blue Raincoat" (Live) - The original track, by Leonard Cohen, is a tale of betrayal with lyrics of devastating incisiveness. Sounds like a track ready-made for Tori. Indeed, she actually recorded a studio version of this song and played it live frequently. This live version, also from Strange Little Live Covers, brings out the emotions of the song more effectively than the comparatively-muted studio version. I also like the live banter with the audience before the track, so I don't edit that out for my own CDs.

(5) "Boys in The Trees" (Live) - I don't know much about Carly Simon, but she won some respect after I heard this. Tori used to play this song early in her career, and I guess she started playing it again after a fan mailed her an old bootleg. This song almost made the cut for my "very best of" CD, but the repetitive final verse takes away from the song's impact. Tori tries to salvage by singing the final verse with more intensity, but this almost makes it worse. Nevertheless, an outstanding cover.

(6) "Thoughts" (B side) - Another excellent B side, with an airy feel that compliments the surreal imagery. The reference to "everybody else's girl" is a bonus.

(7) "Ain't No Sunshine" (Live) - The piano is a little shrill, but this version, from Covering 'Em, is still the best of the three I've heard. Tori's (relatively) restrained but emotional delivery carries this version.

(8) "Only Women Bleed" (Live) – Tori's done a couple versions of this Alice Cooper classic, including a studio take, but I like the live version from Strange Little Live Covers. It's not as good as it could be, but that may be due to the fact that Alice Cooper's original is well-nigh impossible to improve on.

(9) "A Case of You" (Live) - One of Tori's most frequent (and obvious) cover songs, I've never been blown away by it. Since Joni Mitchell's original was guitar-based, it seems like Tori's piano version would be refreshing. It's odd that Tori's "River" cover (which both of them played on the piano), would be more compelling. But that aside, my favorite version of "A Case of You" is from a bootleg called Ultra Rare Tori. The sound quality is lacking, but there's something more intimate about this particular rendition.

(10) "Landslide" (Live) - Covering one of the great post-breakup love songs ever recorded is a daunting task, and recreating the perfect acoustic lead on the piano proves a challenge even for a genius-level interpreter like Tori. The end result: a very pretty but not-quite-there cover. Anyone who's heard Stevie Nicks sing it for all time on Fleetwood Mac Live (the '70s record) knows what Tori is up against here.

(11) "I'm on Fire" (Live) - If not for the truly obnoxious crowd noises, this version (from the Sounds of Tori bootleg), would be better than the VH-1 Crossroads take. This one has that stunner "ooh ooh" middle section, which Tori does not include on her VH-1 performance.

(12) "Love Song" (Live) – Two CDs, two versions of "Love Song." The two could not be more different. The "very best of" version is edged with melancholy, whereas this version is more aggressive. Another classic from the Strange Little Live Coversbootleg.

(13) "Thank You" - One of Tori's first studio covers (from the CrucifyEP), and one of her most brilliant. Few people have raided Zeppelin more masterfully than this. If you argued that this belongs on the "very best" CD and not the "second best," I wouldn't argue much. At any rate, it's a cornerstone of this mix.

(14) "Angie" - Another inspired performance from the CrucifyEP. Same thing with "Thank You" - this could have made the cut for the first CD, but I like how it anchors this one. Another minor problem: the Stones' version is definitive. One of Mick's most affecting vocal performances, "Angie" is not to be trifled with. Tori can't touch Mick on this one, but it's still a solid effort.

(15) "Sugar" (Live Edit) - This is a JR edit of the Hey JupiterEP version. I took out the lengthy anecdote at the beginning, which gets a bit old after the twentieth time or so. The big debate for this CD: whether to include this song or "Caught a Lite Breeze" from MTV Unplugged. The "Lite Breeze" performance is certainly a classic. It's probably more of a rarity, and a more creative interpretation. If I had an 85 minute CD instead of an 80, I'd probably put them both on here. But faced with a choice, I'm going with this seductive version of "Sugar," which has to be one of Tori's most accomplished vocal performances. Without her backing band, Tori gets at the essence of this essential B side.

(16) "Little Drummer Boy" (Live) - Perhaps the best Christmas song ever written, Tori's live version gets off to a powerful start. But halfway through, she changes keys Barry Manilow style – not my favorite flourish (I could also do without the "go Tori!" someone yells out halfway through), but still a nice piece of work.

(17) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Live) - I heard Tori do this on in person back in the day, and it was so unexpected, and so impossibly sad. This version from Hey Jupiter is just like that. The crowd starts out raucous, but Tori silences them with something they didn't expect. Sometimes I find this song too ponderous; other times, it's just too truthful. But when the time is right, it sounds like the best cover of them all.

(18) "American Pie" (Live) - Why cover the whole song when you can skim the cream off the top in the first two minutes?

(19) "Merman" (B side) - A mini-cult following has cropped up around this Tori B side. I'm not sure it's deserving of such. At times, I find it cloying and irritating. But then I'll catch myself listening to it repeatedly. The rule is that you can't hide your guilty pleasures, so this one makes the cut.

(20) "Song For Eric" (B side) - Another two minute ditty, made possible by the replacement of an edited "Sugar" for "Lite Breeze" above. One of Tori's few a cappella songs, it's from the same Irish vein as Sinead O' Connor's "He Moved Through The Fair," which closes out the movie Michael Collins in such powerful fashion. "Song For Eric" is easy listening fare in comparison, but it's still a nice way to close out the mix.
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