| "Concertina" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Tori Amos | ||||
| from the album To Venus and Back | ||||
| Released | February 8, 2000 | |||
| Recorded | March 1999 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 3:57 | |||
| Label | Atlantic | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Tori Amos | |||
| Producer(s) | Tori Amos | |||
| Tori Amos singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Concertina" is a song written and performed by American singer/songwriter Tori Amos, released as the fourth and last single from her 1999 album To Venus and Back . The commercial CD single was released in February 2000.
The title of the song refers to the musical instrument concertina. The lyrics use it as a metaphor to describe the experience of discomfort and unease in a social setting, likening it to being a squeezebox. [1] When recording the song, Amos wanted to combine the acoustic piano with electronic drums, as she felt the dichotomy complimented the themes of the lyrics, which describe sensory discomfort in a "fierce calm" and being changed "particle by particle". [2]
In the interview for her cover story in Alternative Press in October 1999, [3] Amos commented on the content of the song:
Do you ever feel like you walk in a room, and you don't know why, but you're just so uncomfortable you're crawling out of your skin, even though nobody's touched you, physically? That's in Concertina, when you feel like you haven't excavated enough of your different personalities that when one pops up, you're not sure where it came from, and you try to hack it out of yourself. It shocks you that you could have this kind of fault, or that other people could bring it out in you.
Since 1999, the song has been featured in all of Amos' world tours, [4] except the 2005 Original Sinsuality Tour in support of The Beekeeper.
Concertina was included on the setlist for the DVD release of Amos' concert for Live from the Artists Den in 2010. [5]
Enhanced CD single, February 8, 2000: [6]
Promotional CD single, February 8, 2000:
No music video was filmed for the song. A promo CD single featuring both the single and album mix of the song was released to radio stations. Concertina was performed live on the television show Later... with Jools Holland. The song was featured in setlists during Amos' 1999 concert tour in support of the album.
| Title | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| "Concertina" (2000) | US AAA | 18 |
| "Concertina" (2000) | Billboard Hot 100 Singles Sales (U.S.) | 48 |
Tori Amos is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
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Under the Pink is the second studio album by singer-songwriter Tori Amos. Upon its release in January 1994, the album debuted atop the UK Albums Chart on the back of the hit single "Cornflake Girl", and peaked at number 12 in the US.
The Beekeeper is the eighth studio album by American musician Tori Amos. It was released on February 20, 2005, through Epic Records and is her second release for the label. As with many of Amos' releases throughout the 2000s, The Beekeeper is a concept album, heavily inspired by the practice of beekeeping and its connection to femininity and female empowerment. The album's nineteen tracks are separated into six different "gardens", and are inspired by topics such as her experiences with motherhood, betrayal ("Witness"), and Christian mythology.
"Putting the Damage On" is a ballad by American singer and songwriter Tori Amos, and is featured as the 17th track on her 1996 album, Boys For Pele. The song may have been initially considered as a single for the album, because copies of the album were accompanied by a sticker listing this song, along with "Caught a Lite Sneeze" and "Talula," as feature songs, but of all five singles released from the album, "Putting the Damage On" was not one of them. In the song, Amos is accompanied by her own piano playing, and by the Black Dyke Band.
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"Cornflake Girl" is a song by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos. It was released on January 10, 1994, as the first single from her second studio album, Under the Pink (1994), by EastWest Records in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it served as the album's second single, after "God". Singer Merry Clayton provided backing vocals and sings the "man with the golden gun" bridge.
A Piano: The Collection is a five-disc box set spanning the first 15 years of the solo career of American singer and songwriter Tori Amos. Released on September 26, 2006, by Rhino Records as part of the contract Amos negotiated with Warner Music Group, the set includes singles, album tracks, B-sides, rarities, demos, and unreleased songs from album sessions.
"Bliss" is a song by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos. It is the lead track from Amos' fifth studio album, To Venus and Back. "Bliss" went to alternative stations on August 6, 1999, and was released commercially in the U.S. on August 24, 1999. The song was not released as a single in the UK, but peaked at # 91 in the US.
"Winter" is a song by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released as a single in March 1992. "Winter" was Amos' first single to reach the top 40 in any country, peaking at number 25 in the United Kingdom two weeks after its release.
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"Sleeps with Butterflies" is a song written and recorded by Tori Amos. It served as the first single from her album The Beekeeper. As was the case with most of her singles from Scarlet's Walk, this single was released as a digital download only, although a promo CD single was produced for radio stations. The song appeared on radio stations in the United States beginning January 10, 2005, and was available as a digital download on January 12.
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