I remember listening to her album, Fisherman's Woman, so many years ago during a particularly dark and lonesome time in my life. This song as it was recorded in the studio version encapsulated my feelings perfectly. A song entitled "Nothing Brings Me Down", set to such a haunting melody with such melancholic vocals and instrumentation... I believe it to be the most accurate musical embodiment of somebody's denial of her own sadness. And if you are familiar with the personal tragedy that evoked Ms Torrini to write this album, everything makes even more sense. However, as I listen to this live rendition of this beautiful piece, I can tell that something has changed. The melody and its harmonic accompaniment remains almost completely unchanged, and yet the timbre of the guitar as it's being strummed, and the ever so minute differences in Ms Torrini's inflection of the words here signals something totally different. I hear no more denial. Instead, I hear hope. The hope that comes from the acceptance of pain, the overcoming of sorrow, and a renewal of one's strength to keep on walking in this world despite the shadows of our past that linger closely behind us - a theme I feel was central to the entire album as a whole. Perhaps I'm reading far too much into this, I'm sorry but I can't help it. I can only congratulate her for prevailing over the sorrows she has so beautifully written about, and I think that the transformation from how this was recorded on the album and how this was performed live was a silent testament to that. Thank you Ms Torrini, for sharing your journey with your listeners.
