Tori Amos - Northern Lad (REACTION) First Time Hearing It 

Thanks so much for these recommendations. I just recorded another reaction to a live performance of Crucify. Hope to get that video up soon.

Yes I agree…. While the live performances are always fantastic, listening to the studio created performance ,with the production the way she intended , is the best way to go.

Beautiful lines! Looking forward to explore more of her music.

Incredible allround artist. And the writing is just impeccable. Looking forward to many more.

She definitely has me at a loss for words sometimes. Incredible musician. Thanks so much for (re)watching! That one is on my list.

@@SaeedReacts. "Choked" on her yet like some other reactors? I am glad to share my passion for that incredible artist with you. In my mind she is literally in a class of her own. Whether rock, pop, independent, rap or whatever, no one is as expressive, inventive, imaginative, versatile, gifted and emotional as she is. My word!

Heartbreaking song.

Beautiful song. Thanks for watching.

Magnificent performance. So glad i discovered her music through this channel. Thanks so much for watching.

That's beautifully said about the emoji's and memes. We almost dont think about it anymore. Very surface level stuff and this music goes way beyond that.

I agree

I never connecting this song with LOTR, but it makes total sense. It's so cool seeing all of these different interpretations!

@@raspberryswirl375 Yeah, I don't think the song is *about* LOTR, but I suspect it references the mythology, just like "Precious Things" references the "precious" ring. When she seems to become possessed during some of the live performances while saying "precious, precious, precious," I think the whole thing is a reference to the corruptive power of obsession over dark, consuming forces. Her music is full of religious allegory and mythology, and that includes Tolkien-no surprise given that one of her best friends is a fantasy writer, she loves comic books, and Led Zeppelin is one of her favorite bands. 🙃

Ooh! Thanks for sharing that interpretation! And she likes fantasy too? Okay she is my new favorite person 😃

@@SaeedReacts. She and Neil Gaiman are so close she calls him her brother. She mentions him or his writing on almost every album, and his Sandman comic series features a talking Tori tree inspired by her. Her album Scarlet's Walk and his novel American Gods also feature intertwining themes. Both of them seem to have one foot in reality and one foot in a realm of mythologies from around the world, including religions, folklore and fantasy literature. Check out one of her early B-sides, Flying Dutchman (not the orchestral version!), and even her '80s Y Kant Tori Read song Floating City for some insights into this perspective. Her fantastical masterpiece IMO is her album Night of Hunters, which is overlooked because it is a classical album and many regarded it as boring compared with her older music. But the concept and lyrics are masterfully brilliant once a person understands them. On the surface, some aspects sound preposterous but they actually make sense once layered ideas come into focus. For example, the album includes time travel to past lives under the guidance of a shapeshifting fox-goose entity. Wacky? Well, there's a constellation called Vulpecula that has been represented at different times in history as a fox, then as a fox with a goose in its mouth, and then as just a fox again. Over time, the constellation, which looks down on us, has shapeshifted according to how it is seen. So the goofy-sounding shapeshifter is a real-world entity when conceived of in that way. In the album, the fox-goose represents the wisdom and the vulnerabilities of both predator and prey, and it teaches Tori (thr character) how to maneuver and survive her lives and relationships. Ultimately, the lesson is "you must out-create; it's the only way." The surface-level read of the album's narrative is that it chronicles the relationship of two people who "are like a pair of suns that are captured, eternally linked into chasing each others' spin, bound by beliefs that have become steel cords/chords..." but I think the album is simultaneously the chronicle of humanity's relationship with divinity. In the beginning, there's a huge bloody breakup (which closely mirrors the Sumerian proto-creation myth), and out of despair, Tori drinks a cactus concoction and is taken into a past life in which she and a romantic partner are Irish warrior poets who fought to defend their pantheon and lost to the controlling power of the Thunder God. So it's also about the old gods versus the new self-appointed and megalomaniacal Thunder God (paralleling Gaiman's American Gods again) and the power struggle among humanity for balance versus domination of one patriarchal force. Only a brilliant poet can pack all this into short songs, and this brilliant poet did so by grafting her own lyrics onto various unrelated classical music compositions. And the lesson is always to be faithful to the muses and whatever else is the source of creativity because that's the purest force we have, and it's complicated and dynamic and can't be distilled to an idea of just "good" or "bad." It's both and it's all encompassing.

​@DavidMichaelCommer I love NoH & really appreciate your exposition.

Great voice and amazing lyricist as well. Thanks for watching.

Great song. Thanks for recommending it!

Thanks for the recommendation.

Will add it to my list. Thank you.

Amazing song.

Thanks so much for the recommendations! Hope to check out many more.