Thrill 4-20: Another Place {Garlands}

19 songs, 79 minutes, and it's still not done with!

I've covered every individual song on The Beekeeper (and subsequently vowed never to do something quite like this again) from the beginning to the end. But there's another song that travels somewhere away from the others, just within sight but remaining aloof.

Tori Amos' previous album, Scarlet's Walk, came in a limited edition that, as far as the music was concerned, was nothing more than a gimmick. A nice gimmick by all accounts, especially with a much larger map to follow the album's journey across America, but as far as I am aware there wasn't a single extra note of music.

The Beekeeper limited edition has Garlands. At 8 minutes 20 seconds, it's a lot more than a gimmick. It's longer than anything on the album proper.

It's also utterly unlike anything on the album. I doubt that's the reason it didn't make the cut, as the entire album is the musical equivalent of throwing a handful of seeds and finding out where they land. I suspect the reason was the entirely practical one of fitting as many songs as possible on the CD. Garlands would have forced two other songs off.

My very first reaction to the song was fairly negative. Its length, its status as a not-quite-album track and its repetitive opening all immediately put me in mind of Apollo's Frock, a song that I find irritating because of one major flaw.

My initial bias against Garlands came to be transformed into sincere enjoyment of the song, as I gradually realised it didn't share that flaw at all.

The flaw is this: Apollo's Frock is 8 minutes and 13 seconds long. It takes a whopping 2 minutes and 42 seconds to actually get to the start of the song, structurally speaking. Everything before that is an introduction, and it's not a very good one. It repeats itself several times - there are cosmetic changes, but the harmonic progression goes round and round in circles and even sits down at the same conclusion at least three times.

Why it feels the need to set off on this journey more than once, I do not know. When I give it close consideration, I'm driven to think of a goldfish that forgets it's already seen everything in the bowl. Me? I've heard all I want at the 47-second mark (at gunpoint I'd also accept the close at around 1 minute 42 seconds).

I'm not making this up. There is now a live version of Apollo's Frock available which proves the point, because it skips the introduction and begins at the 'real' start. I greatly prefer it to the studio version for this very reason.

The reason I now like Garlands is because there are only 34 seconds of introduction, which are highly atmospheric. Everything after that is part of a massive, slow-moving structure that could be described as having a double chorus, something that is completely beyond the conception of many pop musicians. Either 'chorus' (at the words "He's on the run..." and "Circus, these Garlands...") would be sufficient in itself musically, but together they create something more complex and more satisfying as the song rises and falls.

If one accepts that tentative analysis, then that means the 'verses' are the parts that are dominated by the figure I initially feared as the repetitive reminder of... that other song, but that I now find meditative and mesmerising. It takes me into a cold, withdrawn world from which the two 'choruses' rise passionately into flower.

It's fitting that the song sits apart from its sisters, because it's able to look after itself. As I've written each of these 20 posts, I've played the relevant song on a kind of non-continuous repeat. Press play, listen, type, keep typing for a little while in the silence before pressing play again.

Some of the songs became a bit tiresome if I took too long to finish drafting the post. In contrast, I've finished here now but I'm not remotely tired of Garlands even though I'm hearing it for (I think) the fifth time in succession. No higher praise is necessary.