Tori Amos – Page 2 – Chrys Buckley

I’ll just preface this by saying that there are two sections of my book. The first is called Eclipses, with four chapters about childhood and adolescence before I left for college. These are not named after songs. The next section, Waxing Crescent, is the main body of the book, and I still think of the first chapter in this section as chapter 1. This section (the bulk of the book) is where lyric-as-title comes into play.

In this post I decided to go through my chapters that are named after song lyrics and say why I picked the lyric with the chapter, because I picked them all for such varied reasons.

Chapter One is titled “She’s A Girl Rising From A Shell” from the song “Ribbons Undone” by Tori Amos.

Some songs I picked because that’s what I was listening to at the time I’m writing about. This was not the case this time. I titled this chapter about leaving for college with a line from a song that I didn’t hear until six years after the fact.

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Music, Writing

My Table of Contents Looks More Like the Song List on a Soundtrack…or Something

April 16, 2008July 2, 2024 Chrys Buckley

So, all my chapters (except for the first four that cover childhood), are named after song lyrics. In fact, I’ll just put the list of songs on here, to give an idea, and then I want to talk about the general motivations. Some songs come up more than once, (“Moonchild” by Chris Cornell, for example), different lyrics are used in each chapter. That song is the repeating refrain of the story, for sure. Anyway, for now, I’ll just give song title and artist.

Here’s the current table of contents:

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Music, Writing

"Toast" by Tori Amos (and thoughts about Leaving)

December 12, 2007July 2, 2024 Chrys Buckley

TOAST

I thought it was Easter time
The way the light rose
Rose that morning
Lately you’ve been on my mind
You showed me the ropes
Ropes to climb
Over mountains, and to pull myself
Out of a landslide
Of a landslide

I thought it was harvest time
You always loved the
Smell of the wood burning
She with her honey hair
Dallhousie castle
She would meet you there
In the winter, butter yellow
The flames you stirred
Yes, you could stir

I raise a glass, make a toast
A toast in your honor
I hear you laugh and beg me not to dance
Cuz on your right, standing by
Is Mr. Bojangles, with a toast
He’s telling me it’s time
To raise a glass, make a toast
A toast in your honor
I hear you laugh and beg me not to dance
Cuz on your righ;t, standing by
is Mr. Bojangles, with a toast
He’s telling me it’s time
To let you go
Let you go

I thought I”d see you again
You say you might do
Maybe in a carving
In a cathedral
Somewhere
In Barcelona

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Writing

Home, Home Again

November 29, 2007July 2, 2024 Chrys Buckley

…and I can definitely say, to quote another band, “what a loooooooong, strange trip it’s been.”

Three weeks and a day of traveling all over the east coast. I went from Philly to Allentown, PA, from there a quick trip up to Albany for a concert, then back to Allentown, then Boston, then Baltimore, then back to Allentown, then to NYC, then to Philly (with a trip from NYC out to Long Island to meet my ride back to Philly). Then yesterday morning, I left Philly for my trek back to Orcas Island, which, all told, took 18 hours.

In a way it was a rock star kind of trip, waking up in all these different cities. So many nights, I had the sensation of coming in or out of sleep and being disoriented, wondering where I was. It was great. Throughout the trip, I slept on couches, in two hotels, in a basement spare room, in a shared twin bed in a dorm room and on a pullout couch. I saw so many friends it was amazing. Not just the ones I stayed with, but friends I saw at concerts, friends who came to my reading in New York City, a friend who I rarely get to see and who is going to Iraq in January. We met for two hours, went out to eat at a brewery, it was the fourth time I’ve seen in the last seven years. I get a little choked up sometimes, just thinking about how precious it is to have these short encounters with people who matter.

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Writing

I Can’t Seem to Stop Stretching

September 1, 2007July 2, 2024 Chrys Buckley

This always happens.

It always seems that whenever I have an idea, a plan, something expansive, I put that in motion, and as soon as that’s taken care of, more ideas for more expansive things come to mind. During the last semester that I attended college, instead of flying into Phoenix (I went to school in Flagstaff), I wanted to go to LA to spend time with my good friend Caren before going to school. In my house, it didn’t matter that I was 21, I had to get this plan approved by my parents. The way I got any plan approved by my parents was to put it in writing.

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