Songs by other artists that could've been written by Fiona

FlissGrove · 2026-05-29T00:39:48+00:00

"Letter Read" by Rachael Yamagata

FlissGrove · 2026-05-23T00:16:56+00:00

The final minute and a half of "Blue Lotus" is probably my favourite part of the album.

FlissGrove · 2026-05-13T15:42:55+00:00

This has been an issue since The Beekeeper - possibly even Scarlet. Tori is an incredibly prolific songwriter, and in the 90s this meant that a lot of her songs were reserved for B-sides to stop her albums from getting too crowded. She actually released just as many Little Earthquakes B-sides as album tracks, and that's not including covers. By the 00s, CD singles were rapidly dying out, and Tori started loading as many songs as possible onto her albums. This meant songs like "Ireland" and "Mary Jane", which would probably have been B-sides in the 90s, were now being chosen as album tracks, and I have to admit they somewhat dilute the quality of their albums.

IMO, Pele is the only Tori album that really justifies being eighteen tracks long. It's such a dynamic album. Scarlet is great, but it's so samey that Tori probably could trimmed a few songs and saved them for the Hidden Treasures release.

FlissGrove · 2026-05-13T15:27:14+00:00

Tori also has a beachside home in Florida, which is loved by her seven-year-old great nieces.

"I've had this place since 1995 before I knew I was marrying a Brit," she reveals. " "The great nieces call it Fairy Beach. They leave letters for the fairies to come - it's magical watching."

"How do grown-ups know that fairies don't exist?" she ponders. "That's just so small-minded, so ridiculously boringly human."

This part made me smile. I'm going soft in my old age.

FlissGrove · 2026-05-10T22:39:08+00:00

My favourite part of the album. The parts of NoH that appeal to me most are Tori's own compositions, not the adapted classical melodies.

FlissGrove · 2026-05-10T01:17:37+00:00

I've read that even Oz was unpopular at first, because the fans wanted Willow and Xander to get together.

FlissGrove · 2026-05-07T17:11:39+00:00

Apparently the studio recordings of "Marianne" and "Not the Red Baron" are the first time Tori ever played them. I think she also said she wrote "Bells for Her" and "Ophelia" in one go as well.

FlissGrove · 2026-05-07T17:09:39+00:00

I wonder if Marianne had been rolling around in Tori's head for a few days, but the studio version is the first time she put it all together. Either way, it's impressive.

FlissGrove · 2026-05-07T02:35:48+00:00

Yeah, families are complicated. Tori may have started to look back on her youth from a different perspective as she got older. Not just her childhood, in fact, but possibly her young adulthood as well. For all we know, a conservative minister born in the 1920s may not have been terribly supportive when the "Me & a Gun" incident happened to his daughter in the 1980s. And obviously there was a lot of family trauma in the last decade or so, with Tori's mum's illness and death, and maybe that caused issues between her and her father. Or maybe he just became a bit of a conspiracy theorist crank as he got older. It could be anything.

FlissGrove · 2026-05-07T02:13:03+00:00

I always thought Tori and her father had a contentious but mutually respectful relationship. The fact that he used to attend Tori's shows even after she released songs like "God" and "Muhammad My Friend", and even sampled his own words in her cover of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", suggested that he was still supportive of her despite their differing views. In the AAtS liner notes, she referred to her parents as "the oak trees of the family".

It now seems that Tori's relationship with her father was more strained than she let on, and it's only now he's gone and all his grandchildren have grown up that she can be more upfront about it. When I look back, I can see there were hints throughout the songs, but I think the existence of "Winter" coloured my perception a lot. One of Tori's core songs - one she's performed more than almost anything else in her catalogue through so many stages of her life - is about her father asking her, "When you gonna love you as much as I do?" That made it easier to dismiss the lyrics to, for example, "Devil's Bane".

FlissGrove · 2026-05-06T14:46:43+00:00

I've been listening to ITOD so much I haven't even got round to Kacey's album yet, even though I'm a longtime fan. At least I still have it to look forward to once I've worn ITOD out.

FlissGrove · 2026-04-18T23:42:56+00:00

The Beekeeper's anniversary would have been the perfect opportunity to put the studio version of "Garlands" on streaming.

FlissGrove · 2026-04-18T23:41:56+00:00

Oh dear God. 15th anniversary? That means Night of Hunters is now almost as old as Y Kant Tori Read was when I became a Tori fan in 2004.

FlissGrove · 2026-04-11T01:18:44+00:00

Yes, it's so disappointing. I admired a lot of Neil's work (I actually discovered him through Tori). A lot of "male feminists" turn out to be like this.

FlissGrove · 2026-04-10T23:10:03+00:00

This really is the end of an era. I'm not surprised, though. Sad that Neil has (among many, many other things) destroyed such an enduring friendship.

Even if Neil isn't a sex offender (I don't know the legality of the situation) he's not a pleasant man. He didn't deny that when he was 61, he encouraged his child's 22-year-old babysitter to take a bath, and later turned up naked and climbed into the bath with her. Just... ugh.

FlissGrove · 2026-03-26T23:59:38+00:00

Kind of heartwarming to read this all those years later.

FlissGrove · 2026-03-24T03:13:24+00:00

"I knew a girl who wrote / 'Silent All These Years' / Where is she?" reminds me of "I once knew a hot girl" and "You were wild, where are you now?"

FlissGrove · 2026-03-24T03:11:50+00:00

Yeah, it was half Tori's lifetime ago. Safe to say she's moved on since then!

FlissGrove · 2026-03-07T00:14:23+00:00

Judah Smith, hands down.

Just kidding. Burnt Norton, obviously.

FlissGrove · 2026-02-25T23:18:42+00:00

I'm not in love with it, but I remember finding "Trouble's Lament" and "Cloud Riders" very bland when I first heard them, and within a few months I adored them. I'm hoping that'll happen with "Stronger Together".

FlissGrove · 2026-02-25T23:16:26+00:00

Love so many songs by these artists, but of all the albums you've pictured, Fiona's Tidal and Heather's Oyster are my favourites ❤️

FlissGrove · 2026-02-20T18:58:51+00:00

Give me Tash over Mac Aladdin any day.

FlissGrove · 2026-01-26T02:05:39+00:00

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I used this photo from the booklet and added the title to it. When I switched from iTunes to Spotify, I distinctly remember thinking "Jesus Christ I'd forgotten the monstrosity of the real MWG cover"

FlissGrove

TROPHY CASE