Little Earthquakes

Back in 2001, I took a course at the community college about songwriting.  I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot.  I finished with an "A" and learned that if songwriting doesn't come to you naturally that it's extremely laborious. 

During the course, we would spend a lot of time analyzing pop songs and the way in which they're structured- we would bring in a song we like and play it in front of the class while breaking down the way its structured. 

From the beginning as we practiced this exercise, our teacher made a rule that nobody was allowed to bring in any songs by Tori Amos, that her music didn't follow any "traditional" pop song blueprint and would therefore be difficult to analyze. 

At the time I remember thinking, "psssh! Tori Amos, who could ever like her!"  Little did I know that 15 years later I would have become an enormous fan of her work.  She's perfectly capable of writing a traditional pop song, and often does it, but since she's so tremendously talented she often times steps outside of what tradition would expect of her.

Today's song comes from Amos and it's the title track of her 1992 debut album "Little Earthquakes."  The song is about instability and how little things (earthquakes) can often set someone off, or make them lose his/her footing.  I would dare to say that this song steps right out of the barriers of what's expected in "normal songwriting."  I'm also quite surprised that of all her songs this is the one I would be writing about, but it was the one stuck in my head- so here it is...

Did you survive all seven minutes of that song?  Are you ok? 
Like her or not, I think few can deny that the woman is streaming with talent.