When Tori Amos’ solo debut Little Earthquakes arrived in stores in January 1992, and its contemplative second single “Silent All These Years” caused a stir, it was like a musical lightning bolt that changed the popular musical landscape forever. Here was an intense artist and fierce performer with songs illuminating the female experience in ways that had not been heard on mainstream radio or MTV before. The album lurked on the Billboard charts for weeks and would go Gold within a year on its way to Double Platinum three years later. Her popularity grew rapidly throughout the ‘90s. She headlined Madison Square Garden for the first time in 1998.
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Little Earthquakes had some great lyrical zingers. In that aforementioned ballad, Amos declared of a betrayal: So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts / What’s so amazing about really deep thoughts? / Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon / How’s that thought for you? She was smart, profound, and fearless. “Me and a Gun,” the album’s penultimate track, was a brave choice for a lead single as it is a first person a capella song about a sexual assault.
Then There Was “Precious Things”
In contrast to how the sharp words of “Silent” cut against its gentle piano balladry, “Precious Things” was a more head-on, full-band rock track. Driven by Amos’ chaotic tumbling piano, her powerful vocals here ranged from quiet and hyperventilating to intense wailing. Anyone who saw Amos perform live in the ‘90s will remember how its key lyrical section elicited shrieks of delight from young women in the audience.
I want to smash the faces
Of those beautiful boys
Those Christian boys
So you can make me come
That doesn’t make you Jesus
Inspired by childhood and teen anguish, “Precious Things” first came to life years before the Little Earthquakes sessions. When performing on VH1 Storytellers back in 1998, Amos explained that she first conjured the song while living behind a church when she was around 24 years old. Her roommate loved playing raucous music, which made Amos flashback to her sanctimonious grandmother.
Creature of the Bible’s Leviticus
“She used to put me in a corner and she would read me something, I think from Leviticus, I can’t remember,” recalled Amos on Storytellers. “But she was convinced that I was gonna give my soul to God and my body to a man that I would marry. But at five years old I knew that we were enemies. So, in my mind I was always trying to find ways to get away from this creature. So I thought of things and my mother thought I was a demon for thinking them but I think she would smile out of the corner [of her mouth] because I think she felt the same way. So, behind this church with this music going on and on in my head, I started to really think that maybe just one day I could run faster.”
In speaking to Hot Press back in 1992, Amos said, “Little Earthquakes is all about celebration. Celebrating the ability to laugh, weep, and scream, particularly if you have been silent for years. And so it’s about celebrating sexuality in the widest sense, including the elements of revenge.”
Deep Love, Raw Nerve
In the case of “Precious Things,” she said that, “Just because I’m with a man and because I’m creaming for a man doesn’t make him a master, doesn’t even necessarily make him worthy of love, of my love. And I now realize, maybe for the first time in my life, that my capacity for love is incredibly deep and that for me to give this to a man he has to fully understand, and respect what that means. Too few do.”
When she recorded the song with her co-producer and then-partner Eric Rosse, the song came to life in vibrant, dramatic form, richly sculpted with haunting vocals, drones, reverb, and guitar feedback, and the band kicking in at the right spots. It’s perfectly executed.
As shown by many of Amos’s songs from this period, she was a young singer-songwriter becoming empowered by her own realizations about the power imbalance between men and women and by realizing her own sense of self-worth. “Precious Things” was one of those manifestos that was edgy and invigorating, and it struck a raw nerve embraced by many of her fans. In a career as deep and varied as hers, it still remains one of her best songs.
Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/FilmMagic
