The Beekeeper, Tori Amos

The Beekeeper by Tori Amos is a song too beautiful for words so I'll only attempt a few. Somehow I only discovered this track very recently (perhaps the time was right) and I cannot stop listening to it. The section that immediately and most intensely struck me is the main chorus:
""Do you know who I am" she said "I'm the one, who taps you on your shoulder, when it's your time. Don't be afraid, I promise that she will awake tomorrow""

On a spiritual adventure of my own the idea of being awakened at a certain time - the right time - by someone or something tapping me on the shoulder rang true. The music accompanying the lyrics is utterly poignant and stirs my heart and soul.

Having sought out (thanks to Lyrics Mania) and read the whole lyrics, I have a sense - which could easily be entirely wrong - that Tori may have been writing about the loss of a child who only just or didn't quite make it into this world from the other. The painful anguish of loss and desperation are intense. The desire to make sense of something so sad makes for enchanting listening.

"Flaxen hair blowing in the breeze
It is time for the geese to head south
I have come with my mustard seed
I cannot accept that she will be taken from me

"Do you know who I am" she said
"I'm the one who taps you on the shoulder when it's your time
Don't be afraid I promise that she will awake
Tomorrow somewhere, tomorrow somewhere"

Wrap yourself around the tree of life
And the dance of the infinity
Of the hive
(Take this message to Michael)

I will comb myself into chains
In between the tap dance clan
And your ballerina gang

I have come for the beekeeper
I know you want my
You want my queen
Anything but this
Can you use me instead?

In your gown with your breathing mask on
Plugged into a heart machine
As if you ever needed one

I must see the beekeeper
I must see if she'll keep her alive
(Call Engine 49)
I have come with my mustard seed

Maybe I'm passing you by
Just passing you by girl
I'm passing you by
On my way, on my way

I'm just passing you by
But don't be confused
One day I'll be coming for you...
I must see the beekeeper
I must see the beekeeper"

Corinne Bailey Rae: Life Drifted By...

Corinne Bailey Rae: 'It happened to me. It could happen to anyone at any time'
From out of the darkest place, following the sudden death of her husband, Corinne Bailey Rae is re-emerging with an extraordinarily intimate and impassioned album. Here she talks about grief and the redemptive power of music

Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 4Oct09

"...Then came the strange inertia that grief instils in those left behind, the long, terrible numbness that is, in itself, a kind of death. "I didn't do anything for a year. I mean, nothing," she says, still sounding as if she can barely believe it. "Everyone was asking, 'What have you done?' But I had nothing to show them. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't write anything. I didn't work. I sat at my kitchen table for a whole year, people came and people went, life drifted by. It was just bleak. Bleak."

Did she think that she might give up music altogether? "I did think that I could never do this sort of thing again because if anyone asked me about Jason, I would just explode. For a long time, I didn't even try and write. It was just too big a thing, too raw. It was just too destructive to make anything creative out of. All I wanted to do was destroy things. And I'm really not that type so it was all these emotions that were totally alien to me. It was just a bleak, empty, hollow nothing.""

Full article here