What’s great about the song is, that despite it’s gentle tone, it grabs you straight away -in less than 8 seconds – with its first two lines:

Had a northern lad
Well not exactly had

In less than 8 seconds you’ve got a a full story, one that has questions oozing out of its frame. Why is it important that he’s a northern lad? Is it because she’s implicitly not a northerner, that she never managed to entirely have him? etc. A rarely muscular opening for Amos – compare it with Playboy Mommy, for example, and almost 20 seconds in the piano intro is still setting the scene. 

The other thing I love about the song is that, though it’s muscular and stripped back, that’s not to say it’s lyrically direct. Tori Amos tells a story, but never feels obliged to go from point a to b to do so. Lyrically She’s the queen of the poetic non-sequitur:

“First he loved my accent
How his knees could bend
I thought we’d be ok
Me and my molasses
“

In opposition to the lyrical content, that is elusive and indirect, the music  takes a comfortingly safe route, gently rising and falling without drawing undue attention to itself – something not to be sneezed at, given Amos’s undoubted virtuosity. Just listen to Cruel, or Hotel (which immediately succeeds Northern Lad) and you realise that when she plays it straight, it’s for a reason – as opposed to, say Chris Martin, who plays it straight ’cause that’s what he does…

The final thing that I love about this track is how it manages to have its own character, and at the same time be characteristic of much of her work. There are echoes of themes, in the text and music, that make their presence known through the song – for example, it’s hard not to hear an echo of Tear in your Hand, as she sings:

I feel the west in you
and I feel it falling apart too
Don’t say that you Don’t
And if you could see me now

So in the end the song both reinforces the picture I have of Amos as an artist, while at the same time subtly changing it.

Brilliant.