Silent All These Years.

I did not pick the song for this video. Circumstances picked it for me.

The hardest part about doing this project was getting access to a CD. Most of my music is online. Since the artists I listen to aren't very well known, it was difficult finding their music elsewhere.

Around midnight last night I made my way to the library. Overdressed in a red sweater, I really regretted my fashion choices. By the time I reached, I was drenched in sweat.

"Hey, do you have music CDs here?" I blurted out.
"I mean...yea, we do. They are downstairs in the stacks. What are you looking for?" I could hear the edge in the librarians voice.
"Just...anything will do, really. It's for a project."
"Check our catalog." The librarian said with a flat, unimpressed tone.

I sighed. I didn't know what I was thinking. I couldn't expect someone else to do the dirty work for me.

After spending an hour searching various tags, I finally found an album that really stood out to me. Titled RESPECT, this was an album set celebrating the most influential female artists from the 20th century. In this set, I found the treasure I wasn't searching for. I felt silly for restricting my search to modern pop music.

I have always been drawn to music with poetic lyrics. Cliche as it sounds, for me the best kind of music is made by just one person, their piano, and their pain. Tori Amos has always been one of my favorite musicians for this very reason. Her lyrics are raw and honest, almost as if we're listening to her diary. Even though Silent All These Years was too personal of a song to use with my urban landscape photographs, I decided to tell the story by using very somber video format. I purposefully placed all the images in order so even the pictures of bright flowers and a bike seemed melancholy when juxtaposed with the music, the background, and the images that preceded them.

Did I succeed in doing this? You be the judge. At the very least, I hope you enjoy the beauty in Tori Amos's music.