(Coming soon! In the meantime, read Tori’s quotes about the song)
"In Fearlessness, tori collects another memory of her recent past with "him". Doubt and Blame seem to have come between the couple. Here their life on the sea comes to life. On their recent Atlantic Crossing on his sailboat from the new world to the old world Outside Forces begin to pull them apart so that by the end of the song we hear: "Then that was when the Blame began, what were once two forces joined in Fearlessness." (Track-by-track commentary first published on Amazon in July 2011)
"The work itself was driving certain things. Sometimes, as a writer, you cock your head at certain signals and signs saying, “Well, why are we dealing with the nine underworlds of the Maya?” Why are we doing this?
Little did I know at the time, but I discovered that Granados, the composer, had made a trip to the New World. He was from Spain, and this song was from Spanish dances. Originally I was trying to somehow pull Spain into this, because they have quite an influence on Ireland and landed there – there’s a whole history there from hundreds of years. The crazy thing is, they would stop there – they’ve been there a long, long time – but they went in and settled the New World.
Granados made his trip, and everything in that song was saying you have to take this to the New World. He played for the President, which made him change his passage back to the Old World. He had a great fear of boats – water, really – so that on the way back, they made it back to England, but on the way back to Spain their boat went down. He was rescued, but he saw his wife drowning in the distance. He dove off the boat to save her and they both died. So “Fearlessness” was being driven by the song itself, and I didn’t really know the circumstances until the song was done. Dr. Buhr said to me, “Do you know the story of Granados?” I had no idea. He picked up on all the references."
Q: I was going to ask if you knew about the Granados story.
"This is where you get to this strange moment of who’s driving who. I think the songs drive me to find them. It’s a very fine line: Am I writing it, or am I just translating a consciousness that’s already there?
It was very clear, hand on my heart, that this wanted to be called “Fearlessness” with his melody, and it had to be about water. And them being out on the water, our couple, Tori and this guy – it tied in with somehow the soul and consciousness of Granados. That was sort of the prerequisite. If I was going to use his melody, somehow there had to be a link with his journey and his story." (Seattle Times, interview by Paul Pearson, December 9, 2011)