Scarlet's Walk is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos. It was released on October 28, 2002, in the UK and October 29 in the US on Epic Records, making it her first release on the label after her split with Atlantic Records. Her first studio album of original material since To Venus and Back in 1999, the 18-track concept album (described by Amos as a "sonic novel about a road trip") details the cross-country travels of Scarlet, a character loosely based on Amos, and was greatly inspired by the changes in American society and politics post-September 11, 2001. Topics explored on the album include nationalism, personal relationships, and the death of a close friend. Amos also took inspiration from the stories of her grandfather, who she claims was Cherokee and told her of the abuses against Native Americans throughout the United States' history.
Recorded at Amos's Martian Engineering in Cornwall, England, Scarlet's Walk solidified Amos's current backing band of Jon Evans on bass, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Mac Aladdin on guitar. Additionally, string arrangements were provided by John Philip Shenale. The self-produced album diverts from the electronica and trip hop-influenced sounds of From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back and marks a return to the stripped-back sound of her earlier work with a greater emphasis on live instrumentation and Amos's piano, while also incorporating new keyboard instruments into the arrangements, such as the prominent use of Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes electric pianos. The packaging featured Polaroid-esque photography by Kurt Markus. Scarlet's Walk would also be released as limited-edition box set with bonus content.
The album was a commercial success, reaching number seven in the US and becoming Amos's fourth top 10 album. It sold 107,000 copies in its first week and reached RIAA Gold status about a month after its release. It spawned the singles "A Sorta Fairytale", "Taxi Ride", and "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas", the former reaching number two on the US adult alternative chart and becoming one of her most popular songs. A primary motivation for Amos' switch from Atlantic to Epic was the presence of Polly Anthony, the president of Epic, whom Amos felt would be committed to properly promoting her work as she had felt that Atlantic had not promoted her recent releases to the proper extent and had felt trapped in her contract due to the label's refusal to sell her to another label. Amos would later experience further frustrations as Anthony stepped down from her position after the release of Scarlet's Walk in 2003.
In addition to cementing her longest-running backing lineup, guitar contributions were also made by David Torn and Robbie McIntosh. It would become Amos' fourth consecutive release to be primarily recorded at her studio, Martian Engineering in Cornwall, England. Production was handled by Amos (as has been the case for all her albums since Boys for Pele), and the album was mixed by her husband Mark Hawley and Marcel van Limbeek.
Music and lyrics
thumb|upright=0.8|alt=Wurlitzer electric piano|In addition to Amos' trademark [[Bösendorfer piano, Scarlet's Walk featured extensive use of the Wurlitzer electric piano.]]
Scarlet's Walk follows the journey of the titular character across America after September 11, 2001, and the songs describe her encounters with various characters and facets of American life after the attacks. At the time, Amos' recent releases experimented heavily with electronic elements, with extensive use of synthesizers in place of her piano on many songs. Scarlet's Walk was a conscious return to a stripped-down sound, with Amos saying in an interview with Keyboard Magazine:
Additionally, she looked to 1970s-era albums as references for the songs' overall structures and sound, with Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Neil Young's Harvest being listed as particularly significant influences.
"Amber Waves", the album's opening track, describes Scarlet's encounter with a porn star of the same name. The name "Amber Waves" is both a reference to a character from the film Boogie Nights, as well as the lyric "amber waves of grain" from "America the Beautiful". The song describes the toll the character's work has taken on her and how her dreams of becoming a successful actress have gone awry ("From ballet class to lap dance and straight to video"). On certain occasions, Amos has integrated portions of "America the Beautiful" into "Amber Waves" in live performances. "A Sorta Fairytale", the album's first single, tells the story of the melancholy of Scarlet's experience taking a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway with someone whom she is in a failing relationship with. As Amos described in the "Scarlet's Walk bio", a press release for the album, "They take the big trip in the classic car up the Pacific Coast highway and across the desert. But as they go on, the masks drop away and they discover the fantasy they have of each other isn't who they really are." Skiing imagery is heavily present throughout the lyrics, with references to ski runs such as "bear's claw", "free fall", and "gunner's view"; both carbon and skiing are used as metaphors for the character's desire to partake in self-destructive behaviors ("carbon made only wants to be unmade"). The song experiments with mixed meter, frequently shifting between and .
The a cappella "Wampum Prayer" also tackles the subject of the atrocities committed against Native Americans, with Scarlet hearing the voice and song of an old Apache woman, a survivor of a massacre whose site Scarlet has recently visited. In the song, Scarlet witnesses a plane crash whilst on a plane herself, and experiences the fear and panic felt by a woman on the crashed plane before her death.