"Cloud Riders" is a song by American musician

Tori Amos Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full ...

. It was released on July 27, 2017 as the lead single from her fifteenth studio album '' Native Invader''. Like the rest of the album, the song was self-produced and recorded at Martian Engineering in

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, with mixing being done by Amos' husband Mark Hawley and Marcel van Limbeek.

Overview

Amos stated the inspiration for the song came from the experience of watching a

shooting star A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body (usually meteoroid) going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a ...

at 4:22 A.M. That morning, she completed the lyrics for the vast majority of the song, which she has stated took inspiration from

Nordic mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

and imagery. "Cloud Riders" was positively received by critics. ''

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

'' stated the song "smolders and shimmers" and "never stops moving and slowly changing shape". ''Albumism'' called the song "fantastic" and "melodious".

Personnel

Adapted from the liner notes of ''Native Invader'': *

– vocals, keyboards,

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organ, programming, additional instrumentation *Mac Aladdin – guitar *Mark Hawley – programming, additional instrumentation

References

{{Tori Amos 2017 songs 2017 singles Tori Amos songs Songs written by Tori Amos Norse mythology in music