Tori Amos Interview

[Karen van Hoek <vanhoek@bend.ucsd.EDU>]

This is being posted for Lili, who's had trouble getting this on the net.


Lili (lv08@andrew.cmu.edu)
Rhet in the Blue Linen Labcoat

*****************************************************************************
The following is an interview with singer Tori Amos from an Irish publication.
I felt some of the topics would be of interest to this  group.  If not
I apologize in advance.  Those easily offended by language or talk of sex
might want to give this a miss.

Nancy Martin

				TORI'S STORY
			-----------------------------

Tori Amos has rocketed to international prominence with her album "Little
Earthquakes", but behind the public success story lies the private trauma
of a young woman who was raped at the age of 22.  In an uncompromisingly
honest interview with Joe Jackson, Tori talks about that terrible experience,
it's lasting scars and how her music has helped to set her free again.

			-----------------------------

For many people the process of self-denial becomes most apparent when they
speak about sex.  This is particularly true of Tori Amos.  At the outset of
this interview, asked about the tension between the seemingly celebratory
approach to sex which defines her public persona and the layers of sexual
guilt and revenge that fire songs like "Precious Things" from her album
"Little Earthquakes" she responds with a strained, metaphysical explanation
that lasts at least ten minutes and has more to do with evasion than with
truth.

She wouldn't deny it.  The interview done, we sit talking for an hour during
which I recount the story of the 14 year-old rape victim, originally denied
the freedom to have an abortion, by the Irish state.  That grim saga strikes
a chord.  "Can we take a second shot at the early part of the interview?"
she asks.  "I don't think we got it right.  I really do want to address that
subject."

Seven hours later, after a midnight performance at Dublin's Olympia Theatre
during which she dedicated "Me and a Gun" -- a song about rape -- to 'one
particular fourteen year old Irish girl', Tori Amos spoke for a further two
hours, touching in the process at times on the same kind of raw, unadorned
truths that pulse at the heart of her best songs.

"I do believe that we all are, fundamentally, divided creatures," she says
picking up the thread.  "Emotions split from intellect, spirit from flesh
and far too often sexuality is disconnected from what we feel, and are, as
total human beings.  But how, for example, can anyone have an understanding
of the virgin if they don't also have an understanding of the prostitute,
the saint and sinner in one body?  Attempting to reconcile these opposing
forces in my own nature is my goal and what I write about in songs like
"Precious Things", and all the songs on the album."

So how true to Tori Amos' early life in Washington, DC is "Precious Things",
which tells of a young girl described as "ugly", who longs to "smash the faces
of those beautiful boys/those Christian boys"?

"I was always the girl that had friends but did boys like me?  *Not* the boys
I liked!" she says.  "They'd say 'she's really nice and she plays really good
piano but she's also Sandy Luman's friend, can we get *her* phone number?'
(laughs).  I hadn't blossomed so I was seen as a rather nondescript nice girl,
I guess."

Tori Amos' father was a Protestant minister, her grandmother a particularly
single-minded puritan.  "I hated my grandmother," she says.  "She'd pound
into me the idea that only evil women give away their virginity before
marriage.  If you even thought about doing that you were 'out of the kingdom
of god,' she'd say.

"And so I waited a long time before giving up my virginity, because of this
feeling: 'how can I be a nice, respectable girl and want to do this?'.  And
more than anything I wanted respect from men, my father in particular.  And
even at that age I felt that Jesus was a real, living presence in my life.
That can be a bit of a disadvantage.  It's weird when you're giving a guy
head at 15 and you're thinking 'Jesus is looking at me!'."

Did Tori ever turn that experience around and think of Jesus as a man whom
she might have seduced?

"Doing it with a priest never got me off, they wash it so often!" she
responds,
laughing almost maliciously.  "But doing it with Jesus, now that is something
else!  Most Christian women would be trained to think that even this thought
is blasphemous.  But I say that's a load of bollix!  That's how women are
paralyzed, disconnected from the source of their own power, by religion.

"I've nearly always believed that Jesus Christ really liked Mary Magdalen and
and that if he was, as he claimed to be, a whole man, he had to have sexual
relations with her.  So in my deepest, most private moments I've wanted Christ
to be the boyfriend I've been waiting for.  And a lot of Christian girls have
a crush on Jesus.  I may have felt guilty at the thought of wanting to do it
with Jesus but then I say why not?  He *was* a man."

How much is Tori Amos the slave of a patriarchal system, which begins with
the image of god the father, travels down through the image of the father on
earth and is extended through the social pressure to take a male companion?

"You are made to believe in patriarchal systems from the start of your life,"
she reflects "and then you wake up one morning and, in a rage say 'how could
you use that to withold from me, woman, this incomparable power?'.  I think
the need I had, and have, for males to respect and accept me originally came
from an overwhelming need for my father to respond to me on that level.  But
he didn't respond to the 'bad girl' in me, the prostitute.  So I cut her out,
chopped her up and that too adds to my being disconnected from this."  She
presses clenched fists against her pelvis.

"I meet so many people who are into their heart energy yet disconnected from
their kundelini.  When you're not connected to *this* you are not whole."

On a similar theme, Tori Amos answers critics who claim that the way in
which she straddles a stool on stage, legs spread a la Jerry Lee Lewis, may
be too strong an assertion of her sexuality after a period of denial.

"To hell with them," she says slowly unclenching her fist.  "Passion.  The
kundelini.  Sexual energy is where I sing from.  And being reconnected to
that source of energy after so long is what liberated me on a creative level.

"I have the right to open the door, to explore and to report on what I find,
in whatever way I see fit.  And I do have a real commitment to the female,
the feminine, the goddess side of my own nature.  I am Mary, the mother of
god *and* the Mary Magdalen figure now."

Tori Amos pauses, glances at a copy of the last issue of _Hot Press_ which is
spread across her bed then says "Let's get down to truth here, if that's what
you want.  I had been denying the prostitute side, which we all have in us.
But there is a part of me that understands Marilyn Monroe and what you wrote
about her in that _Hot Press_ article.  I understand her giving it to the Mob,
hot guys in Hollywood, the cigar-smoking fat asses.  *And* giving it to JFK
and Bobby Kennedy.

"And I understand Sam Giancana who wants to taste her after she's been with
Bobby and JFK because that's how those guys had relationships with each other
-- through Marilyn Monroe's pussy.  It makes me angry but it also turns me on
because I've done that, I know it so well.  It was the same when I saw 'Blue
Velvet' and saw that energy, a woman being used yet having power -- false
power -- in believing that she is *wanted*, that's what asserting one's
sexuality is all about.  This is how it feels to be a woman."

But how deeply liberated is Tori Amos?  In "Crucify" from "Little Earthquakes"
she still sings that she's "got enough guilt to start my own religion"?

"I have that guilt still.  I'm still working through this idea of giving
myself completely to this man I'm with because he is my best friend and
someone I respect.  Yet he is also someone I need to slam me against a wall
and fuck me.  And love me as well.  The concept of both being part of the one
relationship is still hard for me to accept.  Because I've been taught that
being fucked against a wall, or anywhere, is not love.

"Who the fuck thought up *that* idea?  That notion has kept marriages from
working, people from giving to each other and both sexes under control for
centuries."

Tori Amos reveals that a large measure of the sexual guilt which enslaved her
in her mid-20's had its roots in a rape that took place when she was 22, and
which she writes about in the song "Me and a Gun".

"I sang 'holy holy' as he buttoned down his pants/Me and a gun and a man on
my back/But I haven't seen Barbados so I must get out of this/Yes I wore a
slinky red thing/Does that mean I should spread for you, your friends, your
father, Mr. Ed?".

"I wrote that song after I saw the movie 'Thelma and Louise' which brought
back an experience I hadn't talked about for about five years," she says.
"But as I was writing the song other voices rose, other voices that had
opinions on what had happened.  It was then I realized that the biggest
mistake I made was not seeking help from people who understood.

"But then nobody was there for me on the night it happened.  I had to call
the East Coast and wake people up to talk.  I called 20 people.  I talked
about it for roughly seven days and then just cut off the experience, not
knowing that in doing that, I was letting it take control of me inside."

How does a woman re-connect with her own body after rape and *not* associate
sex with violence?

"That's the core problem," she says.  "If I'd sought help that would have
been different, I'm sure.  That's what a woman should do.  But sexually what
happened to me was that I couldn't respond to a guy at all.  I broke off the
relationship I was having with a man, the next day.  I'd been with him for
two and a half years yet I started ranting and raving and telling him I didn't
want him in my life.  I then turned to a male friend and though he wanted me
to go to the police I said 'But I'm never going to find that person again'.

"I also didn't think I had a case.  I don't want to go into the details but
you've read my lyrics, you know I look at things from as many angles as
possible.  So, even then I could see it from the other side.  Nothing would
have happened to the guy!  And he would have known more about me than he did.
Yes that means he's out there somewhere and yes he may do it with another
woman.  But he'd have done it anyway.

"It wasn't a cut and dried case.  With American law as it is and the fact
that I'm an entertainer and the kind of performer I was -- like Michelle
Pfeiffer in 'The Baker Boys' -- I knew I was going to be set up.  And I was
not going to be a victim of another experience.  But what happened then was
that I became a victim of myself."

Did "Thelma and Louise" make Tori Amos feel she would have killed the rapist
given the chance?

"You *know* I would have killed him if I could have, yes.  But I was busier
trying not to get killed," she says.  "But sure, when she killed him in
'Thelma and Louise' do you think I had remorse?  Absolutely none.  And if he
walked into this room now, would I kill him?  No.  Because I wouldn't want
to make it that easy for him.  But any man who gets killed raping someone
has crossed the line."

Tori pauses, sits in silence for a while then smiles.  "But I didn't kill
him.  I finally wrote a song about it instead and *that* has given me the
freedom.  'Me and a Gun' is *not* about him.  It's more about me forgiving
myself.  That's why my music now is so therapeutic, so cathartic for me.  I
made a commitment not to be a victim again, by writing and by singing as
often as I can 'Me and a Gun'.

"It's like I refuse now to be a victim of my own guilt.  I refuse to be a
victim of not having a wonderful sexual experience again.  And you are a
victim when you can't allow yourself to have sexual pleasure again.  I refuse
to put all men in the same category, as I was doing.  When something like that
happens you do want to punish men, punish the ones that crushed the flower.
But no one should choose to hold onto that hatred.  It choked me.

"Sexually, I feel I won't be able to give completely and love to the extent,
say, that I will want to have kids with him, for quite some time yet.  I
couldn't even consider that for a few years.  I'm only beginning to fulfill
myself now because I'm beginning to accept, and love, the parts of me, of
woman, that I was trained to hate all my life.  Particularly the bad girl I
still can be."

In the meantime attempting to re-connect with the child in herself is a
primary concern for Tori Amos.  It's also a motif running through the album
and a metaphor used in the video for "Silent All These Years".  Not
surprisingly, in this context, she empathises with the recent plight of
Ireland's fourteen-year-old rape victim.

"The greater rape is what the State did to that girl.  She is defiled by a
man sexually and then, having suffered the original experience, she is
defiled again by the State.  And you know why?  Because the Church and the
State are so afraid that if they acknowledge the truth a hundred doors will
burst open and they will lose control.  But they are choking themselves to
death.  Because divine law is being broken here.

"First that girl's choice was taken away in rape and then it was taken away,
to begin with, by the State.  That is the sickness that cripples women, male
energy at its worst.  And if we, as women, don't rebel against the way in
which the Church and State have conspired to control our sexuality we'll
never reach a point of self-evolvement.  And evolution, in any sense, has
nothing to do with enforcing guilt, with this horrific cross they have stuck
between that girl's legs.

"Jesus Christ has nothing to do with that and it has nothing to do with Jesus
Christ and don't let anyone tell me that it has.  The cross has been used as
a weapon, as it has been used against all women throughout the ages.  And
that's the greatest evil of all."

But wouldn't the so-called Pro-Life groups suggest that the State's original
decision to block an abortion has everything to do with Jesus Christ?

"It has nothing to do with a core concept of Christianity," argues Tori Amos.
"And it has nothing at all to do with the children, in the broadest sense.
If it does why don't those people go down to the back-streets of Dublin where
children really need their help.  Or go down to Colombia where children live
in sewers?  There are millions of children who *need* help.  So this is the
greatest abuse of the words 'pro-life', they are *not* for life.  This is
about control of a woman's sexuality because they can't stand the idea that
we are saying we are *not* just incubators anymore.  And we're not even going
to pretend that we are.  We're *not* breeding farms.

"Many men, even some women, might like to think we are.  But their misguided,
misdirected energy is probably based more on their own guilt.  Yet when
somebody tries to have that kind of control over another person's conscience,
we're talking about concentration camps here.  There's no greater enslavement.
So anyone who looks at that position closely must see it's not about the
children at all, and it's more often anti-life than pro-life."

One can tell from the cheers Tori Amos receives during her concerts that she
is undoubtedly articulating what many women are feeling on this subject right
now.

"I hope so," she says, smiling, "although a lot of the rage I perceive, say,
in some women writers often seems to stem from self-loathing.  I write from
that point of view at times.  It angers us all that we were all victims for
so long.  But the point is that only ourselves can claim back the power. Let's
forget all this talk about men giving it back to us.  We have to give it to
ourselves.  And the men that respect this will be in our lives, those that
don't will be *out*."

Tori Amos laughs.  "Your first question was, in part, about my 'celebratory'
approach to sexuality," she says.  "Well 'Little Earthquakes' is all about
celebration.  Celebrating the ability to laugh, weep, and scream, particularly
if you have been silent for years.  And so it's about celebrating sexuality
in the widest sense, including the elements of revenge.  As in 'Precious
Things' where I say to the guy 'So you can make me cum/that doesn't make you
Jesus'.

"Just because I'm with a man and because I'm creaming for a man doesn't make
him a master, doesn't even necessarily make him worthy of love, of *my* love.
And I now realize, maybe for the first time in my life, that my capacity for
love is incredibly deep and that for me to give this to a man he has to fully
understand, and respect what that means.

"Too few do.  They're into pillaging, rummaging around, doing a little Viking
stuff!  But most women these days realize that's not enough, boys!  And if
some women don't then I hope songs like 'Precious Things' will help open their
eyes.  And, just as importantly, help open the eyes of some men.

"I'd be quite happy, as an artist, if I knew that a verse, even a line in one
of my songs could do for people what 'Thelma and Louise' did for me, liberate
them in some way, particularly from a fear of the darker side of their own
nature.  What is any art form worth if it doesn't do that?  Isn't that what
all great art is all about?"