Q&A: Tori Amos: One-Woman Choir
Back when she first emerged as a solo artist in 1991, Tori Amos
quicklyestablished herself as pop’s new reigning Trauma Queen, with
the jarringconfessional of “Me and a Gun,” an a cappella tune about
her own rape. Shestuck to the intimate lone-woman-with-piano format
for seven years, duringwhich her songs became increasingly veiled
in cryptic free-associations andabstract imagery.
On the new From the Choirgirl Hotel, as well as the
tour she’s mountedin support of it, Amos is backed for the first
time since her days frontingthe L.A. pop metal band Y Kant Tori
Read by a full band. But at the center ofthe album and the tour,
it’s still Tori, her piano, and lyrics like “If thedivine master
plan is perfection, maybe next I’ll give Judas a try/Trusting
mysoul to the ice cream assassin.”
On a short break between a just completed four-date swing
through Europe andthe beginning of the American leg of her “Plugged
’98” tour, she talked abouthow her songwriting has evolved over the
years.
It strikes me that over time, your lyrics have become
increasingly cryptic,and you’ve gotten further and further away
from the autobiographical nature ofa song like “Me and a Gun.” I
wonder if you ever regret having revealed toomuch of yourself to
the public and the press?
I have a rule that I don’t read my press, but then somebody in
the crew willbe reading it and of course it’s right there, so what
do you think I do? Andthere are times when what I’ve said has been
very turned around. A lot oftimes I’ll remember having a
conversation with a journalist-especially whenyou do the long
interviews, the two-day ones for a major story-and thenI’ll be
reading it going, “this is not what I remember at all, I
don’tremember this tone to the interview, I don’t remember it
feeling like this. Ithought we had a very open minded conversation
about stuff.”
An interview will seem very sane to me, and I’ll find out that
the journalist was laughing out of the side of his mouth half of
the time. I think the humor tends to get lost. What I thought was a
nice couple of days with somebody, even though it might have gotten
heated, will turn into something where the journalist missed a lot
of the depth and the humor. I get painted quite a bit as a tragic
figure because of some of the stuff that’s happened in my life.But
people don’t realize that I’m a really good margarita buddy.
Listening to your songs I get the sense, even when I’m
not really sure whatthe song is about, that the tone is usually a
little traumatic. Your lyricstend to come across as vaguely
disturbing recovered memory fragments.
That’s true. I’ve always been really fascinated about that part
of people,including myself, that is hidden. Some people hide more
than others, and itdoes intrigue me. I write about the dark night
of the soul, because I feel Ihave ticket there-an access ticket
like you get to the Underground. I thinkI have a permanent
Underground ticket to the subway … it’s much cheaper thantaking
taxis.
I think a lot of people listen to your songs and think
that they are allautobiographical, and it sounds like a lot of them
probably aren’t.
Well it’s both. I think it has to be both. If you’re going to
purge otherpeople, you have to purge yourself. It’s tricky to sneak
in an all-access codeto somebody else’s psyche, you have to knock
first. With yourself, even thoughI think nobody has complete access
to their own psyche, well, you do have theright to plunder
yourself. So I’m in a lot of my material. But I might
notnecessarily be the character you think I am. I let you think I’m
the good guyjust because people like to think of me as the good
guy, though sometimes I’mthe villain.
You certainly have fans who are devoted, who are
listening really closelyto your songs. Are the cryptic lyrics a way
of addressing your real fanswithout revealing too much to
outsiders?
I think the last album, Boys for Pele, was very much
like that. Thatrecord was very much about trying to understand a
serious break-up that I hadwith someone I had been with for a long
time. I was trying to find parts andpieces of myself that I had
never claimed. I’d been living through otherpeople in my life,
particularly the men in my life. So, it was a really toughrecord,
very depressing, but in the end it gave me a lot of strength. It
was areal tough journey-one of those where you think you’re going
to bite yourown arm off. And you just hope somebody is there to put
a muzzle in yourmouth. But nobody put a muzzle in my mouth and I
made Boys for Pele.
After that, I think that this record, as far as lyrics go, is
not as abstract.Even though there’s a lot of symbolism in it, there
are moments when I turnaround and I say something like, “she’s
convinced she could hold back aglacier/but she couldn’t keep baby
alive.” Really clear. There are momentswhen it gets really clear
and it goes back into symbolism again-“ballerinasthat have fins
that they’ll never find.” Which makes a lot of sense to me,because
it’s obviously a mermaid reference, but it’s more than that.
Maybeyou’ll be a mother and you’ll never have that physical
experience-likeyou’ll never have the experience of being a mermaid.
But even though you mightnot be a physical mother, it doesn’t mean
you can’t have that kind of maternallove.
It sounds like you’re talking about revealing yourself
without revealingyourself to everybody. You are only revealing
yourself to the people who areplaying really close
attention.
I’ve already done that. As you grow, in your writing, you don’t
want to repeatyourself, and you sing about different things in
different ways.
One last question. Who is the ice cream
assassin?
Who do you think that is?
I have no idea
Well, people have been praying to him for a very long time and
more wars havebeen fought in his name. The big guy. Think about
it.