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Telegraph Magazine (UK)
June 13, 1992


Tori Amos photographed by Kate Garner

LIMELIGHT

by Kate Battersby

Singing or talking, Tori Amos is frank to the point of brutality. The self-penned torch songs which have brought her much acclaim are as melodic as their lyrics can be cruel, dealing with anything from incest to violence against women. Her latest single, "Crucify," taken from her album Little Earthquakes, was released last Monday. The song graphically describes women's sexual experience in a singalong tune.

Amos shouts from the rooftops what everyone else labels taboo. "Me and a Gun," for example, is about a gang rape. It is based on her own experience, one she will not talk about directly -- but she discusses it indirectly in such detail that further talk is superfluous. "I had no expression for what happened to me until I saw Thelma and Louise. [The film features an attempted rape.] I saw my experience in a new light. All women know what it is to be a victim. If I'm going to relate to people, I can't preach to them. I have to use myself as an example." It seems natural to ask if she has therapy, but she has no need of it. She does interviews instead.

Myra Ellen Amos began learning the piano in her North Carolina home at the age of two, and was playing in clubs by 13. Fifteen years on, writing a straightforward love song holds no appeal. "There are only ten ideas under the sun. What makes the difference is how you spice them. I tell more about myself in my songs than I do to my friends." Does she not feel exposed by placing her most intimate thoughts in the public arena? "Sure, it can be frightening. Sometimes I would rather keep my secrets my own. Anyway, there are some boundaries I won't cross, some things I won't say." But exactly where those boundries are is hard to imagine, given that she will confide on brief acquaintance. The easy response is to take Amos for a crackpot, and she knows it. "Some of the things I say are uncomfortable, stuff we seldom deal with. I don't care. I want people to think."


original article



[article shared by Lori Christie]

[transcribed by jason/yessaid]

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