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News & Record (US)
Greensboro, North Carolina, newspaper
August 21, 1996

Tori Amos

by Allison B. King

Tori said...

Hierarchy is the cornerstone of most faiths, and most of the teachers "do as I say, not as I do." In the deepest heartspace there is no hierarchy, there's balance, where no one's gift is better than anyone else's.

FATHER LUCIFER

I went for seeing the complete Lucifer, the archetype of darkness beyond the stereotype.

GOD

I'm just going after structures and matrixes of control. I get letters from people who say, "I wish you'd find Jesus..." and how do they know that I don't have a mythical relationship with Jesus or Muhammad or Lilly Marlaine? I go after those archetypes, whether it's religion or government or Margaret Thatcher. I go after what I think are distortions.

REALIZATIONS IN HAWAII

[She began to realize that she was a person without power.] Looking to the outside (to my parents, or society or a man) to make me feel beautiful or worthy or successful was nothing.

[She met a medicine woman who told her that she must find her own fire. And she found it metaphorically on Pele.]

She's a volcano goddess and with her there is a balance between violence and destruction, she resonates between turbulence and cooling. She allows a full range of expression. From that, I began to stop looking outside, stopped asking myself how a man saw me, stopped seeing myself as a warrior.

I work on it every day. I read a lot and you never know where you'll find your next lesson.

True belief is about love of all things. If you can look at the darkest side of yourself, you're not afraid. The victim is prettier, although the extreme is the truth.

How you open yourself up depends on what you've been exposed to. I'm a kindred spirit for those who have been shut off from anything that isn't controlled. They come to a show and hear that they have a choice. Sometimes I'm the first bridge they've passed, sometimes I'm the 170th.

HEY JUPITER

"Hey Jupiter" is my swan song, my goodbye. I had a hard time saying goodbye without anger or hurt. I needed to sing it and get it done before I took the next step.

OVER THE RAINBOW

A little girl's dreams aren't always what she thinks they will be.

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