Tori Amos Interview on "Boys for Pele" Tori on being a 'whole woman.'
transcript
This album was really about, um, finding my own flame, my own fire, and not trying to get it through the relationships in my life. The idea that, when I wasn't behind the piano, um, I didn't feel like I had anything in my own being. My woman's worth was intrinsically tied to how the men in my life saw me. Sometimes (you're about) the men that I'm intimate with, and, um, it was really a journey.
There's been such a male-female dynamic for thousands of years. Um, where you know, there's been so much shame that women have carried - having certain feelings, being a whole woman. Um, and I really believe that the concept of being a whole woman was not passed down in the blueprint. The Magdalene. The Mary Magdalene was not something that was passed down to us as the blueprint for woman. Um, it was very much the virgin or the mother. We put that aside. What about the woman? The woman as a whole woman?
For me anyway, I was trying to find my power. Um, as men have in the past, you know, trying to find that, that thing. Instead of going, 'well hang on a minute, I have to find my feminine also. Not just find the part of me that can kick ass, yeah.' So that's been this journey. That's been this journey - this album has been the journey to my own fire.
When I was growing up, um, my family was much stricter. It was very extreme as far as not to show your passion. It was 'you were a whore.' You were not part of the Mother Mary if you let your, um, Kundalini, yes? Energy? The passion, the primative, um, dance of the snake - I'm using metaphors to just explain. It's not about sex, it's about the flame, um, it's about your own passion. And that was something that was incredibly suppressed and, um, not accepted in my household.
You know I feel like the songs exist, and they just come and visit me. And I am their translator. And I try to be a good translator. So that when people project things on, to me I am really trying to learn how to not - um, if they hate me, if overly love me, I just try and say you know, um, 'I hope the music affects you in some way, and that's a wonderful thing, whatever that way is. If it makes you angry, if it makes you excited, or if it makes you feel anything. To me, to feel something, is a sign of, of, um, an exciting work. But I don't choose, at this part in my life, to get caught up in the hierarchy you know, because it's really kind of dangerous. I really try to keep my feet on the ground, and when I go out there I just plug my little coffee pot in and go, 'espresso' (rolls head with closed eyes and smiles).
[transcribed by Ruth Borg]
t o r i p h o r i a tori amos digital archive yessaid.com
