sure that star can twinkle
and you're watching it do
boy so hard boy so hard
but I know a girl
twice as hard
and I'm sure
said I'm sure she's watching it, too
said no matter what tie she's got in her right dresser
tied
I know she's watching that star
gonna twinkle
gonna twinkle
gonna twinkle
and last time I knew she worked at an abbey in Iona
she said, “I killed a man, T
I've gotta stay hidden in this abbey”
but I can see that star
when she twinkles
and she twinkles
cause I sure can
that means
I sure can
that means
I sure can
so hard
so hard
Tori Quotes
The record isn't finished until "Twinkle." It just wasn't finished until that song. That level of the flame, feeding the flame, because after all the stars, the fire, I had to go into that place of becoming that instead of trying to find it again. [B-Side - May/June 1996]
So, I was on this little island off the coast of Scotland with a couple of my girlfriends. And we kind of fell out -- you know how that is when there's three of you, and two of you want to kill the other one. I'm not quite sure which one I was, you know. I think, I don't know if they wanted to kill me back, right? But I know me and one of them wanted to kill another one, right? But I don't know if she's talking to the other one and they want to kill me. But, you know, that's how girls are, boys. We're cunts. We won't talk about what you are, that's a whole other thing, you know. At least it's far more devious and interesting on our end.
We were here and we were supposed to go off together to have like a real spiritual bonding [laughs]. So, all I did was think about different ways to murder without leaving your fingerprints on someone. And the reason was because one of them, you know, had all the answers to everything. Don't you hate that, when you go, "Well, I kinda wanna..." "Oh, yeah, I know, I know, I was answering that, yeah." So it's a telepathy friendship. So, I took a walk one day on my own and I ran into this girl, this fantastic dyke. And she was working at the abbey, and she had been in jail for a while. And she just made a lot of sense to me that day, and I wrote this song. [Omaha concert - Aug 30, 1998]
[Amos says this song was inspired by a story she heard in a pub whilst traveling in the Highlands of Scotland.] A lot of my songs come after meeting people whilst traveling around the globe. [Boys for Pele Deluxe Edition liner notes - 2016]
Iona Abbey
Live Versions
"Twinkle"
October 13, 2001 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
t o r i p h o r i a tori amos digital archive yessaid.com
