"Do a dance for me."
Baby it is late still you pour me
a tall one...
"Go on, let the liquid take off what you're on.
You've been down before..."
Boy, not like this.
I'm in Quicksand I am sinking fast
"perfect," he laughed, "cause your other half has
got himself a Devil's access-- Welcome to England,"
he said, "Welcome to my world. You better bring your own sun
sweet girl. You gotta bring your own sun now don't you forget --
you bring your own sun, just enough for everyone."
Heels on. Go on.
Bang a Tango but do not get tangled
Who can stay strong? when they only give us lies to lean on
When your heart explodes is it deathly cold?
You must let the colors violate the
Blackness
There is a magic world parallel
so leave your daily
hell-- "Welcome to England,"
he said, "Welcome to my world..."
It's not a question if I can
Fight by your side and withstand
Anything but,
I forgot that you said, "Girl if you come...
you better bring your sun.
Sweet girl, you gotta bring your sun
Now don't you forget you bring your sun--
Just enough for
everyone
for everyone
Welcome to England
Welcome to England"
Tori Quotes
When I wrote "Welcome to England," England can be anywhere. It just so happens to be biographical because Mark is British. These forces were loading their guns and I was touring -- I almost don't want to say where I was because then that fucking tax man is going to say, "You wrote it in our country!" Anyway, I got a phone call telling me, "These guys are coming after you" and I thought But I'm an American and I've always done the right thing! Nobody cares. Nobody cares! That's why in the visualette there's Tori in an American flag jumpsuit because whether you are going to your partner's home or are around his friends -- it can be a country or it can just be going out to dinner and you just know I am not accepted! They don't want me here! And you try so hard to fit in and you start chopping off pieces of yourself to get along and you wonder where's the sage and the tobacco and the sacred smoke? Because the ancestors are not here -- they're just not here! You begin to say, "There are people I like and there are things I like but in order for me to claim myself I just realized I've got to get on a plane and go back to what is my power spot." [Out - May 5, 2009]
It's a story about one person leaving their world to go to their lover's world. It's England but it could be anywhere. When you leave your friends and your family and your life, to live in their world. Sometimes their world just doesn't become your world, and if then they become the center of your world, problems ensue, because that should never happen. And so she is having to find the pieces that she has scattered all over the place in order to live in his world... and she can't even pretend that it's her world because it's not." [MusicOMH - May 9, 2009]
"Welcome to England" is like "Virginia," but a modern take on it. It's about somebody leaving their world for their lover's world; and yet his beliefs, his friends, his country and his family aren't hers. That doesn't mean they're not nice people. It just means that all the things that make up who she is she either didn't bring with her or got lost along the way. Somehow she didn't retain that, didn't go back and keep nurturing those things that she needed to. So "Welcome to England" is about having to reclaim who she is in order to be in his world and to live with him. [Polari - May 9, 2009]
I think... to be positive about a man, and yet ambivalent about a place, was the desired goal for "Welcome to England," because I really wanted the story to be about a woman who left her life, and her family, and her job, to follow her love -- to follow her heart. It could be leaving North Carolina to move to New York -- it could be anything -- or leaving Manchester to come to London. Then you come to realize that His world is becoming Your world, and yet maybe you've taken on so much of His world... but it isn't Your world, and you have to retain yourself in it. And she just lost that. Somehow. She lost parts of herself -- whether she should have gone back more, or whether she... you know, sometimes when you leave a place, you cut those cords, and you think "Okay, fresh start -- roll my sleeves up..." and yet... there was something, or maybe many things, that you didn't really want to leave behind. That you do begin to miss. Sometimes it's the mountains. Sometimes it's the earth. And I think that ultimately -- in this story she's an American, and yes, the parallels are very close -- but it could be... I know so many people who've left, especially in the last two years because of jobs, and getting work. One of them had work [that was] going somewhere, that they'd had to leave. One of them has had to let go to move with the other, and so, "How to not lose yourself, when you don't fit into your lover's world" [is the message] -- maybe that's a good thing, because I don't think you necessarily should. [Drowned in Sound - May 20, 2009]
It's tricky sometimes when you are not in your home country... and you followed somebody else to his world. You lose pieces of yourself behind. Then you wake up thinking, "Wait a minute. I have to make sure I bring my own perspective and who I am." . . . It's time for beautiful melodies. The sounds [of "Welcome to England"] were created around the feelings and working around the song structure; the structures were demanding certain arrangements. It came out sexy and modern. [JamBase - August 25, 2009]
Live Versions
"Welcome to England"
June 1, 2009 - Los Angeles, California The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
t o r i p h o r i a tori amos digital archive yessaid.com
