Tori Amos - Up the Creek

Up the Creek

Tori Amos & Natashya Hawley duet

Lyrics by Tori Amos

Good Lord willin and the creek don't rise
Good Lord willin and the creek don't rise
we may just survive
if the Militia of the Mind
arm against those climate blind

Desert Sister
I'll be breaking in
Desert Sister
to break you out

Knowledge sown in Gaia's bones
Knowledge sown in Gaia's bones
granite canyon webs of stone
her uncorrupted soul
will not be possessed or owned

Gone
when hope is almost
Gone
you know that's the time
we must stand
Strong --
Every girl in every band
Every cosmic cowboy in the land
to the Earth will you show mercy?

Good Lord willin and the creek don't rise
we may just survive
if the Militia of the Mind
arm against those climate blind

Desert Sister
I'll be breaking in
Desert Sister
to break you out
Good Lord willin and the creek don't rise

Tori Quotes

We did that song on the last day of her break and I was, like, "ummmmm, yah, can you [Tash] sing on this?" and she said "OK." She was there in the control room, making sure she liked the takes and then she left and didn't hear the whole development process. She had no idea what it was going to end up being. But I have to tell you, it's kind of great how she looks at me and her dad. Sort of: "you got this, right?" [Tori adopts a look of uncertainty] but with a question mark. Yeah, sure, it'll be fine. Trust! [The 405 - September 5, 2017]

When I was younger we used to always ask my grandfather, Papa, on a Friday, "Are you gonna come home with the pool hall hot dog?" because we had them every Friday night, and he would always answer, "Good Lord no, then the creek don't rise." He had Native American ancestry mixed with Irish and that was something he probably heard from his grandmother, so that was where that came from. [Boyz - September 13, 2017]

As the song was developing, people were sending me messages -- sometimes through other people, sometimes stopping me. I was doing a lot of traveling; I was in the States a lot. [People] would talk to me about, "Do you understand what's going on?" And I'd say, "Probably not. Tell me."

And they would walk me through some of [Trump's] appointees that were happening. The EPA is one of them, but there are many others. It's not just one person. It's about an ideology where the job description is to protect the environment, really. It says it in the title. And then you have to start questioning yourself, especially once I was directed to read about what some of the interests were.

In "Up the Creek," I started to come to a realization with learning about Juliana vs. the United States -- which is the teenagers suing the government [for ruining the environment] -- that a teenager needed to be with me on this. At the time, we had pulled out of the Paris Accord.

And [my daughter] Tash, although she's been schooled in Britain, she was born a few blocks from the White House -- and so she talked to me about, "How are grownups allowed to make these decisions when clearly many grownups cannot be trusted? Not only can't they be trusted, but they're irresponsible with our future resources." And I said, "Yes, it's terrifying. It's terrifying." And the brutality that some people feel is...is something that they make excuses for and call it other things. They call it all kinds of phrases.

So Native Invader the album is really about reinvading some of these words like "freedom." Like "liberty." And saying, "No, we're reclaiming them." And the word has to be sovereign. Freedom is sovereignty. That energy must be sovereign to itself. [Tidal - September 8, 2017]

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