Tori's Spoken Word

DAILY TORI AMOS QUOTES AND LYRICS (AND OTHER TORIPHILE GOODIES)

[torispokenword]

So um, Christmas… not this past Christmas, but the last Christmas, I was with my parents. Yeah, exactly, anyway. So I went to the little service, you know, and the kids were very cute. I’m not saying they weren’t cute. And they do, you know they do their little booger thing and they sing their song and you kinda love them … sort of. And you know, you’re sitting there, I mean, you love yours, the one’s that’s your niece or whoever, isn’t she cute. The others are yeah. And anyway, I’m sitting there and they’re singing their little, “na na a manger no na na na” (tune of Away In a Manger). And my father’s like, “Sing, Tori Ellen, sing, Tori Ellen, we’re supposed to sing along.” I’m like, “Thank you, Dad.” And uh, for some reason I just couldn’t hear that song in my head. And it was like, changing in my brain. And he said, “Well, what are you hearing?” I said, “I’m hearing (sensual chant then sings: “away in a manger no crib for a bed, Muhammad my friend, I said yes we both know, we both know it was a girl…”

Tori Amos, in concert April 9, 1996 - Tampa, Florida

[torispokenword]

What's the point? To take the gifts that are given to you, and to make sure you preserve earth for the next group of people who come and want to dance with those gifts.

Tori Amos - "My Secret Life" The Independent (UK), October 13, 2012

[torispokenword]

I practically didn't touch a piano for like 7 years, because I thought there was no use. The music I wrote back then was completely different. I did all kinds of stuff and you wouldn't believe it was me. This new record is a reaction to that. I had to do these experiments to be able to go back home, to the piano. I was a rock chick with Yeats under my arm and hairspray in my back pocket. When my album flopped I decided to drastically change and to listen more to my inner voice.

Tori Amos, Oor Magazine - March 7, 1992

[torispokenword]

I wrote this record in the tropics. It was very warm and... (long pause) I was recovering from a miscarriage. It was Christmas of 96 and I was three months pregnant. I was going to just take time off and be a mom for a little while and then the miscarriage happened. It was such a shock, I just stayed down there for nine months. And the songs just started to come. And it became a completely different record to what I’d started on.

Tori Amos, Attitude (UK) - May 1998

[torispokenword]

It frightens me, frankly, that people will go with fear. We had eight years of that with Bush and the last thing we need is another four.

Tori Amos - SameSame (Australian) October 24, 2012

[torispokenword]

So um, it's always good to come here. Are you, some of you people, are you all in the shows and stuff? No, are you, are some of the people here, are you in the shows, you know, like, is anybody like, Mickey or the Little Mermaid. No, I love that. I think that's like, such a wild gig. You know? I'm fascinated. I mean, if you are, you can come talk and tell us about it, that would be great. I mean, I just have these fantasies that um.. I don't know. No, but um.. See, one time years ago.. What was it, Marcel, do you remember when the Little Mermaid showed up? It was 1994, I think. Was it 1994? Wow, it was fascinating. She was backstage, right? I was doing something, I was like, you know.. having um, I think, probably cherry pie and hot chocolate and double extra ice cream - but no, it's, my memory isn't that good. But I was back there doing something yummy and I hear this voice.. [Tori sings, "ooooh-ooooh-oooh"].. and I'm just going, "What is going on? What's Joel doing?" I said, "My security guy, what, is he on steroids, what is he doing?" So anway, somebody peaks their head in and uh goes, "The Little Mermaid is in the hallway. And she doesn't wanna go." Bring her along. Anyway, um, he loved the Little Mermaid...

Tori Amos, in concert September 30, 2001 - Kissimmee, Florida 

[torispokenword]

If I could change one thing about myself... I'd be great at grilling.

Tori Amos - "My Secret Life" The Independent (UK), October 13, 2012

[torispokenword]

Guilt, sin and shame are not relevant. It’s about some kind of completeness, the light beside the darker side, the murderer and the virgin. Seeing those things as equal and not putting a hierarchy there. Making clear to yourself: I am all those things at once. We are all reflections of each other. There are only gradient differences. The church can’t accept this, because she isn't needed in this vision anymore. Therefore they see these ideas as a threat. But if people want to go to church to feel better, that’s also fine with me.

Tori Amos, Oor Magazine - March 7, 1992

[torispokenword]

I’m brilliant at fantasy football. My husband is as British as Blackpool rock. He rides a Triumph motorcycle and supports Arsenal. He thinks he’s an expert at fantasy football, but I’m the one who provides him with the best ideas about who to sign and who to trade. I have an instinct for it.

Tori Amos - Daily Mail (UK) November 10, 2012

[torispokenword]

I got pregnant at the end of the last tour, it wasn’t planned, but I was very ready at that point in my life to be a mother. Then, when I miscarried, the music just started to come. You know when you have this emptiness - internally, literally - your hormones are crashing and everything is happening? When I’m in some kind of trauma, the songs usually tear across the universe to find me. I have a really good relationship with the Muse, and she usually comes and brings a lot of girls with her also, and they started to really pull me out of it. So although I couldn’t create on a human level, I was able to create as a musician.

Tori Amos, Mojo - May 1998

[torispokenword]

You have to fight the belief system. It’s the only way or I become president of Victims Anonymous. And so we’re back to the work. The energy has to be put into making the work vital, and not settling for something that is just good, because there’s no room, don’t you see? When you’re in your 20s, there’s maybe a little room for you to not be at the top of your artistic game, if you look good on a magazine cover. When you’re not on the cover of the magazines anymore, then you realize that the work has to be great. And in order for that to happen we’re back to traveling, being open to stories, being open to creating whatever you need to create in order to stand back and say, “I respect the work with all my heart and soul.

Tori Amos - The New York Times, December 4, 2012

[torispokenword]

I was pregnant and I miscarried at almost three months last Christmas. But people thought that was a subtext to the record, and they were getting this so wrong that I decided to talk about it. I just wanted to really have the pregnancy and not rush into doing more music, but when the miscarriage happened, the songs just started to come. I went through many different stages. I couldn't be the person I was before I carried life, but I’m not a mother, so I was in no man’s land. But there was still a deep connection to this being; the soul and the love doesn't go. This record is about life force.

Tori Amos, NY Post - April 17, 1998

[torispokenword]

When I wrote "Winter" I was thinking about a daughter, walking in the snow field with her father, or grandfather, or both at different times. And when I was recording that [this time], the pictures were changing so that I was thinking of my daughter when she was around 2, and this time she had fallen, and her dad picked her up. So she became the image in that. When I was singing "Winter," it was with an awareness that, yes, the film of me as a little girl was still there, but there's another film playing. "Winter" was telling me, as all the songs do, that we're expanding and we're not just one perception of who we are.

Tori Amos - The WILD magazine, April 2013

[torispokenword]

I got this letter today… um, from somebody who told me about a guy who was supposed to be at one of the recent shows. And uh, he was eighteen. And she told me that he played so many instruments she couldn't even count ‘em, and everything he played was magical. And I’ve known people like that, but they’re very few and far between. It’s a very special thing. And uh, they found him quite recently… um, in a car and he didn’t quite make it. He took his life. So she asked me if I would play one of his favourite songs tonight…

Tori Amos, in concert October 29, 1996 - Austin, Texas

[torispokenword]

So I have seen with my own eyes, people convince themselves that so-and-so is unreachable and living yesterday and I'm here living tomorrow and we could all be dead tomorrow. Maybe that's why there's so much merrymaking going on and so much experimentation.

Tori Amos Santa's Blog Friday, September 28, 2007 - 1:17 PM

[torispokenword]

I wish I had never worn... a jeans-and-T-shirt look for the Choirgirl launch tour. I listened to my husband – he said, "You know, why don't you just wear jeans?" Don't listen to your husband unless he's closet gay. When you look at the pictures, I should have a mop in my hand.

Tori Amos - "My Secret Life" The Independent (UK), October 13, 2012

[torispokenword]

I made a choice before 'Little Earthquakes' ... that I wouldn't walk on eggshells as far as subject matter, and that I was really motivated by women. ... I was motivated by secrets they keep, the stories that they hold close to their heart and possibly hide behind their eyes. And also, after they might tell me their story, they might talk to me about their emotional process. And it is humbling, intriguing, it opens my perception in ways that I never imagined it would over the last so many years.

Tori Amos - Reuters, October 25, 2012