USA Live
TV show
April 1992

Host: Tori Amos is with me. I've been looking forward to this all morning. And this is her cd, Little Earthquakes, and we all have little earthquakes, don't we, that erupt in our life, Tori. Whether we deal with them or not is another story. And you have.

Tori: Trying to. I'm trying to go into my subconscious. It's the conversation that I don't have with people that I'm interested in. The things that I'm too um, scared to say.

Host: Right. A lot of talent comes from the subconscious, though, that's where it comes from. This whole album that you've done is very much like that. It's your subconscious speaking, and you've obviously tapped into that, well you've had to because...

Tori: Yeah, I had to or I was gonna be like Jell-O on the floor for the rest of my life.

Host: I think that all women go through at one point. All people, actually, all individuals, 'cause you're a humanist rather than a feminist.

Tori: Yes.

Host: And we're gonna make that clear right off the top. So each person has to take stock of themselves at one point in their life and find themselves all over again.

Tori: Well, men have periods, too. They just don't bleed.

Host: Right.

Tori: But that doesn't mean that men don't go through what we do, it's just a different way, I think. That's one of our problems, where we all have the capacity to be violent and we can all be cowards. And I think that we take on these ideas of what we should be instead of what we are. And I just got really sick of it because um, I'd be at a party and I'd want to kill somebody, and I couldn't understand why. I mean, what is it that you could say that could set me off so much. You know, you feel things, and I wanted to know my own mind. I wanted to know, if I want to kill you, I want to know why. And then it comes back to me, it's my relationship with myself, so...

Host: And so you hadn't had that relationship with yourself for a long time

Tori: No.

Host: And...

Tori: No, I think um, I could justify anything. It was much easier to deny everything, to pretend that I wasn't hurt or that I wasn't angry. And a lot of it's going back to being a child. When you're really, really little, you know, you're honest. You say, "I really don't like you," and you don't feel guilty about it, it's ok, you don't have to be friends with everybody.

Host: It's been said, yeah, and we always try, don't we? It's been said that we knew everything we needed to know when we were in kindergarten.

Tori: Yes.

Host: And then it takes us sometimes 35 years --

Tori: If we're lucky.

Host: Yeah, that's true -- to go back. Which is why, you know, it's interesting we were talking about Gloria Steinem, this is what she talks about, is trying to find the child within you and try to repair that child's feelings.

Tori: Well, we have to, I really believe we have to work with the adult and the little kid and the ancient being inside ourselves. You know, we're made up of all these things, if you, in ancient mythology they would show the young priestess with the um, witch woman, woman, fertility, and the old crone with the wisdom. And it's past, present and future, all conjunctioning at one time. And with men it's being ok to have that little boy, it's being ok to have that, as well as his wolf, as well as his old man, you know. It's, we're not encouraged to be all these things.

Host: Has anyone ever told you that you're an old soul? Have you heard that before? 'Cause talking to you right now, I feel like you've, you know, come back so many times. You're an old soul, there's a really interesting wisdom in what you have to say.

Tori: I think that all of us, I believe in having lived before, so I believe that all of us have, and the only difference is acknowledging it. I used to run, because I'm a minister's daughter, with Christian theology, I used to run away from the idea of having lived before. It was so final, it was so absolute -- born, die, heaven or hell. And that, to me, is just really kinda silly. I mean, if I died and I only lived for say, 27 years, then what, I'd be hanging out with Jesus and having what kind of conversations? I mean, it's all about soul-growth, really, that's what I believe in. And I don't feel like there are those that are the haves and then the have-nots. It's all of us recognising, I don't care what money you make, I don't care what your position is, if we're all strtipped of everything and put in the desert, what would we have? I mean, you know.

Host: It's all that counts, and the love you might have, the love you might share. Your soul and the love that you might share, maybe.

Tori: And the hardest is self-acceptance because um, what writing this album was was accepting the vamp in me, accepting the self-righteous virgin that's just so shameful, accepting the warrior. And accepting the mother, you know. Accepting all these sides.

Host: So how are you feeling now? It was very cathartic for you to do this, and I think that for a lot of people listening to this, it'll do the same thing to them. Do you feel that you totally feel at peacec with your soul, now? Or do you think that forever you'll be on this journey to gain self-knowledge?

Tori: Well, there isn't a finish-line.

Host: Right.

Tori: You get to one mountain peak and then you look over and there are millions of mountain peaks ahead of you. And it's putting it in practice every day. I mean, every day I want to kill somebody. So...

Host: Just somebody you don't even know just sparks something?

Tori: Yeah, well, I have to deal with being in the moment. I mean, it's exciting once you accept that um, this is just part of my life. And I find things very humorous these days. Things that could be really horrifying, problems that come, it's balancing it. And um, I just don't want to be a victim anymore. A victim of the fear of the unknown.

Host: Here, right now, it's a wonderful place to be.

Tori: I'm kissing the unknown, yeah. It's hard work.

Host: We were talking about living in the here and now, and how you cope being on the road and you said you finally, you know, have found the answer and that is like, "here we are, just you and I," you know.

Tori: It's living for lunch.

Host: So we have this relationship, right...

Tori: Yeah.

Host: ...at this point. Do you feel like playing for us?

Tori: I wanna do um, one of the songs that means the most to me.

Host: Wonderful. Thank you.

Tori performs Silent All These Years

Host: Thank you, that was wonderful. You are a true artist, and it's so wonderful to see and you are no longer silent, that's for sure.

Tori: No.

Host: We're gonna take a commercial break and then we're gonna come back and talk a little bit more, perhaps about your childhood and stuff like that. All the magic there, 'cause there's magic in what you do. It comes from somewhere. We'll take a look.

commercials

Host: Ok, we're talking about death and it isn't morbid.

Tori: That's good fun.

Host: Right, it is, yeah, because I believe

Tori: Mexican food, no cellulite, that's what I'm thinking.

Host: Next time around.

Tori: Yeah, yeah. All that sour cream and not on the hips, and

Host: Right

Tori: Dying is something that um, I think it's the people that are on Earth that miss the people that are gone more than...

Host: Right

Tori: We don't cry for them, we cry for ourselves, 'cause we miss the person we love, and it's very sad that we miss them.

Host: Yes, and I think it also makes us aware that, you know, we will also die. If you don't have faith, then it would be a scary thing, right?

Tori: Well whatever your faith is, I mean, it doesn't have to be religious faith, but I really believe that things are endless and I'll see you again if I'm supposed to see you. I mean, what's a million years if we run in, we'll have lots of stories to talk about.

Host: Right, exactly, as we travel through different dimensions, as we fly through, feeling very free, with all the people that we adore.

Tori: I mean, the theory of dying isn't it, I think. You can die in some awful gross, painful way, said it's like, oh god, you know, like, by a cookie cutter or something really gross. I'd rather go out very, very fast and, I mean, that kinda gets morbid, but when you think about the concept of moving on, that's really exciting. It's like, pioneers.

Host: Right, it's like new thresholds. So on with it. It's interesting here, but I'm sure it'll be interesting after.

Tori: There gotta be a lot of worlds out there.

Host: Right, which brings is to Happy Phantom.

Tori: Happy Phantom.

Host: How about that.

Tori: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tori performs Happy Phantom

Host: I so much want to be the Happy Phantom.

Tori: It's fun, it is.

Host: That's a great way of looking at it, huh?

Tori: Took me awhile to look at it that way, you know.

Host: Right. Now, you've been on the road forever and a day, right?

Tori: Yeah.

Host: Come November...

Tori: Long time.

Host: ...you mention it'll be 80 cities that you've played in.

Tori: Since August.

Host: Since August, oh my god.

Tori: Since August, so, a couple hundred shows we've done um, within a year, which is a lot of shows.

Host: Will you be breaking, and what will you do when you break?

Tori: Eating, gonna eat a lot.

Host: Lots of Mexican food?

Tori: Gonna get um, totally loved, inside and out, by a certain Wolf. And um, I'm gonna make soup. Lots of soup. I'm not gonna do music, I'm not even gonna think about it for a few weeks, maybe.

Host: Where is home when you get there?

Tori: I live in London.

Host: Really? So you'll be making soup in London.

Tori: Well, I have to go track the Wolf down.

Host: Right.

Tori: He kind of hangs out in deserts and, you know, he doesn't really like people. So, he is away from all that. He's a bit of a lone...

Host: Loner, yeah.

Tori: Yeah.

Host: Well, there's something to be said from that.

Tori: Well, we're the exact opposites.

Host: You're a people person?

Tori: Very much.

Host: Is that right? So how do you find sort of taking yourself out of that? Is it ok?

Tori: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had such a dose on this ziggy.

Host: Right

Tori: I've really, I have enough to um. He says to me, "No, do two more weeks,no, do two more weeks. You do it 'til you're just like, up to here, and then you come to me."

Host: Alright, that's romantic.

Tori: So. Yeah.

Host: That is great. Well, I'm very happy for you.

Tori: Thank you.

Host: And it's a pleasure to meet you.

Tori: And you, too.

Host: And I love what you do. And when you come back again, I hope to see you again.

Tori: Let's tell them your name in Polish, I love your name in Polish.

Host: Really?

Tori: Yeah.

Host: Eisha

Tori: Eisha

Host: Right.

Tori: That is so beautiful.

Host: Thank you, thanks a lot. I'll be seeing you.

Tori: Yeah, yeah.

Host: [laughs] You're such a girl, too, like, little girl-ish.


[transcribed by jason/yessaid]