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Veronica How
tired Tori Amos was, in the Bulletsound Studio where she was invited to play
for the “Meter Sessions” of Jan Douwe Kroeske. And how cold it was outside. But
the work continued, and also the interviews for her newest CD “Boys for Pele”.
Sitting on her travelling bag, leaning against the wall, the redhaired singer
started, sighing. It may
be obvious, Tori is totally floored when doing this interview. The singer/songwriter,
who is famous and infamous for her songs about religion, guilt, sex and
molestation, is tucked away half sleeping in a corner of the room. Her first
words after the introduction are: “Do you mind if I
stay seated on my bag here? I can’t get up, every muscle in my body hurts.”
One can see that. Mostly because of Tori’s closed eyes. And the way she grabs hold
of a cup of coffee when it is offered to her. She whispers: “I worship you” as thanks. This
tiredness is, Tori states, not the result of the many travelling. No, all the
talk about her album “Boys for Pele” is starting to get to her. Bacause that’s the only way one can
interpret a quote like “I’ve been interviewed about
this album for hundreds of times already.” And then the start of this
interview... It doesn’t help the selfassuredness of a journalist one bit.
Although you know that Tori is not going to remember much of this interview
later. Even this studio, a room that she’s visited before for a session [in
1992], does not look familiar to her at all.
“That first visit has been erased from my
memory. Totally. I saw a picture of myself just now in the hall, the best proof
that I actually was here.” This does not mean that this American
minister’s daughter is suffering from a chronical form of memory loss since her
CD-debut “Y Kant Tori Read” in 1988. It’s the details that don’t go past her -
faces of fans, memorable moments, flashes. “I remember the strangest things. Faces in the crowd, like
during a concert in Minneapolis. There were people in the audience whose
exterior I could describe accurately even now, while they did not impress me at
all back there.” It’s
those moments that don’t seem logical that are inscribed in Tori’s memory. Her
eyes are the camera that “registers things and
locks them in her memory. That’s what it seems like anyway.” “Boys
for Pele” was recorded by Tori in a church. An illogical choice? Not that. Tori
said that there couldn’t have been a better place. “The acoustics were great. Even though I was
cooped up in a box for most of the recording sessions. I practically lived in
it. Me and my piano, where two holes were left open. A German magazine
[Keyboards - MR] even made pictures of this. But I,
the ministers daughter, had to go back to the church, to where it all began. To
get back what I put away, so to speak. My ‘womanhood.’” Some habitants
of County Wicklow thought differently. “They liked
it. They enjoyed themselves. But there are always some people around making a
problem of everything. Most people thought it was very groovy what I was doing.
I came with the right intentions.” However good the intentions, Tori
does manage to lose friends. Mostly because of the difficult subjects of her
songs. “There were people in my neighbourhood who couldn’t
cope with my lyrics. I could never stop that loss. Those songs, my experiences,
had to get out. They still do, I can’t change that. I keep searching for the
truth.” |