Icicle

“In Icicle I try to regain the innocence of my childhood.” [Hitkrant - March 12, 1994]

Tori explains that the song Icicle is about a woman who “masturbates to survive a repressive atmosphere.” [The New Review of Records - 1994]

“I am a minister’s daughter, for heaven’s sake! So, of course, I can see why some would regard sexual fantasies about Jesus Christ as unacceptable. But that’s part of what I’m saying in Icicle, when I tell of how I used to masturbate at home as a teenager, while my father and his fellow theologians were downstairs discussing the Divine Light. I was exploring the ‘divine light’ within myself. [laughs] And anyone who sees that as ‘blasphemous’ can go to hell! Like I said to you before, that’s how women are paralysed, disconnected from their own power by religion. Talk about patriarchal power structures. For centuries the Church has slammed a crucifix between a woman’s legs and even masturbation obviously is a way of dislodging that cross, of self-empowerment. And how dare anybody say that my honouring my woman-ness in that way, my relationship with my own body and my opening to this energy between my legs is a ‘sin against God’ is ‘blasphemous.’ That was my act of defiance, of asserting myself against the oppressive force of religion which has always made women deny their sexuality.

“The concept is that Jesus Christ, through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit experienced life - the human form. Well, what I find quite inexplicable is that he could suckle at a woman’s breast yet not soil his dinky by having sex! How’s he supposed to experience life at the level of his dick, for Christ’s sake! That’s the Church’s core denial of sexuality, right there, alongside the idea that Mary could give birth without ‘doing it’. It’s absurd. So when I say I want to ‘do it’ with Jesus Christ it’s not just that I want to sexualise Jesus, bring him down to our level, I want to breathe the earth into his lungs. He came from Heaven and we, as women, come from the earth. So it’s the idea of soil beneath the fingers, the notion of, ‘If this blood is sacred, then drink it’. That’s what it’s all about.” [Hot Press - February 23, 1994]

“In Icicle I try to win back the innocence of my childhood. That girl that masturbates to survive, the vulnerable, innocent flower, has always done good things for us. She’s had to fence off certain parts of herself to get ahead. Now it’s time to light the candle and melt those parts. Who dares to open him- or herself can also forgive themselves for not having stood up for themselves enough.” [Oor (Dutch, “Ear”) - January 29, 1994]

“When you’re 10 years old and being taught a belief system, you don’t have the wherewithal to go, ‘Well, when they’re putting this dried, stale cracker in my mouth, and telling me it’s all going to be OK, it’ll be OK if I put my little warm hand down on my little warm spot. That’ll make it a bit OK.’ That’s where Icicle comes in.” [Baltimore Sun - January 1994]

“I dreamed things were frozen in ice, songs and other dreams. And the ice can carry secret messages that warm a little girl’s heart.” [Under the Pink songbook]