# For all Tori Amos fans..... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 4, 2003, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885 "2003-12-04T06:13:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/21 "2003-12-05T04:24:13Z")
All-time favorite: Mother (when I taught seniors I had them listen to it and read the myth of Hades and Persephone-- it blew their minds) Other faves: Silent all These Years Precious Things Cornflake Girl (been there, done that) Spacedog Horses Blood Roses (my #2 favorite Tori song) Donut Song Playboy Mommy Cooling Upside Down Pancake Best Album: Boys for Pele Most Hated, Least Favorite Song: Not the Red Baron Other non-faves: Baker Baker Professional Widow Agent Orange Your Cloud Heart of Gold Least Favorite Album: SLG is a no-brainer, but I did like some of the covers, most notably Rattlesnakes and Real Men. Best Tori Covers: Landslide Angie Thank You ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/22 "2003-12-05T05:03:57Z")
Best Album:Boys for Pele Worst:Strange Little Girls (Y Kant Tori Read is a _very close_ second though) Favorite songs (in no particular order): Take To The Sky Talula Putting the Damage On Jackie’s Strength Leather (fun to play on the guitar) Wednesday Mr Zebra Cloud on my Tongue Least Favorites: God (the squelching guitar) Baltimore The Waitress [hijack] I always wondered if there’s a website out there that has the explanation behind some of her songs. I’ve heard that Cornflake Girl is about female circumcision but I’d never have guessed that listening to the lyrics[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/23 "2003-12-05T05:15:47Z")
> [@](#): > > What’s “Silent All These Years” about? Trying to decipher Tori Amos songs is like trying to decipher Seal or REM songs. A lot of them simply don’t make sense. People just attribute their own meanings. For Tori this gets progressively worse after ‘Little Earthquakes”, and IMO hardly anything after “Under The Pink” is worth listening too except as I’d listen to a foreign opera. Nice vocal work, but totally meaningless. I challenge anyone to find two consecutive, coherent sentences on the whole ‘Boys For Pele” album. But most of “Little Earthquakes” is at least moderately translatable. “"Silent All These Years” is just the general Tori Amos theme of repressing who you are for the benefit of others, in this case a boyfriend she’s currently having an argument with. The mermaid reference is a bit obscure, but in traditional mythology mermaids were considered incapable of giving or feeling human love, only sexual gratification. Looked at in that light it makes a lot more sense in the context of the lyrics. She’s worried that she might never be able to open up and so never be incapable of forming a meaningful relationship even as “Years go by and I’m stripped of my beauty” and “Will I choke on my tears Till finally there is nothing left”. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/24 "2003-12-05T05:31:18Z")
> [@](#): > > I always wondered if there’s a website out there that has the explanation behind some of her songs. I’ve heard that Cornflake Girl is about female circumcision but I’d never have guessed that listening to the lyrics Don’t go expecting sense in anything after “Little Earthquakes”. She admits herself that mostly they don’t make sense and need to be ‘felt’ rather than ‘heard’ or somesuch artistic nonsense. For an example of the meaning of cornflake girl have a look at a quote from the author: > [@](#): > > I would like to think I’m a raisin girl, because in my mind they’re more open minded. Cornflake girls are totally self centered, don’t care about anything or anybody. ….A cornflake girl is wonderbread whereas a raisin girl is whole wheat bread Umm, yeah, right Tori. Hope those medications kick in soon. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/25 "2003-12-05T05:42:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bippy the Beardless \* > \*\*I’m not yet a Tori Amos fan, but what album of her’s will convince me that she can be as good as Kate Bush or Bjork? \*\* I also recommend starting off with Little Earthquakes. I always used to tell my friends that Tori albums work a lot better if you experience them sequentially, as jumping right into Boys for Pele might not be a good first taste. I’m not so sure if that holds anymore, though. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/26 "2003-12-05T05:47:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blake \* > \*\*Don’t go expecting sense in anything after “Little Earthquakes”. She admits herself that mostly they don’t make sense and need to be ‘felt’ rather than ‘heard’ or somesuch artistic nonsense. > > For an example of the meaning of cornflake girl have a look at a quote from the author: > > Umm, yeah, right Tori. Hope those medications kick in soon. \*\* Oddly enough, [Wikipedia](http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitoridectomy) > [@](#): > > As Addressed in Popular Culture > The subject of female circumcision has been addressed by many prominent authors, singers and performers across the world. Some examples: > > Possessing the Secret of Joy, a novel by Alice Walker > “Cornflake Girl”, a song by Tori Amos > Rüdiger Nehberg and then I found my own answer [here:](http://www.hereinmyhead.com/collect/under/utp8.html) > [@](#): > > “I read the Alice Walker book, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and there’s umm, in that book, the mothers take the daughters to the butchers to have their, let’s say their genitalia removed. And even though it’s a patriarchal culture that she’s talking about, and that this custom was put into practice a long, long time ago by the patriarchy, it’s the mothers that take their daughters. And, what I was singing about was, it’s funny how from generation to generation women really betray each other in the ladies’ room. There is a whole secret society that happens, and a lot of times a mother will say ‘I’m doing this for your good’ whether it was binding the feet in the Eastern cultures or whether it’s marrying your daughter to this gangrene, smelly-breathed, old, decrepit, rotting scumbag that’s 80 years old with dough. ‘You know, this is really the best for you,’ when the truth is, it’s the best for everybody else. And, that’s an extreme of women’s relationships brought to just like, your girlfriend that you’re hanging out with, but betrayal is betrayal, and I was thrown in to many situations as I was reading that book where girls, my girls, we were just dissin’ each other. The things that we were doing, umm, it’s like I would have never imagined that we could be so unsupportive of each other, and it was just happening while I was reading this book, and Cornflake Girl is the betrayal really of girls.” The website also has lyrics for her songs and some have more interpretations. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/27 "2003-12-05T05:48:18Z")
Might as well give my two cents on best/worst albums (since I raised the question) Best : Under the Pink Worst : From the Choirgirl Hotel (I don’t really feel that Strange Little Girls or Y Kant Tori Read should count) Does anyone else feel that the post Boys for Pele albums haven’t been quite as good as the first 3? I just haven’t been able to get them like I did the old ones. Maybe I’m just getting old. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/28 "2003-12-05T06:03:36Z")
Personally I liked “Charlotte’s Walk” a lot more than “Boy’s For Pele”. It made some sort of sense some of the time. Interesting site stpauler. I’m not sure it clears much up regarding “Cornflake Girl”. General refernces to mothers hurting daughters, women hurting women, specific refrences to genital mutilation and then “Cornflake Girl is the betrayal really of girls.” So was that a yes or a no? ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/29 "2003-12-05T07:09:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blake \* > **Personally I liked “Charlotte’s Walk” a lot more than “Boy’s For Pele”. It made some sort of sense some of the time.** I decided a long time ago not to try to make any sense of the lyrics 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![moi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@moi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moi)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/30 "2003-12-05T07:10:20Z")
I’ll pick a favorite song from each album/era, how’s that? LE: Precious Things, Take to the Sky (possibly my Tori fave, if I had to have just _one_…) Pink: Cornflake Girl Pele: In the Springtime of his Voodoo Choirgirl: Cruel, Raspberry Swirl Venus: This is one of my favorite albums. I don’t know if I can even come close to listing one… SLG: Strange Little Girl SW: Crazy, Don’t Make Me Come to Vegas Favorite covers: A Case of You, Love Song, London Girls (it’s just so cute!) And, I must be whack, because I completely understand the white bread vs. wheat bread analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/31 "2003-12-05T12:50:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cckerberos \* > \*\*Best : Under the Pink > Worst : From the Choirgirl Hotel (I don’t really feel that Strange Little Girls or Y Kant Tori Read should count) > \*\* Each to their own, of course, but I’m shocked that anyone would list From the Choirgirl Hotel as her worst album! Choirgirl is my 3rd favorite Tori album, after Under The Pink (#1) and Little Earthquakes (#2). It’s got so many great songs on it, it’s hard to pick a favorite. My mind is boggling. I think SLG and YKTR should count, and since I do, I’ll choose YKTR as the worst. I got a promo LP of it when it was first released. I thought she was a joke, though “Etienne Trilogy” showed slivers of promise. I even played it on my radio show. Since she said in YKTR’s liner notes thank you to someone “…for helping me make the album I always wanted to make” I was very dubious about Little Earthquakes. Word of it was swirling around a mailing list I belong to before it was released in the US, and I had a cassette dub of it before it came out here. I loved it, but I didn’t trust that it was entirely her doing. All that changed when I saw her live for the first time. It was at a tiny club called Schubas in Chicago. It was just her, with a crappy electric piano that kept breaking during the show. She blew me away, and after the 2nd song, I doubted her no more. I’ve loved all her albums since, except for Strange Little Girls and Boys For Pele, but it’s just because I haven’t listened to them very much. I might love or hate them more if I gave them more of a chance. (Yeah, I don’t read or pay much attention to her lyrics anymore either, and I’ve given up reading interviews with her. Too much about faeries and shit that makes no sense to anyone but her.) ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/32 "2003-12-05T18:05:35Z")
Thanks guys I got Little Earthquakes yesterday, and it is pretty good. Does fell like Kate Bush lite at the moment, but I’m sure it’ll grow on me. For any Tori and Kate lovers who don’t know Bjork music you might try Vespertine from Bjork to understand why I see her as taking over Kate’s crown. ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/33 "2003-12-05T18:38:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mazikeen \* > \*\*My all time favorite Tori Amos song has to be Tear in Your Hand. My least favorite was the cover she did of Eminem’s “Stan”. \*\* When did she do _Stan_? The only Eminem song I ever heard her cover was _99 Bonnie And Clyde_, on _Strange Little Girls_. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/34 "2003-12-05T18:46:35Z")
) > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blake \* > \*\*Personally I liked “Charlotte’s Walk” a lot more than “Boy’s For Pele”. It made some sort of sense some of the time. > > Interesting site stpauler. I’m not sure it clears much up regarding “Cornflake Girl”. General refernces to mothers hurting daughters, women hurting women, specific refrences to genital mutilation and then “Cornflake Girl is the betrayal really of girls.” > > So was that a yes or a no? \*\* I think that’s it’s a “sort of”. My impression from the quote was that the song is about women betraying the next generation of women. The female circumcision practices in Africa being one example of this type of betrayal. Maybe the inspiration was female circumcision but it’s not necessarily a song about it in the broader sense. At least that’s what I gleaned from it, TMMV (Tori’s Mileage May Vary 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/35 "2003-12-05T23:55:55Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ve given up reading interviews with her. Too much about faeries and shit that makes no sense to anyone but her.) Having read a bit from **stpauler** ’s link above, I couldn’t agree more. I thought the lyrics were ambiguous for artictic reasons. Now I find out that’s the way she talks IRL. > [@](#): > > My impression from the quote was … So we have been reduced to getting translations of songs from impressions of quotes. Tori, come back to Earth and start writing in friggin’ Enlgish will ya. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/36 "2003-12-06T01:37:47Z")
I think the problem is that she does write in **Enlgish** 😃 But surely she isn’t as balmy as Bjork, is she. And Kate Bush is more than a little off her rocker. Is there anyone else to add to a list of ‘Mad women of Art Rock’? Is Joni Michelle (sp?) crazy… ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/37 "2003-12-06T04:31:02Z")
Baltimore is definately one of the goofiest, most terriblist songs ever. But it was the 80s hair phase, before her rebirth, so I’ll forgive her. Little Earthquakes actually has he most accesible lyrics. They may not seem that way at first, but most of the songs have a very discernible idea/story to them. Even the really out there stuff refers to intelligible things. If you don’t know what “Neil and the Dream King” refers to, that’s your loss. 🙂 Under the Pink is a fabulous album, but it’s lyrics are a little more obscure and very surreal. I really, really like the music on this one. Boys for Pele is also fantastic, but even more hard to discern. At this stage, she’s gotten into really almost nonsense lyrics, but the thing is, if you’ve listened to the first two, you can sort of make sense out of the sort of emotions each line is trying to convey, even if they don’t seem to make sense individually. Choirgirl is where, for me, she lost something. Still some great stuff, but the lyrics just don’t work as well for me, and some are rather grating. I think Scarlett’s walk is much better than the three albums before it, though I wish she’d rock a little more: it’s hard to get people into it when it feels so easy listening. The thing about Tori’s best lyrics is that they jumble all sorts of images and ideas and stream of consciousness stuff together: but then one really killer line suddenly pulls it all together. Tear in My Hand is a good example: seems aimless enough at first, but that “maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen” line really drives it home. A great great lyric, and the kind she doesn’t pull off enough in her middle years. I think the most fun thing about her, though is the… what do you call it? its a p word having to do with mishearing a lyric. There are tons of lyrics I thought were totally different before reading the liner notes. For instance: Honey I heard “you’re just to used to mourning” and “you always let your babies die” (an eerie and sad mishear in retrospect) the real lyric “you’re just to used to my honey now” and “you always like your babies tight” Taxicab song I heard: “I bring you a message” the real lyric: “I’m glad I’m on your side” I always loved Take to the Sky. It was one of the first songs she wrote when starting over, and it’s a great rocking introduction. Too bad it’s a B side. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/38 "2003-12-06T14:01:57Z")
In her defense, “Baltimore” was written as part of a contest for the city of Baltimore to promote the Orioles. The flipside of that single (which I’ve seen on eBay for over $500), “Walking With You” is a fairly cheesy love song. There’s even a bootleg recording of her singing at someone’s wedding in 1978! She does “classics” like “You Light Up My Life”. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/39 "2003-12-06T15:06:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Apos \* > **I think the most fun thing about her, though is the… what do you call it? its a p word having to do with mishearing a lyric.** Apparently it is called mondegreen. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885/40 "2003-12-06T18:17:12Z")
Oh, and if you want a good laugh, check out Y Kant Tori Read’s video (their only one) for “The Big Picture”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-all-tori-amos-fans/216885.md?page=1)