60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Tori Amos — “Cornflake Girl”

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

Rob explores singer-songwriter Tori Amos’s hit single “Cornflake Girl” by discussing her performing prowess, her unique artistry, and her tense relationship with the press. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Maya Salam Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the night of April 9, 1994, Tori Amos played a show at Trinitatis, Kershia, in Berlin. It's a Protestant church. Tori opened with American Pie. In the streets, the children screamed. She started the song here, Say What You Will, About American Pie. I will say that it was released by the folk rocker Don McLean in 1971. I will say that it is a classic rock radio. staple despite being eight and a half minutes long. I will say that given its incredible length,

you should never attempt this song at karaoke even as a joke. One time my buddy Chad tried American pie at karaoke, and I will never forget the look of helplessness and regret and despair on his face when he'd sung like three giant ass verses and choruses of American pie. And he realized that he still had three more giant ass verses and choruses left to go. I myself have never ceremonially escorted an aging loved one onto an ice flow and then pushed them off into the raging sea and watched them slowly recede into the distance. But Chad looked the way I imagine that person would look. Leave American Pie to the professionals. But no, what I really want to say about American Pie is that it's one of America's most profound and ubiquitous, which is a big part of why it's so profound,

songs about death and rock star death in particular Don McLean was inspired in part by the plane crash on February 3rd 1959 that killed Buddy Holly Richie Valence and the Big Bopper known of course as the day the music died to the shock and despair of a new generation American Pie was the perfect song for the night of April 9th 1994 and the three men I in my own the father's It's also a perfect song for Tori Amos in general, the sixth and last giant-ass verse of this song, in particular, for the religious imagery, the sacrilegious imagery, perhaps. A lot of peak Tori Amos detail here, the broken church bells, the crying lovers, the dreaming poets, plus the Holy Trinity, which of course she admires, packing up and getting the hell out of Dodge, maybe with a nine iron in the backseat, just in case.

She sings just this verse and just one chorus. You know the chorus to American Pie. And then Tori Amos starts singing another song. Maybe you know the song that's coming. Lod up. Bring your friends. Nirvana frontman, an unwilling voice of a generation, Kirk Cobain was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound the day before on April 8, 1994. In Seattle, if you are the sort of person inclined toward

broad romantic, fatalistic statements. If you go in for personal and cultural and spiritual melodrama, which is something I think Toriamos encourages, then this is the single most cataclysmic moment in 90s pop music, or 90s rock music, at least. Basically, if you were a teenager when this happened, it very well might have broken your life in half. I can still picture the bus,

the school bus I was sitting in. I can still picture the intersection the bus had just gone through. corner of East Union and North Harmony. There is before Kirk Cobain died and there is after. And here is Tori Amos in church, beckoning us all into her boat and rowing us across the river sticks herself. Hello. If you have ever seen a movie trailer in your whole entire life, then you are familiar with the trick where you take a loud, fast, raucous, popular rock song or a rap song, or when the Saints go marching in, or

Beyonce or whatever, and you slow it way down and you make it goopy and mopey and extra melodramatic and haunting. The Black Widow movie did this. Just smells like teen spirit. In fact, that shit sucks. That shit is hilarious. This is not that. Tori Amos covering Nirvana the night after Kirk Cobain was found dead is not that. This is one of the most fearless and mesmerizing singer-songwriters of her generation eulogizing and channeling and consecrating. another one of the most fearless and mesmerizing singer-songwriters of her generation. This is a seance. This is the 13th station of the cross, the one where Jesus is removed from the cross.

This is a sort of resurrection. Or maybe we're supposed to imagine Kurt slowly receding into the distance. As for the rest of us here in this boat, maybe Tori is rolling us further into the underworld, and maybe she's rowing us back out. Tori had been covering this song in this fashion for a couple years at this point. Her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes, came out in 1992. I first heard Tori's voice on the radio via her hit single Crucify.

She put out a little five-song EP for Crucify, which included three cover songs. Angie by the Rolling Stones, Thank You by Led Zeppelin, and Smells Like Teen Spirit. Listen to all that sometime if you want. But I need you to watch Tori Amos do her solo piano. rendition of smells like teen spirit live on YouTube, vintage early 90s footage of some night that was not the night after Kirkobane died. This is a not safe for work situation. Typically, she is man spreading is the way I will describe her onstage posture. She's got armadillos in her trousers. She's got the shock of red hair. She is staring down the audience. Her whole vibe is

proudly indecorous. Major Prince vibes somehow from Tori Amos covering Nirvana. She is the Little Red Corvette. Most of the time she is playing the piano as if attempting to impregnate it. Tori by 1994 knew

the effect all this lasciviousness could have on people. Here's how she put it to Us magazine. A lot of women have said I offended them. And I'm like, when you get up on stage, I'm not going to bust your ass. If you want to stand there and not move your hips and think that's feminist, fine, but I'm not doing this for any movement. It's about awakening my being, and part of my being is a sexual being. You know when they talk about the goddess? This is not a dry

entity. This is fertilizing the cornfields. This is making things grow. This is a very juicy concept. end quote to clarify you sitting in the audience or even now watching her while sitting at your laptop are part of the cornfield in this construction and therefore right so here in germany here in trinitatis kirshia here at 90s alternative rock's darkest hour she can change the tone dramatically she can mourn curt she can consecrate him but the goddess she very much remains My name is Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s, and today we're talking about Cornflake Girl by Tori Amos. Tori is a raisin girl. Just to clarify, we'll get to that in a bit. But right off the rip, I want you to know that of all the 90s, alt rock stars, I did not see live. In the 1990s, I regret never seeing Tori Amos the most. I regret never sitting in the cornfield, surrounded by people as enraptured by Tori Amos as I would have been. I should just go see her now. Her European tour in early

2022, starts in Berlin, actually. We're both older now, of course, but that's true of most of us. Myra Ellen Amos was born in Newtown, North Carolina in 1963, four years after the day the music died the first time. Her mother was part Cherokee, her father was a Methodist preacher, and that's all you need, really, to fuel a lifetime of spiritual and artistic pathos. Let's just say young Tori felt a wee bit repressed. Grown up, Tori, talking to spend, would later describe her father this way. When I was a kid, it was will of iron, no sense of humor, no Richard Pryor videos. Let's just say young Tori preferred her mother's side of the family, the Native American side,

the storytelling side, the less theistically rigid side, the good side. She also called it the juicy side. As for her father's family, her Appalachian and Pentecostal roots, she once said, I'm related to the people in deliverance, not Bert Reynolds, the other side. She said this to a newspaper in North Carolina in Greensboro. As you might be aware, Tori Amos has never had any problem, telling anybody anything she was thinking or feeling at any point in her life. For example, let's talk early musical inspirations.

The Doors. Okay, the Doors. Quote, I imagine Jim Morrison as Gandalf and Lord of the Rings, riding in on his horse and putting me on his saddle. I was totally into that at seven. End quote. That is a remarkable image, by the way. Jim Morrison as Gandalf absconding with seven-year-old Torre Amos. You cannot pass. Jesus, that's a terrible impression. All right, Led Zeppelin, of course. She raved about Zeppelin to Rolling Stone. Quote, well, Zeppelin are my biggest influence. I wanted to give my virginity to Robert Plant when I was 10 years old. I was bleeding, babe. I was bleeding. When I would listen to their music, I would feel passionate. I would get wet, and then it all dried up as I got older. It made me feel

like a hot girl. Black dog, yummy. Put it on, throw that head back. Row. But my commitment is to being wet, end quote. Just saying things Tori Amos has said is going to be the death of me. Listening to me, Tory Amos has said, may very well be the death of you. Also, I don't want to get into another argument with a seven-year-old, but Robert Plant strikes me as closer in spirit to Gandalf. Actually, picture the Balrog getting its ass kicked by this guy. Anyway, young Tori had a whole lot going on. For example, young Tori was also a whole-ass child prodigy piano player. Her dad moved the family to Baltimore early on. At five years old, she was the youngest ever student admitted to the prestigious and historically Led Zeppelin

averse Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. At 11 years old, she got kicked out of the prestigious and apparently Tori Amos averse Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore for what Rolling Stone later described as a musical insubordination. One of the first pictures of the artist soon to be known as Tori Amos in the paper. It's 1977. She's in the Montgomery Journal in Rockville, Maryland. She's 13 years old. She's going by Ellen Amos. She is the winner of the 13th annual teen talent contest sponsored by the Montgomery County Recreation Department in the Kensington Wheaton

JCs. In the picture, she is rocking an upright piano but facing the crowd and singing a song she wrote called More Than Just a Friend. Soon she'd adopted the stage name Tori Amos. A friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Tori Pine, as in the tree. Is that a neg I'm glad I wasn't around for that. And she found herself playing Washington, D.C. area nightclubs and gay bars, often accompanied, often chaperoned by her father on account of her being severely underage. Tori enjoys talking about this phase or she used to when she first got famous, the dissonance of this image, the juiciness. She liked talking about her humorless old preacher dad, skulking in the back of the gay bar in his priest's collar. Sometimes she'd call it a clerical collar.

If she was being a little more playful, she'd call it a ducer. dog collar. But soon this wasn't enough for her. She wanted to go to L.A. She wanted to be a rock star. She wanted to be the goddess. She wanted to be famous, whatever it took, whoever she had to be to be famous. She once said, after playing feelings six times a night, I was wondering, what's the difference between that and giving a blowjob to the head of Merrill Lynch? Everybody kept saying, this girl in her piano thing is not going to happen. And I started listening. So she moved to LA and started a band called Why Can't Torrey Reed? That's from a song called Faith, F-A-Y-T-H.

Why is it spelled like that? Because it's sexier. If you spend a lot of time in record stores, in CD stores in the 90s, perhaps you recall the mythical bootleg section, usually one little box on the front counter or behind the counter to deter shoplifters. Typically, these were live bootleg CDs of counting crows. or Rage Against the Machine or Nirvana or whatever, half-assed covers, dubious origins,

sound quality probably sucked. I wouldn't know. They cost like 25, 30 bucks a pop. Forget it. I didn't need another version of Rain King that bad, but I will likewise never forget the day. I was farting around in one of those boxes and I stumbled across a $30 copy

of the self-titled 1988 debut from ill-fated Los Angeles synth pop slash hair metal band Why Can't Tori Read? That's capital Y, K-A-N-T-T-T-T-T-R-Reed. She could explain that name to you, but I imagine at this point she'd rather not. That's from a song called Cool on Your Island,

normal spelling. That is definitely Tori Amos on the cover of this record. She's got an extra shocking shock of red hair. You can smell the hairspray. She is holding a sword incorrectly. She is giving you white snake video. I was baffled by this cover in this moment. In my attempt to reconcile this lady,

with the Crucify Lady. Was this a prank? Was this a Halloween costume? I did not buy this album. I cannot in good conscience recommend this album. Neither will Tori Amos. Sounds like Roxette, but secretly mad at Jesus. Why can't Tori Reid took on mythical proportions in the early 90s when Tori broke out for real? But let's not belabor this. Is it a good album? No. Is that a world historically humiliating disaster? Also no. What the hell were you doing in 1988? That was so great. being born yet, I suspect. Look, it was a false start. It was an ill-fitting alter ego for a child prodigy turned pop star who did not yet realize that her actual personality was more heroic and more villainous than any superhero alter ego, any dumbass record company could cook up. As Tori later put it

to the Los Angeles Times, I didn't believe in myself enough. I forgot that if it isn't in my heart or if I'm not getting off on it, maybe people could tell. I didn't think about that one. When Why Can't Torrey Reed bombed, I didn't have any respect for myself. Also, Billboard called her a bimbo. Yo, this is the complete text of Billboard's recommended review of the Why Can't Tory Reed record. Classically trained pianist pounds the ivories on her pop rock debut, belting out self-written material with a forceful appealing voice. Unfortunately, provocative packaging sends the parentheses inaccurate,

parentheses message that this is just so much more bimbo music end quote yeah remember that toriamo sure did she dropped out of sight she fled to london she transformed back into herself she wrote a fantastic song called silent all these years about everyone and everything that conspired to keep her silent she also wrote a bunch of other songs just as good and in 1992 her solo debut Little Earthquakes made her super famous. Here now are the funniest and hardest lines in any song performed by anybody during the George Herbert Walker Bush administration. This shit is metal as hell.

So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts. What's so amazing about really deep thoughts? Boy, you best pray that I bleed real soon. how's that thought for you? What I need you to know about Toriamos, about a great deal of little earthquakes, about even a song called Crucifies, that this person is funny.

You may not be laughing. She may not be laughing. God might not be laughing. But then again, God's got it coming. I've been raising up my hands. Just what God needs. One more victim. But no.

Nonetheless, Crucify wears its heaviness lightly. It carries out its sacrilege devoutly. Mixed in with all those growling grunge boys on the radio at the time, Tori Amos sounded miraculous, but she also sounded apocalyptic. The only thing is scarier than a downward spiral is an upward spiral. The deal in 1992 is that you heard a song like this on the radio, and you'd run out and buy the CD for 15 or 20 bucks, not bootleg section prices, but close enough.

And you'd pray that there was at least. least one or two other songs on the record. That's startling and thrilling and lasting. You prayed that you'd get your money's worth. You have invested in this person now. So you put in the time. You listen to the whole thing over and over. You pour over the liner notes. You notice that Tori wraps up the liner notes by thanking the fairies. F-A-E-R-I-E-S. You pay attention. You memorize lyrics. She sings, she's been everybody else's girl. Maybe one day she'll be her own. She sings, I don't believe you're leaving because me and Charles Manson like the same ice cream. She sings repeatedly, give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.

Also, on a song called Precious Things, she sings this. Holy shit. Incredibly, that is not pro wrestling legend Mick Foley's favorite Toriamo song. You know Mick Foley, right? mankind, long hair, the mask, the beard, the sock. Pro wrestling legend McFoley in one of his many delightful memoirs tells an amazing story about a barbed wire match he once did with Terry Funk and Honjo, Japan, and Mick's at a career crossroads. And it's a sparse crowd, but the Japanese media is there.

And he needs this to be the best barbed wire match ever, right? And he's scared shitless, and he's sitting in the locker room beforehand with a walkman and trying to psych himself up to get out there and give the people of Hanjo, Japan, the gnarliest, bloodiest, most bonkers, barbed wire match in wrestling history. And this is the song Mick Foley uses to work himself into the frenzy that requires. One thing that I have in common with pro wrestling legend McFolly is that our favorite Toriamo song is winter. What I remember about this song is a sullen teenager trudging through yet another grim, endless barbed wire match of an Ohio February is how vividly this song evoked Winter, embodied Winter, the piano and orchestra iciness of this song, the lone ice skater poignancy of it. Winter is a song about Tori's father, about the very gentle pep talk Tori's father gave her after the why can't Torrey Reed record bombed, about Tori. needing her father. All of that childhood

repression aside about Tori's father very gently telling her that she wouldn't need him and wouldn't have him forever. It's hard to overstate how startling and monolithic this song sounded on alt-rock radio, squished between

Pearl Jam's Alive and Nirvana's lithium. You couldn't fully explain the difference, the contrast between Tori and Kurt or Eddie or Billy or Trent or any of those other beautiful boys with smashable faces by saying, oh, she's playing piano or, oh, she's a girl. Something else was happening here. Some other more frightening and visceral and necessary type of communion was being established here. The second or last song on Little Earthquakes is called Me and a Gun.

Tori sings at Acapella. It is, unmistakably about rape, about sexual assault. It is, unmistakably based on her personal experience. Nobody needs a 10-second excerpt of me and a gun. That's glib. I don't think you can fully absorb this song without listening to the whole song, or really without listening to the whole album. I suspect you can't fully absorb this song without hearing it live, without being surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands,

of devout Tori Amos fans, many of whom, statistically, have their own harrowing experiences with what Tori is singing about. I don't think you can fully absorb this song at all. I don't think me and a gun is bearable in the purest emotional sense, nor is it meant to be. What I do know, and I don't suppose this will shock you, is that the American and English music press of the early 1990s, the media, struggled to approach this song, this issue, this aspect of Tori Amos sensitively. Tori did a lot of interviews. Tori got a lot of attention. Tori generated a lot of headlines and subheads and what have you.

Spin Magazine. Tori Amos has been a classical pianist, a cheesy lounge act, a metal head and thigh-high plastic jackboots, and a victim of rape. She's a woman on a mission. Glamour magazine, this brave new voice sings about rape and rage. The twist is, she makes us feel sexual, powerful, and alive. Us Magazine. Tori Amos has gone from singing about rape to worshipping the goddess of fertility.

Something about that word deployed in large font size as a data point, right? As a topic of conversation, the classic magazine construction, Tori Amos talks to us about X, Y, and Z. Everything about this discourse feels weird and awful, especially if you're Tori Amos, or if you're Fiona Apple. Fiona Apple's first album, Tito, comes out in 1996. Fiona also pounds the ivories and belts out self-written material with a forceful, appealing voice. Fiona also sings about and talks about her own harrowing personal experiences.

And she comes away from many of these interviews feeling disrespected and misunderstood and sensationalized. In her own spin cover story, Fiona is glibly quoted calling Tori Amos a poster girl for rape. And Fiona has to clarify. She writes, I was merely referring to the danger and both of us being honest about our personal experience when, as public figures, there is a tendency of the media to label us and reduce our music to simply a reflection of one cultural ill. In fact, that Fiona's story for spin goes so spectacularly sideways that after reading it, she writes a defiant poem about it that starts

when the pawn hits the conflicts. He thinks like a king, what he knows, throw the blows, when he goes to the fight, and he'll win the whole thing, for he enters the ring, et cetera, and the rest is history. It's a mess. Whole thing's a mess. Me and a gun inspired a shitload of cringeworthy content. None of it matters.

This content included, quite frankly. What matters is that in 1994, Tori Amos became the first official spokesperson for Rain, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. What matters is that for the rest of her life, you can find Tori backstage talking to her fans about Me and a Gun. Those are the only conversations about that song that matter. Rolling Stone was interviewing her. once and the writer brought up a friend of his who said,

Tori Amos is one of the reasons I'm still here. And Tori says, when people say this to me, I say to them, you saved your own life. Because somebody had to fucking do it. The second Tori Amos album is called Under the Pink came out in January 1994. Original title was God with a big G. Seriously, though, God. Get it together.

God, the song, is a declaration of war. Her sounds gotten fuller, slinkier, grungier. We've got a little electric guitar going here, even if it sounds like an electric guitar dying. It sounded miraculous on the radio, apocalyptic on the radio. More interviews, more headlines, more attention, more delightful Toriamos quotes,

God's problem is he needs a babe. Hey, I'm not busy Tuesdays and Thursdays. There she is. It's not that nobody else sang about God on pop radio in the mid-90s. Joan Osborne in 1995 was also willing to ask, hey, what if God kind of sucks? Also in 95, a bunch of beautiful boys with smashable faces who called themselves Dishwala wrote the perfect insufferable Tinder bio

17 years before Tinder existed. Nice try, fellas. No, what made Toriamos a superior theologian is she was willing to ask, what if God kind of sucks? And I'm the only one who can fix him, if anyone can fix him at all. Well, tell me you're crazy, maybe. You got your nine, nine. I'm in the backseat.

Just in case. But under the pink had even more blasphemous antagonists in mind. Here she comes again in Spain. Quote, I had to come to terms with my illusion of sisterhood. It's painful how women treat each other. This album talks about the real hurt of that betrayal. I have vivid memories of being a prostitute in another life. My new age friends go,

oh, you really need some help. I'm just like, No, you're full of shit if you don't talk to your own self. I get tired of being judged by all my self-righteous new age women friends. I'm ready to stick my crystals up their ass. End quote. This song's called The Waitress. It's about Tori Amos fantasizing about killing a waitress.

That's just, George Porter Jr. from the meters on bass. I'll be damned. Under the pink is full of betrayal. The song, Bells for her. It's just Tori and prepared piano. It's eerie as hell. She's talking about making mud pies with blanket girls. Not blanket. Blanket. Blank girls voids. I don't think you want to be a blanket girl, at least not around her. One way to meet a lot of blanket girls is to do a lot of interviews with music. music magazines. Part of what made the me and a gun discourse so maddening is how the press talked about and talked to Tori Amos in general. They called her kooky. They called her an L.A. Fruitcake.

They called her a weird chick. They called her a crackpot. And in return, okay, Tori gives us magazine quotes like, I've been a Viking and loads of other lives. I know it's stealing the babes from the Irish coast is all about. But this is asymmetrical warfare. No, Tori doesn't have any problems saying anything she's thinking to anybody yes she talks about her songs like their physical entities like they're collaborators like her songs throw her up against the wall and demand that she transcribe and perform them okay she will casually mention that in another life she was venn the berserker but this does not give say the nm e license to write the headline she's a grade a class one turbo driven fruit cake but southern bell tori amos might just be the antidote all those cloying bottle blind

Bimbets currently hogging the spotlight. Jesus, get it together. Tori is aware that she is at war with the people writing about her, men and women. Tori says, the English press treats me like a new age fruit loop. The American press treats me like I'm this really depressed singer-songwriter. Seriously, though, the English press is wild. One time Q Magazine put Tori Amos, Bjork, and PJ Harvey on the cover with the headline, hips, lips,

tits, power. Jesus! It continues in the last 18 months. Polly Harvey, Bjork, and Tori Amos have rogered the charts with their special brew of spooky left field weirdness and estrogen marinated musings. That's

not how estrogen works. Estrogen is not a marinade, you weirdos, get it together. And in return, Tori Amos, says things like, I want to torture the people who don't understand the world of fairies. You'll get some reporter from Vogue who doesn't know what she's talking about, who paints me as some insipid Tinkerbell character. Well, Tinkerbell ain't up my Straza, baby. What a German

in this episode. I'm not some shivering waif in the forest. Sometimes I want to grab these bitches by the hair and take them to the world of fairies and say, would you repeat that? She takes it personally, what she gives versus what is taken from her. Tori says, what I remember is spending three hours with someone for an interview and you've gotten to know them a little bit and talked about intimate things and tried to be open. Then you've read what they've written and you think, God, this is not where I was. You feel really invaded. You think, well, that is a cornflake girl. People want to know what a cornflake girl is.

That journalist right there. This is not a pleasant topic of conversation, and we won't be lingering on it. But at this point, I need to tell you that the song, Cornflake Girl, is inspired by the Alice Walker novel Possessing the Secret of Joy from 1992. And specifically, this song is about that book's description of female genital mutilation, or FGM. Tori Amos never has any problem telling you what she's thinking about. You want to be a raisin girl. Open-minded, not judgmental, not a threat to other women,

not a threat to do terrible things to other women, other girls, because you think it's for their own good. I don't believe that the true subject, the true inspiration of this song was particularly obvious to most people who heard Cornflake Girl on the radio in 1994, sandwich between interstate love song and fell on Black Days. This is for the best. What made Cornflake Girl pop?

on the radio is the sheer intangible improbable oddness of it. The uneasy waltz rhythm, the eerie whistle melody before she's even sung anything. Tori had to really fight for that. The mandolin. We got the bassist from the meters in there again. And Greg Porter Jr. is a fine compliment to just the sheer ferocity with which Tori pounds those ivories. Near the end, Cornflake Girl will serve up the piano equivalent to the guitar solo from Pearl Jam's Alive. But to get there, you've got to get past the chorus, which, look, I apologize if you weren't aware of the specific topic the chorus was addressing. But if you want to know, Tori will tell you always. She's written two books, one called Peace by Peace with the Great Ann Powers, came out in 2005, answer the best.

Then in 2020, Tori published a book called Resistance, a songwriter's story of hope, change, and courage. Resistance is an awfully loaded word at this point, but I trust Tori Amos with loaded words. So here's what she has to say about cornflake girl. Pay attention to the respect, the autonomy, the personhood, the female personhood, Tori grants to the song Cornflake Girl.

A song can help open my eyes to the many emotions surrounding a complex issue. When I enter Cornflake Girl as an energy, she demands that we talk about what women perpetrate on each other and what women withhold from each other. Cornflake Girl allows people into her frequency by being quite welcoming. I found her that way at first, anyway. The more I was bearing witness through all kinds of scenarios to women-on-women violence, and in the case of FGM, we have to talk about women-on-girl violence, the more I would burst out and say, this is not really happening. And the answer I kept getting back was,

you bet your life it is. I couldn't tell you what I thought Tori Amos was talking about here when I was 16 years old, but I wouldn't tell you if I did know what I was thinking because I assure you that whatever I was thinking was, was dumb. Same deal with the rabbit and the keys. Tori could explain the significance of the rabbit and the keys to you,

and I'm guessing she'd be happy. next time you're hanging out. I think it's a rabbit in Oregon. I can't believe they played this song on the radio a lot. That is the miracle of Tori Amos and the apocalypse of Toriamos. Under the Pink is Tori's second solo album out of 15 total. Next up was Boys for Pele from 1996, which he called her Harpsichord punk album.

She's not wrong. Her best album, and I'm serious about this, and I'm not going to elaborate, just to preserve as much mystery for you going in, is from the choir girl hotel in 1998. I'm completely serious. All I'm going to say, here's the last thing I'm going to say. Some interviewers vibed perfectly well with Tori Amos.

Plenty of people who wrote about her did get her or close enough. Spin Magazine once asked her about silence all these years, about the really deep thoughts line, the boy you better hope I bleed real soon line. The question was, in essence, is Tori trying to make the men in the audience squirm? And she said, you know, whatever hang up somebody has with what I'm talking about, say I'm in a Danielle Steele mood or I'm being aggressive and catty, that might remind you of something a woman's done to you that's really pissing you off. So you're mad at me. That's fine. There has to be that moment where the audience says, fuck you, you cunt, or I've done something wrong. That's what telling the story is all about. End quote, here's what I'm going to say. Last week on this show, I talked about Oasis for like six hours. And I, studiously avoided saying that word. You know the word. The Gallagher brothers say that word constantly.

I avoided quoting them saying it for like six hours. And Tori Amos makes me say that word. Incredible. Tori Amos understands how much bitterness, how much ugliness, how much obscenity, how much pain and death and destruction you can pack into the line. Here we are now. Entertain us. because when you feel discomfort or revulsion, that's when she knows she's truly entertained you. Our guest this week is Maya Salam, a senior staff editor on the Culture Desk at the New York Times. Maya, thank you so much for being here. Oh, my gosh, it's an honor. Thank you for having me.

There is literally nothing and no one I like talking about more than Toriamos. Well, that's great to hear. Maya, you wrote a wonderful piece for The Times about a year ago about being an outcast teenager in Kentucky in the early 90s and discovering nine-inch nails, buying the downward spiral in 1994 and how that transformed your life. And you go on to mention all the other artists you got into subsequently, and you list a bunch. You say Fiona Apple, rage against the machine, garbage, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, Nirvana,

Ani DeFranco, and my favorite of all, Tori Amos. Tell me about the first time you heard Tori Amos. It's kind of an interesting adventure. You know, when I first heard Tori, I was, you know, eyeball deep in nine-inch nails and tool and nirvana and all those bands that you mentioned so you know it didn't come to it as quickly as i came to like nine-ish nails for example which was to me kind of like stepping through the looking glass like my life was like before nine-ish nails and then after nine inch nails me too it just you know it just hit it just hit me with such a punch it just changed me

forever um tory i had to you know i kind of heard that tory knew maynard keenan of tool and I, you know, kind of through the grapevine, heard these things that I found appealing. And then I had seen that poster art or the album art from Boys for Pele album. And the one where there's a piglet suckling on her breast. And I found that, you know, so weird and so compelling. So that intrigued me further. But interestingly, there was this guy in college who, when I was my freshman year, I just got into University of Kentucky, and he had a crush on me, and he was obsessed with Tori, obsessed, and he was insistent that I get to know Tori.

So I was found that interesting. Yeah, yeah. That's like a young, straight man, just a new man, 18-year-old man, newly minted a man, is the one who, like, got me into Tori. But I, yeah, and then that, I kind of went over the waterfall at that age at age 18, and yeah, I've never returned. How did he sell her to you? Like, what was his pitch for you getting to know Tori? It's funny. I truly feel like I have these, like, musical angels in my life that just drop into my life.

And they're like hell bent on me listening to something. And he knew that I loved music that was about pain and all those things. So he already had like an in there. Also, you know, he knew I loved any sort of musical whaling. or screaming or yelling. A lot of agony and wailing. So, you know, he kind of just, I think was like just putting on music when we were hanging out. And oh my gosh.

I mean, it's hard for me to even pick the exact moment. But I just feel like I just fell. I just fell for her at some point within that, you know, first little bit of really listening to her. Right. What sent you over the waterfall? Like what was it about her over time, you know, when you could articulate? what it was that drew you to her. Like, what was it?

I think that, you know, Tori kind of stepped in to, like, take me places I've never been. You know, she brought spaces of sound that I had never experienced. And she gave, you know, my pain and my dreams, this voice and is all very fantastical. And, you know, and I realize that it's kind of impossible

to get sick of because every song kind of takes on new meaning with every phase of my life and the lyrics as well. And as I evolved, the music has changed. But, you know, it didn't take long. I would say by the end of my freshman year, my dorm room, whatever, was just wallpapered and Tory art. So, you know, also I remember the Spark video being a big deal for me, too. I just never seen, I mean, you ought to know video by Alonis Morissette.

You know, she was whiling out. But there's something about that spark video that just took me away. I would actually call it comparable to the closer video. it was big for me. Yeah. So you came to her like a little late. Like obviously Little Earthquakes was 92. Under the Pink was 94.

And like those were sort of the biggest radio hits, you know, Crucify, Cornflake Girl. But you're coming boys for Pele from the choir girl hotel. Like her albums are starting to get a little denser, a little longer, you know, you're, you're in the deep end already with her. Yeah. And I think it was also, you know, like I said, I was listening to really heavy music in high school. But there's like an. an ambitiousness and like a sophistication,

maybe something I wasn't quite ready to get about her until I was ready to get it. So it is a little bit later than, you know, than the album dropped with Cornplay Girl. Yeah. I have to say, reading all these 90s, Tori Amos interviews now,

like I get super offended on her behalf, right? Like how often she's called kooky or weird or just flat out crazy? Like, did you have a sense back then of how the wider world perceived her? I definitely did, and I think that was part of the appeal. You know, you call a woman kooky or weird or just odd or whatever.

And then these are words that have been leveled against women who don't fall in line since the beginning of time. I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I'd been called those words, I would, you know, be living on a castle on a mountaintop somewhere. So, yeah, I mean, I think that it's actually a compliment. I think it's a blessing. I mean, that's part of her allure. Also, I think, like I mentioned, you know, Tori takes the listener somewhere unfamiliar.

And sometimes going somewhere like that, it's not comfortable and does it resonate right away and it's not necessarily supposed to be approachable right off the bat. You just have to, like, trust her. And I think that sometimes calling a woman or anyone those terms, it's just simply because you're scared to go along, you know. But, you know, she's a raisin girl, so you have to trust her. Exactly. And I believe she actually is living in a castle. So I guess that did, you know, work out for her in the end. Yeah, it did.

Your nine inch nails piece, of course, part of the breakthrough was you found other nine inch nails fans. Like you found your people. Like in your experience, when you encounter fellow Tori Amos super fans, like what else do you have in common? Like, what's the personality profile? What else do you share? Oh, my gosh. This is such a good question. I love this question.

I love it most because every time, and I have some very, very good Toriamos fans, friends, and every time we have met, I mean, it is like a blip in the Matrix, I swear to God. There is like this other dimensional energy that like overtakes the encounter. I mean, my very best friend who I met when I was 21, we have our 20th friend anniversary next year. we met because, as you probably also know, I'm a huge Ani DeFranco fan. So this all kind of comes together. And I lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for a year in 2001. After 9-11, I had dropped out of school.

And I moved to Winston-Salem where my sister lived. And I was living in this totally crappy little apartment and this little building that had like five apartments. And I kept seeing this car there the first week that had a righteous babe records, which is Ony's label. Her label, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So one day I see this magical creature emerge from this car and I just look at her and I say, Righteous, babe. And she's like, yeah. And then I go into her apartment. I mean, it's so crazy. I go into her apartment and I'm not even kidding. Her apartment would share it a wall with mine. We had like all the same Tori and Ani posters up. The exact same posters. And she was the exact same age as me. We're one month apart. Yeah. And she has a degree.

She had graduated like that year. She had a degree as a pianist. She was obsessed with Tori. I mean, it was like, how does this even happen? And then we both moved out of that place within a year. Like, she had just moved in, too. I mean, the universe does that with Tori fans. And I have a couple other stories like that.

But it's like destiny, really. Yeah, that's, that is lovely. When did you first see Tori Live? I first saw Tori Live in the late 90s. You know, I was living in Lexington, Kentucky, so all the shows I went to were either in Cincinnati, Lexington, or Louisville. So it was one of those places. But, yeah, I've seen her live about five times all over the place,

middle of the country in Denver and New York, down the eastern seaboard. So I've seen her several times, and it is, you know, it's just life-changing, as you'd imagine. I almost prefer to go to the shows alone, to be honest with you. Yeah, because I've seen Ani, but I haven't seen Tori. And I've spent so much time imagining what a Tori Amos concert would be like. Like, I have such regret that I didn't see her in the 90s.

And the closest I can come is like an Ani show. Like there's that level of intensity. Like, it's that devout. Like, the crowd is that into it and that into her. Is there a parallel between those two audiences? I mean, you're spot on. Yes, definitely. I mean, I'm not like a religious person, but that's about as close to a religious experience as I've ever been.

I mean, you know, just weeping, crying, feeling like I'm hovering over my own body, just all those things and just leave absolutely like cleansed. So, yeah, that is a very, two artists that you could definitely put in that category of live performance. Yeah. What are the songs that she plays live that most intensify that experience? Like, is it the radio hits? Is it Cornflake Girl or is it sort of deeper cuts that take on this new? power in person. I mean, I think it's deeper cuts. I mean, that might just be like hardcore Tori fan of me. But I also love when she just kind of mashes her songs together and flows from one

into another and comes back to the first one. And that sort of energy is just so amazing. And one of my favorite things for anyone who hasn't experienced that is her concert DVD, which is called Welcome to Sunny Florida, which I think is from 2004. But yeah, you can definitely experience that. I mean, just put a good speaker and throw that on and you'll be there too. I mean, it is great. I still, I watch it all the time.

Where are you on Cornflay Girl in particular? Is that a good choice for her most streamed song? Like, is that the best entry point for fabled young people? I mean, I don't see any reason it shouldn't be the right choice, you know? I mean, I guess it's more accessible. It makes me wonder, do I just think it's more accessible? because that's the song that became popular. So it's a song everyone's heard a million times.

It's hard to say. I don't think, I mean, I think it's a great choice. I mean, why not? You know, that or Spark Crucified, that those are her hits, I guess. Yeah, so I encourage anybody to listen to that song. I mean, it's not my favorite song, but there are beautiful things about it. And I think what the song is about, you know, betrayal, women who you trust deceiving you and the women who you trust turning on you, being the cornflake,

girls. I mean, I think that's a very powerful message. Yeah. I think you and I have in common that we both love from the choir girl hotel. It was her fourth album, 1998. That's what was spark on it. But that album is incredible to me whenever I put it on, like this confrontational, loud, weird, like, trip hop saga. Like, did you know when you heard that one that it was going to be one of the albums that really stayed with you? Oh, yeah. That was a first pass love and first sight situation for me. I mean, that one swept me away. Oh, my gosh. I mean, you know, Tori has played so many, like, roles for me in my life.

You know, she's, like, been a mother, a sister, a friend, a partner and, like, teacher and, like, all these things at different points in my life. And so think about that album almost, like, encompasses them all. I mean, that is my favorite album. So it's 100%. It's so good. Yeah. Of course, you also listed Fiona Apple as a favorite. Like, it's wild.

Her first album came out in 1996. and she put out one of her most critically acclaimed albums last year, you know, Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Are you actively rooting for Tori to have a similar sort of renaissance, like on year-end lists or whatever? Or do you think Tori is pretty content with where she's at? I think both, honestly. I think she could have whatever she wants to have,

and I'm always going to be rooting for her to get whatever she wants and strike the audience. It's a wider audience or to her fans. I'm always reading for her to connect with whoever she feels she should connect with. And I would love to see that kind of a renaissance if she wants it. You know, why not? I feel like I'm already in the club, but I want the club to grow. Absolutely.

Because she's put out like 15 albums. Like the last one was 2017, like Native Invader. Like it's a super daunting catalog. Like for people who really loved the early radio hits but haven't followed her super closely since, like where do you suggest people start again or with later, You know, Scarlet's Walk is obviously not that recent, but I think that's actually one of her most accessible albums and, you know, 21st century album. It's a beautiful album, and I think that's a great jumping off point for anybody who looks at her discography and is overwhelmed. Yeah, a sort of fairy tale. That's right. That's a great song, I think, from 2002. Yeah, yeah.

I was raised Catholic in like the sacrilege of Tori Amos, like her rebellion against her father, like just her constant shit talking of God was for me always like the scariest and coolest thing about her. I'm curious in your case as someone from a Muslim background, like did that aspect of Tori strike you in a fundamentally different way or did her blasphemy feel universal? It felt universal. What's interesting to me is, you know, I don't, I never had a great understanding of Christianity. Catholicism. My wife is family as Catholic, so now I feel like I'm finally understanding about 100 more metaphors than I did before. Yeah. It's a lot to take in. Yeah. Oh, it's a lot. Oh, my gosh. It's like, you know, I won't even get into it. But my family is Muslim. But my father,

I call him an evangelical atheist. So he, yeah, yeah, that's his big, that's his energy, big energy there. You know, the religious parts of it definitely probably hit me a little bit differently than someone who was raised in a very religious home. Yeah, like all the God stuff. But I mean, God, speaking of, you know, Under the Pink, I mean, God is just an incredible song. It's probably my top five favorite Tory songs. Yeah. Absolutely. I guess we should mention Trent Reznor, of course, guest stars on Under the Pink. Like, he's in the background of past the mission. I'm always shocked by how quiet and dignified he sounds. Like, I'm almost awestruck at, like,

the way Tori sort of put a spell on him, it felt like to me, at least when I was a teenager. Like, was that a momentous occasion for you, that song, like that team up? Oh, it was. That's like mom and dad. Those are, I mean, I just felt, yeah,

that's a big one for me. And like you said, I mean, I always love when Trent Resner kind of evokes that tone in his voice and that pace. And, you know, it's just, is, it's such a beautiful song. And he sounds so lovely and warm. Yeah. Yeah.

So that, that team up, especially, you know, at that age that I was at. And it was like all my worlds colliding. It's very sweet. I just love so much you started a lifelong friendship with someone by saying, Righteous Babe to them. Like, that's just, that's just the most beautiful thing to me. Maya, thank you so much. this has been awesome. We really appreciate it.

Oh, this was a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Maya Salam. Thanks as always to our producers, Isaac Lee and Justin Sales. And thanks very much to you for listening. Now, without further ado, here is Tori Amos with Cornflake Girl. We'll see you next week.