Tori Amos pauses recording own songs to tackle tunes written by men

Tori Amos is a rare person and rarer artist. Aside being a Cherokee on her mother’s side and a preacher’s daughter from South Carolina, the 37-year old muso writes songs that are out of this world or her perspective is just off-scope but, perhaps she is being totally honest. She certainly sang about menstruation of her debut album, masturbation on her sophomore release, castration on the record third issue and miscarriage on LP four… While the rest of the music world is making songs to confirm to the nursery level of mainstream popular culture, Tori has had the guts to express things that really matter.

Still, for her last album, ‘Strange Little Girls’, Amos has taken a sidestep, to refocus her career. The new assemblage of songs are all written by men but performed by Tori Amos as a diverse set of characters. She’s gone for an array of songs that stretch from Velvet Underground’s ‘New Age’ (1969 vintage) to Eminem’s ’97’ Bonnie & Clyde’ (1999), from The Beatles’ ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ (1968) to the Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood’ (1986). Other artists ‘providing’ songwriting are Depeche Mode, 10cc, The Stranglers, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, The Boomtown Rats…

“What I was interested in,” Amos explains animatedly, “is to see how men see women, how men see themselves, how they use language and how much does the view change depending on which side of the fence you’re standing on. To really deal with it I had to get into these different characters and there is a whole range of women that I also needed to show visually and had a photo-session that identified all these different characters.”

Rattling the snakes

This is nothing new, Amos has been doing covers for a long time and has performed Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ long before Kelis as well as dissecting Led Zeppelin opuses to turn them into songs stamped with her own personality. She’s now extended the process of pulling apart and reconstructing it in a dark, complementary but never compromising fashion. Definitely on top form, still as ‘mad’ as only she can be, entertaining like true showbiz should be, as eccentric as the best British import...

Doing these songs she did consider how men might react to her treatment of some of their sonic treasures.

“I hope they see them in a slightly different way,” Amos comments with a headshake. “I especially hope they view the words from the perspective of responsibility. And they should take responsibility for their words that can wound severely. There is no way we, writers and artists can separate ourselves from what we create. I’m not saying that certain lyrics have caused massacres, the problem was much deeper, but it is difficult not to consider that an idea can contribute to its effect.”

“Some will see this,” she continues with a smile, “as work of that ‘Cookie-girl’ and that’s normal. A lot of people don’t want to open a discussion but there are some who are going to think about it and that’s the point of any artform. Not everything is for everybody and there is nothing you can do about it.

Raining women

When Amos performs it is as much a vocal and songwriting exhibition as a piano mastery-class, as well as an acrobatic show because Tori can’t remain still and in one position. The reasons are many but it comes down to the way her piano faces and the angle her microphone is positioned: to make eye-contact with her public she needs to twist her head which makes her body contort in some incredible positions. And all done without losing a single beat!

For all her good work to rehabilitate women’s artistic reputation, there are scores of ladies who are happy to be explored and therefore undermine the raised standard.

“Everybody does what they believe in,” Tori appears to turn a politician for a moment, “and they are all sisters. I can’t be critical, I’m not being diplomatic here, because some women do things that are playing into the male stereotype. If I disagree with something it doesn’t mean that is not appropriate for them. Some women are happy to do things that fulfil such a role. We can do better for ourselves, that’s for sure.”

Girl-power or any make-up genre, my limb. This is the power of a woman not afraid and proud to be herself without caring who knows it. Amos is bound to be more original, more weird, more intriguing, less compromising and braver by following her creative instincts. An example to idolise!

Tori Amos plays a show at Hammersmith Apollo, London, on 07 December 2001