Tori Amos: Piece by Piece (26 page)

Can you benefit as a person by including a piece of this archetype in your personal Mandala? We all have our own personal Mandala that is made up of many mosaics. I know a woman whose personal Mandala is made up of Goddess and God archetypes that are lovers of animals. I know people whose mosaics are mostly made up of God and Goddess archetypes that are all about strategy. But there is always room in everyone's personal Mandala for at least one or two mosaics dedicated to the sacred prostitute. So she's usually at every show. Because frankly, she makes all the other song girls have a sway in their step. Who doesn't want a sway in their step?

Sometimes people misinterpret Tori's passion as only sexuality. For her it's claiming her sexuality and merging it with her spirituality. For her the music is the ultimate expression of passion, not necessarily sex. But that's what makes it sexy.

Tori has a way of expressing herself that's certainly very sensual. It's all entwined with the songs, and it has a lot to do with the lyrics, too. All of that stuff that she does live, the movement on the piano bench, she does in rehearsals and she did from day one. People think that it's just an act and it's not how she is in normal life, but whenever she performs a song she really does internalize it and externalize it, she just becomes a part of it.

Whether she's performing by herself in the studio or in a rehearsal space or onstage in front of people, you're going to get the same level of intensity. But it's not a stripper vibe. It's more just being in touch with sexuality and not being embarrassed by it. She's not trying to be sexy for men, yet a lot of the music has a groove that's very masculine. She can play really heavy and really hard and really funky and be very male in a lot of ways. At the same time, what she expresses has a very female slant. She's definitely sexual for girls, but in a very masculine way. So it's complicated. There are so many preconceptions of women and sex and what they want and how they feel about it. I think with Tori, if you listen, it's pretty clear; it's just not what those preconceptions suggest.

The way Tori transforms as a performer is not just metaphorical; it's musical. She has the ability to transpose really intricate things into keys immediately, as well as being able to start a song vocally in the right key when she's coming from somewhere very different. A lot of people with perfect pitch have a real problem with that because they can hear a certain thing only in a certain place and it has to be there forever. But Tori is really in tune with where she is harmonically, and songs can change keys all the time. If we're segueing in between songs she can be in one place and go to the lead note of the next song, which could be totally not where she was, and she can tie things together in really amazing ways that really not many people can do. In the pop world, most people don't have a flow like that, an ability to create but still keep a thread going through songs and be able to anticipate where something's going to go harmonically.

I'm in Germany.

It's January 23, 2003.

The people are marching.

Exhilarated that they have joined to march, angry that we may go to war. Angry at the potential destruction. Angry at the leaders who are okay with this. Americans in Germany are being asked some very feet-to-the-fire questions. Flags are burning. If as a performer you are to be in tune with Source, you must realize that Source is not American, Source is not German, Source is not African, Source is not even British. You cannot take on everyone's political beliefs—either side. But you can cut through the smoke screens. You can cut through to the unsaid, the said, the mixed feelings, and walk through the caves behind the Intellect of those in the audience. You as the performer have this unique opportunity to go behind the heart. Behind the heart where a spark has taken root. This root has grown into an internal revolution that resists and questions those who are misusing power.

I play in a short while. The set list tonight has not yet been decided.

I know she is here and she is not alone. She is making her way toward me. She always gives me a moment to adjust to her coming. I breathe, knowing my container must expand. She is hard to hold and balance. One of the trickier ones because she holds the polar opposites. Creation. Destruction.

Welcome to Kali.

Welcome to Hamburg.

Watching Tori go from “Promotion Tori”—having conversations with journalists, getting done what we have to get done, seeing the fans backstage, in between meeting up with Tash—to “Sound Check Tori” is a process. A daily process. You begin to see a transformation occurring. It's
about plugging in. There is a process she must go through. Early mornings are spent exploring set list options, late mornings at radio stations or on the phone with journalists, to early afternoons at meet and greets. By the time she walks out onstage for sound check, none of that matters, none of it exists anymore. It happens quickly; she's got precious few moments to plug in and find the electricity that will hold a stage for the rest of the night.

Years ago I would lock myself away for a couple of hours before showtime so as to be in a state. A calm frenzy. The state of Fuck Off and We Are One. A state where no one could pull me off my course. This comes in handy when you're doing things like big radio shows and big festival shows. I've done radio shows where I'm exposed to other performers and their process, and what would occur was that these artists would walk out onstage to 20,000 people projecting the same aura (or nonaura, depending on the artist) that works for them in a studio setting. When you're in the studio you are solely in communion with the song without having to consider including an audience. You don't have to commune with an audience or commune with anyone else when you're in the studio. And you know what? That can work. You can make a great record. But when you walk out of that studio the grid changes. This is where it gets tricky. But kinda basic. If you don't want to relate or commune with an audience, stay home. Do the studio thing. Be a Radio Star.

Imagine being this performer: you strut out and within seconds lose your stage to 20,000 people who are ignoring you. Twenty-thousand people who are turning on you because, surely, you can't possibly be this pid-dly-diddly presence compared to what they felt when you were jumping out of their radio into their car—but, woops. You are. Help. You the performer
then might say from the stage, “Come on, can you keep it down?” or “Shhhh” … Okay, folks, this is not good. This would be a Yikes—all bad, painful. This is called getting your Radio Star Ass Kicked.

Now let's go backstage again at this radio show, where you see performers already in their zone. It's as if you are watching them walk down that red carpet at the Grammys. They are walking around in their performance selves because that works for them. You have no idea how they do laundry. Sometimes I fantasize backstage about how people do their laundry. Woolite? Mixed-color loads? Do they fold? Do they press? Do they Shout it out? And the thing that kills me—do their whites come out dingy? This you will not know with some performers backstage because they are in their iconic selves and icons don't do laundry. I've walked around in my performance self before, because it's a sure thing. Meaning, it's a huge protection device—like having twenty Trojans in your pocket. I have even stepped into my performance self, strategically, for self-preservation, before I've left the hotel. If there is a lot of paranoia and passive-aggressive mind games on the menu, it is a way to stay in your center and not take on any other performers’ hangups. Hangups and freaked-out psycho issues can leak backstage like fluids at an orgy—a bit graphic, but you get the point. Festivals or radio shows can be the heavyweight championships of
arrogantly detached clusterfucks.
So you are thinking,
I can rise above this
, and your ego may think it can. But if you've been thrown off your center, your ego will run for the ladies’ room so fast, and then you'll be thrown onstage so fast, reaching for your John Thomas, needing it to rise, and realizing you don't have dick. You see, you are surrounded by a group of people who have partly made a career by seducing the world into focusing on them, as
the
center, for the thirty minutes they are onstage—or if not on “them” specifically, then on their message … me included. Now are you clear enough not to get seduced yourself? Depends on the day.

Now let's go backstage again at this radio show. There is a nod. A smile. A blow-off. It's all going on. Then in catering I find myself talking to some guy who is a dad, and because we both have daughters, we are comparing notes. In that moment he's a dad, in that moment he's a friend. We are people again. Not somebody else's projected whatever. Not even our own projected whatever. I watch him take the stage, and
bam.
The dad has become Apollo. Since we'd spoken, his transformation, which took only about twenty minutes, had taken place. He took his private moment to do whatever it is he does to achieve this synchronicity It seemed to me that his real self, whom I had met, was walking with his performer self. They know each other and that is always inspiring to watch. I was watching not just an Icon, but a Dad, who can access the performer and transform both into one being. Hard to do. But it can be done.

I don't think that many performers necessarily want to see their audience empowered. I think a lot of performers, no different from priests, need the hierarchy. Modern, celebrity-driven entertainment turns the stage into an altar, and so many celebrities refuse to be removed from those altars once they manage to ascend. They will not be taken down— the Goddess is offended … As a storyteller in the old tradition, you held an important place at the circle. Your position was fluid, not necessarily permanent, but it demanded that you respected the others witnessing your performance as much as they respected you.

All storytellers, all troubadours worth their salt knew their myths. To conjure another image …

The party invitations have gone out for this reality archetype TV show (without the TV) and told through the eyes of the Bard. I'm hoping that everyone will RSVP. Muhammad, Zeus, Lucifer, Josephine. They are all on the list. As I'm sitting at my piano, in the piano bar somewhere in the galaxy, I look out and see them in the crowd. The Archetypes have all arrived.
Josephine fighting for a seat next to Cleopatra. Freyja, surrounded by her cats, hand on her necklace, head thrown back in the air with a throaty giggle, as Aphrodite brings her up to date on her latest sexploits. Pele letting her hair down and chalking her cue, knocking some balls back into the net with Isis. And through all this, like Sam in
Casablanca
, I sit at the piano, never stopping, listening and watching the songs get ready for the show. It's as if I'm an observer of this scene, no different from when I observe an audience at a show, but I'm not sure those in the audience are aware of the Archetypes they carry. We all carry them. These Archetypes are not only embodied by the songs, but they run through all of our lives, just in different amounts. Similar to baking—the ingredients in a cake will be similar from a lemon pound to a chocolate cake. Both have sugar, both have flour: clearly there are similarities here. The difference is the lemon, the chocolate, a few others. In songs, some will share ingredients / archetypes, but then there will be a few twists that make the songs different. Sometimes it's just the measurement of the sugar—how much Aphrodite a song might have.

ANN:
Balancing conscious effort with the need to let the songs overtake and guide her, Amos becomes a paradox: a conscious oracle. Every act of divination requires tools, and Amos's voice as the public knows it arises only in the presence of her beloved Bösendorfer.

Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility

Tori hardly ever sings when she's not playing the piano. Her sense of rhythm is so much better when she's playing, it seems. Most people couldn't even manage to play and sing at the same time, but
she depends on it. And I think people will be surprised to hear her play the Hammond B3 organ. The last thing you expect visually when you hear it is a small redhead playing this big, fat, soulful organ.

She's a really, really strong player. She has a really wide depth of range, just dynamically, and she knows the instrument really well. With some pianists, you feel like if they weren't watching all the time they wouldn't nail it, they're just not very sure. But with Tori, it's as if she's made for the instrument in a certain sort of way. There's some sort of spatial relationship between her brain and her body and the piano—everything's always right there. She rarely makes a mistake, even when she's doing something that's not rehearsed or if she's improvising.