Tori Amos: Piece by Piece (3 page)

ANN:
Through sometimes irritating experience, Amos has come to understand how reductive most contemporary forms of expression can be when it comes to archetypes.

In the West, we have a culture that's unaware of myth; it's not really taught, though it's ingrained on some level. In so many films and so many books, the same stories are told over and over and over again. These are just different patterns from which artists pull. But in every case, myth is the blueprint. Tori Amos is not the blueprint of a nurturing mother. That archetype already exists. Myth is the fabric of our psyche. It's our cultural DNA.

In the space of performance and composition, I am not above the law. I follow strict law. I've done a lot of reading and studying, and the Jungian way was my way. That's the way that worked for me, with shadow. Taking on some of these different myths, I create a space for them to enact something. I'm in service to them. What do I say to people who don't know how to interpret my songs? You don't read the Bible literally. I thought parables were very clear, yet a lot of people have problems with them when they pop up today. I can't tell people that maybe they need to read some books, brush up on their archetypes. They could probably go on a web site and figure it out. But literalizing is very much part of the patriarchy. If you want something made concrete, I'll give you some shoes and pour some cement in them and we'll drop you off in the river.

Are there new archetypes being created every day as a result of new developments? Things have changed in a way. I understand that certain things haven't existed before as we know them on this planet, stemming from technological advances, for example. And it'll be intriguing to see how it plays itself out. Maybe in a few hundred years we'll see what new myths arise from the experience of computer viruses, for example, or bio-genetics. But what, as a songwriter, I see now isn't a new paradigm; it's combinations of the old stories. And those combinations can be endless.

We have pop stars, actors, and rock stars who become the modern archetypes, but neither the artists nor their fans necessarily integrate what
they're bringing into play. They don't always explore the depth of the patterns that operate in the specific archetype they are “dancing” with. Sometimes an artist is dancing so intently with an archetype that they have one foot on the curb and another foot in the air. If as an artist you forget to disengage with the archetype, then when you “come back down to earth” you can fall off that curb. Falling off the curb is not impossible for any artist, and it's a scary prospect. We all know artists who have fallen off that curb and self-destructed. The fatal thing artists can do is to begin believing they are these archetypes, even if the press does and even if the public does. These archetypes are beyond time, are beyond the rules of life and death. We will die and Aphrodite will live on as we are decrepit; the next young piano player a hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years later, will sway her own hips, sing her own song, and dance the timeless dance with Aphrodite.

Some women performers are playing with one archetype; some play with a combination of quite a few. The combinations are endless. It can range from Hathor to Freya to Queen Maeve to Shakti to Athena to Diana—the list goes on and on. However, Aphrodite is one that is consistently chosen over time. And when a female artist embodies this archetype and can really pull it off—you look at her and you can feel that she emanates a supernatural presence. An obvious example is Marilyn Monroe. There was no mistaking: it's almost as if she were carrying that Venus lineage with her and stepped into it and realized it, and the people around her needed to keep her there. Ultimately she couldn't separate from the otherworldly. Some performers take an archetype on board with that intensity when they're onstage; the show depends on the audience believing the myth. But then, sometimes, they die. Or they get old, and they can't really do it anymore. Others transcend; they're the performers who ultimately have to tear down the altar of themselves, by themselves.

You have to be careful not to buy into that moment of projection, the idea that forms when all these people are having a relationship with the songs, with your shoes, with themselves. This is where working with archetypes is different from thinking you are one. When you start believing you are Aphrodite, or believing you are the Dark Prince, first of all, you have offended the Divine. And I find you don't know how to access it anymore. The true Shamans are the ones who have had to eat some humble pie and realize that they are only a part of the creative process. What an honor. What a privilege to be a part. But there is the Divine. And I'm not the Source. You're not the Source. Tash is not the Source. But we can all tap into the Source.

If performers get too wrapped up in their own personalities, I say they didn't feel it. They never truly connected to what was giving them their power in the first place. You might try on an image that people are projecting onto you, with the frequency and ease with which you try on a pair of sandals. I did that for a while, but I had to get out of it really quickly. In
Under the Pink
, my image was at its zenith, and I was feeling completely empty. But that's because I was taking the image on board rather than letting the songs energize me. I got out of that while making
Boys for Pele.
That's when I ditched that.

The idea that some musicians pass around is that other people don't have access. But I know my audience has access. I'm trying to encourage them to find their own—I talk about soul blueprints. Their own autonomy, their own sovereignty. Their own creative calling. It could be gardening. I can't do that. There are so many things I wish I could do that I can't do. It doesn't always have to be singing; some people are tone-deaf. That's a bit of a minus ten if you want to write songs, although it doesn't make it impossible.

To bring myth into your life, you don't have to dress in a purple and
blue robe and wave a wand. You can if you like, but you could also be a waitress somewhere and inhabit an archetype. In today's world, we put entertainers on this kind of archetypal pedestal. In the old days, it was royalty. In the 1930s and ’40s it was the movie stars’ role, then it belonged to rock stars, then sports stars, then the celebrity phenomena, and now it's a mixture of all of them. These people are playing it out, just as the Greek gods and goddesses and their representatives did in ancient times. What Joseph Campbell was trying to tell us is that modern-day humankind shouldn't feel that these stories merely happened to anybody and everybody in every other era, but that they are also happening to us. We don't often see our own stories. Good artists are the ones that whisper our own stories back to us.

ANN:
What makes an artist? Talent, yes. But mostly, curiosity.

Tori would have been accomplished and renowned, known and respected, as a musician in any time—the forties, fifties, sixties—I really think she would have found her audience and her voice. Why? Well, there are not many people out there who can play three keyboards at the same time in seventeen-inch heels. And exorcising her demons publicly—that I think is really what catches people. Man, that chick's got
balls
, you know? I think she was born to do just what she's doing.

She's just so interested to learn. On tour, everywhere we go she asks questions, her radar is out. She buys books, gets the papers, wants to talk to the locals. She just wants to learn everything about the area and the people. Not to mention the traveling library that tours with us—it sits in one of
the bunks on her bus. It's a collection of some of her favorites and some we've picked up along the way, but all are points of reference.

All creators go through a period where they're dry and don't know how to get that plane ticket back to the creative source. Where is that waterfall? At a certain point you say “I'll take a rivulet.” And you find a place. When I hit a wall in my mid-thirties, I went back to story. And I began to see the pilgrimage that our hero or heroine would have to make, then, to get the oracle to speak to him or her again.

As a songwriter, if you're honest, you begin to find the qualities you scorn within yourself. When you are able to crawl inside and stop judging for one second and just find that place within where you could do that thing that horrifies you most—you need to find the incest victim in you, the perpetrator of incest in you, the killer and the killed: you need to find all those places. You have to get the ego out of it to do this exercise, because if you don't it will make you very, very uncomfortable. Have you never had a vision of something that abhors you? That you would do, or have done, to yourself? Of course you have. We do have murderous thoughts; in our minds we have done things that are violent. We've had things done to us, too; not just in dreams, either. This is what art is for.

When you choose your character, you're stepping into fact. This is who you are. In “Me and a Gun,” I'm the girl who's raped. That is the ground that I covered. I did not cover the rapist's point of view. Now, if I were a guy, I'd cover that song from the rapist's point of view or from that of the victim's husband. If I were somebody who hated women, I'd cover it in one way, and if I were somebody who loved women, I'd cover it in another way. My having lived and survived this experience in real life wasn't the only reason that I could write and perform from that perspective. I could
do it because I could walk back into that violated space and sing it from that space without wavering.

All artists will be faced with having to play cat and mouse with themselves on what they're doing. You can live the artist's way you know—you can say it's not a job, it's what I'm doing. But if you start believing, sometimes you start taking on board these projections people offer you. You begin to take on the fantasy world that you created, and—this is the hubris of it—you also start taking on what the Divine has given you and not giving the Divine credit. Listen—when you're on the toilet, from the point of view of the toilet, you are not an icon taking a crap. You are a bottom taking a crap. If you can get that, you're going to be okay.

When I spoke to the Dark Prince in ceremony, he told me, “As soon as you stop being humbled by the creation process, Little One, it is so much bigger than you are. And when you think it is you and you are it, it will drown you or burn you alive.”

Tori's been so good at establishing a strong image, and a lot of people perceive her as the fairy princess or the wacky one. But they see her more than they hear her. That's the case with many pop musicians. You hear or read really great interviews with them and they say really cool stuff and you see their picture everywhere and they look good, and then maybe you hear one song. Maybe it's not the song that best represents them. That's the case with Tori. Friends I've known for years would come out to a show on this tour, and they'd be like, “Wow. I had no idea!” One friend of mine who's an avant-garde jazz saxophone player came out in Kansas City and he said, “This is like high art pop music.” She's just one of those people who will keep doing her thing and people will really get it—maybe not now, maybe in twenty years.

ANN:
An artist is also someone who accepts struggle. Amos views her own career within the larger framework of a time in which creativity, and particularly the feminine spirit, has been pushed to the culture's margins. Sexy girls may be everywhere on our billboards and television screens, but real women still have to use all the strength of their voices to be heard.

We're in a Dark Age for artists. People are being threatened, accused; they're taking the microphone away; or you won't be on the radio; or you have to find your own way to get to the people because the powers that be won't help you. Unless you fly under the radar, unless you use symbology Because sometimes we give a bit too much credit, thinking that the people in charge are very intelligent. Sometimes they don't even know you're referencing them.

I was born a feminist. And then at age five, when my strict Christian grandmother punished me, I realized, I'm not penetrating here. I'm just pissing people off. So I had to find another way to penetrate. I had to redefine what that word means. That word now is really about an opening, an entering into a separate space. And after the first phase of my life, I realized that it was okay to enter that space without having to be invaded.

How does a woman penetrate? It's a beautiful paradox. We don't have that organ. Fundamentally, we don't pee standing up. And that changes your view of life, from the beginning. The figure of Mary Magdalene stands for the earth: a seed can be planted within her, whereas seeds can't be planted within men physically. But there's another way to think of it, as a joining, where they're entering each other, you know. Because ultimately human life is not about sperm dominating eggs. I like the idea of just being able to be inside. Not using
penetration
as a violent word. The
idea of being able to find keys—we're back to music, using keys to get into a space that we couldn't before.

I choose to fight my battles through my music, and if I'm misunderstood, well, I've done my best. I've gotten some good advice from people, some wise old people; you can call them medicine women if you want. And they said to me that it is not the right use of energy to try to get people to see who you truly are if they cannot see that. You can't control it, and why would you want to? Where will it stop? With one journalist? With France? With a generation?

So I've reached a level of containment with my energy. I can sit like the Sphinx and watch people say stuff about me and whip it up. Some of it's true. The funniest thing was, once I had a bad encounter with a radio person, and this interviewer turned around and, after having made some malicious, below-the-belt comments to me, pronounced at the end of the interview, “Wow, you can fight back. I thought you were supposed to be spiritual.” I said, “What is your definition of spirituality?” All this guy knew how to do was be completely offensive. What did he think: I was going to bring out the prayer book and sage? The only thing this guy responded to was a firm line drawn in the sand. I just looked at him and said, “Cross this and we'll be having radio person medium rare for dinner.”