“My dad and I, I really do love my dad, it took us many years to, I think, respect each other’s spirtual beliefs. I was at home one Thanksgiving and my father said to me, “Tori Ellen, I can’t believe you wrote this song about me,” and I said, “I write everything about you, what are you so surprised about?” He said, “No, I am really hurt about this one.” He said, “you call me Satan,” and I said, “No, I was taking drugs with this South American shaman and I really did visit the devil and I had a journey.” He said, “Praise Jesus”.”Tori Amos (460)

“I was really in a bind because I was doing some bad things and I was in a love triangle with these men – I don’t even know if they were real men, I’m so confused by the whole thing. I was lying in bed, strange things happen to you on tour. Like strange Englishmen start sitting on the end of your bed, like apparitions of dead guys. And they start singing songs to you, and this guy was definitely dead, he was definitely singing to me, but I’m confused about the copyright laws, I’m not sure if I need to call his ex-wife and give her part of the song or not.”Tori Amos (460)

“I originally wrote this song for Al Stewart [to record – Ed] but I went to Eric who I was with and who partly produced “Little Earthquakes” who didn’t produce this so he was totally objective and he looked at me and said, “you’re out of your mind, that’s your life story.” So needless to say, Al Stewart didn’t get that song.”Tori Amos (460)

“”Precious Things” is a song that came to me when I was living behind a church. I was about 24 years old, I had a roommate that listened to really raucous music, and it started to take me into flashbacks of my grandmother. She would put me in a corner and read something (from Leviticus I can’t remember) but she was convinced I was going to give my soul to God and my body to a man I would marry. But at 5 years old I knew that we were enemies so, in my mind, I was always finding ways to get away from her. So I thought of things and my mother thought I was a demon for thinking them but she would smile because I think she felt the same way. So behind this church with the music going on in my head I started to think that I could run faster.”Tori Amos (460)

“Some of you know that we like really good wine, so I wasn’t quite sure if the things I was seeing were from that or if they were really happening. It was a strange time, I had had a bad pregnancy and lost the baby and I started seeing this vision of a little boy everywhere I went. We knew it wasn’t a little boy so I really didn’t know who he was. I would close my eyes when he would appear and I would follow him. We had this 1959 convertible and he would stand in the back of the car with his arms wide and we would drive for hours and hours. I would sit there and I didn’t know where we were going but when we would get there nobody would be alive. I didn’t know what to do so we would leave the town and he would tell me to build a campfire. So I would build this thing and he would start dancing and he would say, “we failed today but we have to go to the next town tomorrow.” This happened over and over again and we were always too late and he would sing this thing in my head, “iieee, iieee”.”Tori Amos (460)

“In a few of my relationships with my women friends, I play a certain role. I hope my dad’s not watching but I always told him, gays, lesbians, he just has to get used to it. What I said to Beenie, the love of my life, my husband understands this, that we’re married, we’re absolutely married and I adore her with all my heart and she’s dated some idiots and in another life I’ll absolutely kick your ass. And I’m going to kick it right now because this song is for her and I’m in love with her.”Tori Amos (460)

“”Cornflake Girl” has a wild beginning in reggae. I was listening to reggae music and Karen Binns, one of my dearest friends, she’s been styling and working with me for 20 years, she was exposing me to some kind of music and we were talking about female genitalia, the circumcision of that in Africa. We were talking very much about the idea that the women are betrayed by grandmother, a mother, an older sister – that the women you trust the most are taking you into this butchery. We had a term for those people/girls that would turn on you, that wouldn’t be there for you, would maybe expose something that you trusted them with, that really let you down. Those girls were called Cornflake Girls.”Tori Amos (461)