Tori Amos

Tori is the second “doll” that I will be discussing. She may have seemed an obvious first choice, but then that’s probably why I didn’t choose her first. Then when I really think about it… yes, she may have been an obvious one, but certainly not an easy one to write about.

What does Tori mean to me?
I could think of something new each day to respond to that question, but I’ll give it a go from my ‘right now’ place and see where it takes me.
She is familiar and comfortable on a level that rivals even some people in my “real life,” people whom I actually know and see and talk to. She is a haven, she is a respite, she is always there.
Doesn’t seem odd to speak this way about someone I’ve never met?
Another thing I adore about Tori: she is always so real. She grows and changes, but it is never forced. She doesn’t seek the next big thing or shove a new image on to the world (think Madonna), yet she is never the same for having been where she’s been and having done what she’s done; and she shares almost every moment of it with us! I admire that… I’ve never been good at sharing.

Tori also makes me uncomfortable on some level. Strange Little Girls made me so uncomfortable that I didn’t actually buy it until recently…
What is that? Here’s my theory:
I think she pushes herself to discover, experience, create… and she’s felt/seen/experienced the benefits of doing so, that she feels compelled on some level to ask the same of her audience. Push yourself. Just a little at first… but once you start to push yourself, you expand your comfort zone and then you have to push a little more. “So it ends. So it begins…”

Tori’s songs on this album are:
Big Wheel
Digital Ghost
Father’s Son
Code Red
Posse Bonus

Again, from the Deluxe Edition booklet, Tori is stated as being a perceptive channel, creating music from the “multiverse” (vs. the universe; many vs. one) and of being a co-creator, instead of selfishly creating for her own pleasure…

“Tori’s” songs on this album are so classically Tori, one could never mistake them for another of the dolls’. Big Wheel touches on a lot of the themes she’s so fascinated with, “get off the cross, we need the wood,” I’d have to do some research, but I’d be willing to bet that Jesus has made an appearance on each of her albums. Digital Ghost is a fantastic and beautiful example of how Tori uses the duality of meaning to express a deep sentiment about this technological age meshing with the ever-human emotional ‘nets’… “Switch you on my friend, pull you from that rip current…” Father’s Son is quintessential Tori: God, her father, sacraments.

So far, Clyde + Tori = my favorites of the album. But that’s another thing about Tori Amos’ albums… as I go through my own transformations, her songs speak to me differently. So what is now my favorite may not be in a few months time. But I trust that she will have something to speak to me differently when I need it… she always does.

All the dolls have their own blogs and Tori’s is listed as her MySpace page, though I cannot verify if she is actually the one updating it…

Tori Amos, American Doll Posse, Dolls, Tori, songs