Storytime With Tori

  by Cassie Lubich

                "Building tumbling down/ didn't know our love was so small/ couldn't stand at all."  This quite from "Caught a Lite Sneeze" describes one of the main themes of Tori Amos' third album, Boys for Pele, heartbreak.  I believe this album is written in novel form, the songs are excerpts of a complicated story (Rooksby, 1).  I also think thsi incredible album cannot be fully appreciated until the songs and their deep symbolism are explained, which I will attempt to do.  The major themes dealt with are love, religion, and repression of women.  All these ideas are woven into the intricate fabric of her tale, mostly surrounding the ending of her 7-year relationship with her coproducer, Eric Rosse.  Tori used Boys for Pele as a vehicle of dealing with her pain, among other things, which will be explored later.

                First of all, like every good story, there is background information.  The title Boys for Pele doesn't refer to the soccer star, but the Hawaiian goddess of destruction and creation, to whom young men were sacrificed by being thrown into her volcano (Pinsonneault, 1).  The title was her way of paying homage to the men who were sacrificed in order to help her discover herself.  The 14 major songs on the albom symbolize the 14 body parts of Osiris, the Egyptian god, supposedly collect by the goddess Isis.  If Tori is Isis, then she must be reassembling the broken pieces of her heart, which are assimilated throughout the entire album.

                The novel begins with "Horses," which has the key element of Tori songs, just a girl and her piano.  The song is a ride amongst the horses, who take her on a journey to find her demons  (Rooksby, 3).  The song produces a sense of safety, like as long as she is on the horses nothing can harm her.  That's always how it feels right before the relationship begins to disintegrate. 

                Next begins the darker chapters, the relationship has taken a turn for the worse.  "Blood Roses" is when the war begins (Pinsonneault, 2), as evident from the line 'I shaved every place where you been.'  Tori wants to get rid of any evidence that he ever existed.  When she softly sings 'you've cut out the flute from the throat of the loon/ at least when you cry now he can't even hear you,' she is pledging that she would cut her own throat just so Eric wouldn't know how much he hurt her (Pinsonneault, 2).  It's a very dark and cryptic song, which makes a nice transistion for "Father Lucifer," a song that makes the devil almost beautiful.  "I wanted to marry Lucifer," Tori said "Lucifer was the brother holding the space for man/womankind to act out their fears and hidden secrets.  I don't consider Lucifer an evil force."  Instead of an evil presence, Lucifer is a dark god who has great respect for life and love.  "On my darkest days he's the one that comes and gives me an ice cream.  I fell he comes and sits on my piano" (Block, 46).  This songs discusses how crazy her life seems to be 'Father Lucifer you never looked so sane.'  It also has her ever-present religious thoughts, which can be even read as heresy 'how's your Jesus Christ been hanging?'  Even deeper still in the story of Boys for Pele is "Professional Widow," which Tori describes as "convincing  a man to kill himself so I don't have to leave fingerprints on his body"(Pinsonneault, 3).  This song's strong harpsichord riffs add to the anger and leave the listener haunted. 

                Next on Tori's journey is the light song of "Mr. Zebra," which serves as a brief interlude to all the anger and trauma.  It's a short song filled with silly childish names such as Mrs. Crocodile Moneypenny, and Ratatouille Strychnine.  It acts as a smooth transition to the next chapter when it closes with 'too bad the burial was premature she said/ and smiled.'

                Perhaps the most heartbreaking song on Boys for Pele is "Marianne," about a childhood friend of Tori's who died at a young age (Block, 46).  The pain is evident when she sings, 'I knew you pigtails and all/ girls when they fall/ and they said Marianne killed herself/ and I said not a chance.'  But until you hear the haunting piano chords and soft notes you can't really sense the anguish.  This song begins the section on the repression of women, which is continued in "Muhammad My Friend, which stems from what Tori calls "one of the greates lies that has been told."  She believes Jesus was originally the sacred bridegroom, but the bride (or goddess) was wiped out by Christianity, making Mary Magdalen a whore instead of a priestess.  If Tori had been raised with that myth intact she wouldn't have been so oppressed by shame about her sensuality and passion (Block, 45).  Instead of patriarchy as we know it there would have been balance (Block, 46).  Tori honors this bride in the lines, 'It's time to tell the world/ we both know it was a girl back in Bethlehem.'

                Next, Tori discusses the hurt that love causes in "Caught a Lite Sneeze."  But instead of being angry, like before, now she is too depressed to fight, she just wants to feel her pain.  Featuring background vocals by a church choir, this song captures the essence of her heartbreak.  It's obvious to anyone getting over a break-up what she means in 'boys on my left side/ boys on my right side/ boys in the middle/ and you're not here.'   Further down the spiral comes "Hey Jupiter," which I can't hear without tears coming to my eyes.  What human can't relate to the feeling of laying on the floor waiting for the phone to ring, but no one calls and you have no one to turn to?  The lines 'are you gay/ are you blue/ thought we both could use a friend to run to,' cut deep, showing how alone she feels.  'If my heart's soaking wet/ boy those boots can leave a mess' doesn't need any further exlplanation.

                The brief song "Way Down" begins the introduction to the theme of the south, a song which was recorded in Louisiana. Tori chose the south because of all the oppression that has occurred there for so long.  "Little Amsterdam" further discusses disatrous relationships and religion.  Tori pleads for her soul when she belts out 'Father only you can save my soul/ and playing that organ must count for something,' refering to her early days as a choir girl in her minister father's church.  Even the liner notes and cover of Boys for Pele is all about the American South.  The cover features a muddy Tori in a dilapidated rocking chair holding a rifle across her lap, while a dead rooster hangs on the porch and a snake twines around her ankle (Furia, 3).  The inside photographs continue this image, with Tori in a pature full of cattle and resting on a bale of hay while she suckles a piglet.  The latter image cause quite a stir among the critics.

                Returning to the theme of love, Tori continues with the nursery rhyme-like "Talula."

Here she deals with the idea of loss and if her going through all this pain was worth it, 'you don't want to lose it/ it must be worth losing/ if it is worth something.'  But this is a very light song, enmeshed in playful and smooth harpischord sounds, almost like the rhymes we used to sing as children. 

                The next theme of Boys for Pele is accepting that the relationship is over and letting go.  This is explored through "Doughnut Song," which gets it's title from the line 'you'll never gain weight from a doughnut hole,' which is basically saying you can't get something where there was never anything in the first place (Pinsonneault, 4).  Tori is almost apologizing when she sings 'and if I'm wasting all your time this time/ maybe you never learned to take.' Later in the song she wises up and changes it to 'you were wasting all my time this time/ I guess you never learned to take' (Pinsonneault, 4).  The images of suns in this song is also very noteworthy, 'you told me last night you were a sun now/ with your very own devoted satellite/ happy for you/ and I'm sure that I hate you/ two suns too many/ too many able fires.'  She realizes she and Eric are both suns, and two whole beings instead of two forming one entity can't make a successful relationship.  "In the Springtime of his Voodoo" is next on the list.  The line 'he was going to show me spring' addressing all the things she and Eric planned to do, but will never get around to now.  Finally comes "Putting the Damage On."  This slow song features just Tori and her piano, with a gentle brass section in the background.  Tori is still reeling from all the heartbreak that Eric is causing her, but she still sings 'boy you still look pretty when you're putting the damage on.'  Tori is learning to be gracious, she knows it's not going to work, but she still has those old feelings, though it's inappropriate to acknowledge them (Pinsonneault, 5). 

                If not for "Twinkle," this story would have a very sad ending.  "Twinkle" goes back to Tori and her piano, just like how this tale began.  It starts out slowly and quietly, slowly picking up momentum and volume as it progresses.  This song is about a girl who feels she has lost everything (Tori?) but she still has more hope and faith than anybody, 'sure that star can twinkle/ and you're watching it do/ boy so hard/ but I know a girl twice as hard/ and I'm sure/ said I'm sure/ she's watching it to."  Just as the horses in the beginning give us a feeling of safety, this twinkling stars assure us that everything is going to be okay.  We can take a deep breath, look back in reflection on the story, and close the book. 

                In conclusion, Tori Amos' Boys for Pele isn't just an album, it's a musical journey that tells an entire story.  This novel contains many themes, the most important being religion, repression of women, and, of course, love.    

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