I have a long, complicated relationship with music by Tori Amos, in that she was basically all I listened to for about a decade (or thereabouts) and then I just… stopped. Having listened to her as much as I did, though, means that she was the soundtrack to my life between the ages of 15 and 25, and that’s a time of life when SO MANY THINGS HAPPEN. What this means is that many of my major life experiences are associated with Tori Amos songs. Sometimes I hear them in the background of my memories.
I haven’t listened to Tori Amos in roughly forever, but this evening I was in a mood. It has not been a good day by any stretch of the imagination, and no, I don’t want to talk about it. So I’ve been tired all day and I have one of those headaches where I feel like I got stabbed in the eye, and I should probably stop typing so I can go attempt to sleep it off, since nothing else has helped with it. Anyway, mood, tired, headache. I went digging through my CDs, and I found my copy of Under the Pink. I don’t remember the last time I listened to it, but it’s been a long time. So long, in fact, that as I sprawled face down on my bed, listening to the music, I kept thinking “Oh yeah, that song.” It was one surprise after another. How did I ever forget “I believe in peace, bitch” because really, how does one forget that?
Then it got to “Cloud on My Tongue” and I unburied my headache-stabbed face from my pillows and stared at the ceiling. I’ve always loved this song, but I also hate it. Figure that out, if you feel like it. I smiled to myself, remembering a night in early January several years ago and there was this boy (there’s always this boy, it seems) and I was flirting with the idea of falling in love with him, which was an idea I’d tossed around several times over two on-and-off years I’d known him. We were talking, and I said “I’m listening to ‘Cloud on My Tongue’ and it always makes me think of you.” There was a bit of a pause, maybe because he was busy Googling the lyrics, and he said “That’s not really positive, is it?”
No, not really. It went on for a couple of months more, and didn’t end well.
Much later, after I’d stopped listening to Tori Amos all the time, he popped back up and I didn’t think about it. I just fell in love with him. It didn’t end well that time, either. Oh, life, with its foreshadowing and Tori Amos soundtrack. What a scamp.
I’d completely forgotten all of this (well, maybe not all of it, just the Tori Amos part) until this evening, which was at the end of a day that was bad, not because of a boy but because of, well, there was a bit with pasta. Among other things. But the pasta bit was really bad. And anyway, I heard this song and I smiled. Really smiled.
I love this song. I do.
jamelah.net 
Dude, first…sorry you had a bastard of a day. Second…Tori Amos doesn’t look quite like Tori Amos. It looks like she’s had some work done, as they say. She used to have this great wonderful slab of a nose; now her nose is…well, elfin. It seems so unlikely that she’d have cosmetic work done on such a singular face, but lawdy.
Not that the nose of Tori Amos is of more moment than your lousy day, of course. But, again, lawdy.
LikeLike
I mostly noticed the Botox. She always had such an expressive face and now she’s Nicole-Kidman-ed her way right out of it. Sad.
LikeLike
I feel the exact same way about Tori. I love her, but I just stopped listening to her, and her newer stuff just doesn’t resonate the way it did when I was younger. Little Earthquakes, Nirvana’s Nevermind, Extreme’s Pornograffiti, and En Vogue’s Funky Divas were the soundtrack for the time when I was learning who I was. What a weird mix that was. I’ve still not sussed it out. But I kissed a boy, that summer, so that was new.
I have a lot more to say, but can’t quite crack my heart open to get all the words out, but let’s just say that Tori was also the score for a decade when I was in my own formative years. Even though today I can’t listen with the same depth of emotion I used to for anything past Choirgirl, I am glad she was there when I needed her.
LikeLike
I kind of stopped with Tori sometime after To Venus and Back, but didn’t quite admit it until Beekeeper which… um, some decent songs, but not a good album. So then I kind of had to quit with her, but when I go back and listen, it brings a lot back. She was the soundtrack to figuring it all out, not that I’ve figured it out by any stretch of the imagination, but the years of my life when I was really concerned with grappling with all those things associated with growing up. So I’ll always have a giant soft spot in my heart for her, even if I stopped being interested in what she’s up to these days.
LikeLike