“The girl had come undone,” she sang, sitting perfectly upright at her piano, almost like a parishioner on a church pew, her own following of deeply committed devotees watching and singing attentively.
But even with balancing a new album, a world tour, and a family with a daughter of two, Tori Amos is far from coming undone.
As a mother, I’m more comfortable to be myself,” said Amos in an interview with The Mirror before her sold-out show last Saturday at the Oakdale in Wallingford, CT. “It’s changed me deeply. I was very cynical, but motherhood seems more important than fighting with Warner Brothers over some contract.”
The interview was part of a roundtable discussion with several local college newspapers, an event which was brought about by Amos herself. During it, she addressed the generation of college students in America – a generation which she feels is threatened by their own apathy.
How do you get a generation to pick up their torch? A generation that can change everything? A generation that can network like no other generation could?” said Amos. “I’ve been in Europe recently, and I don’t think that students in the United States realize how closely European students are watching us, and look at us as bullies.
I believe in your generation, but I think you are incredibly distracted. For us older people, it’s our job to guide you,” said Amos. “We are the lighthouses, and you are the ships at sea. If you want to make a change, you can. But I worry what it will take.”
Scarlet’s Walk is the first studio release of new material from Amos in several years. Though she may not have been in the public eye, Amos affirms that she never went away.
“You don’t ever ‘go away’ – I wasn’t in a cave or anything. There are just some times when you need a head clearing, when you need to regenerate,” said Amos. “It’s easy to write one great work. But after that, you need to learn the skills to be a writer.”
But Amos is more than just a singer/songwriter. She has been an outspoken advocate for victims of rape for several years, after making public that she herself was sexually assaulted, and is the founder of RAINN, the Rape And Incest National Network, an organization which consoles women who have been raped.
In her new album, Amos directly addresses the post-Sept 11 United States, and tells the story of a woman who is on an emotional journey across the country. Amos was in New York on that horrific day, away from her daughter who was in England. When asked about the Sept 11 influences in the new album, however, Amos shies away from the obvious.
“‘On the Road,’ by Jack Kerouac, one of my most favorite books. It’s similar. While I was recording this album, I would rummage through countless books on art and photography, find things that would resonate with me, and I would fill the studio with them,” said Amos. “I would take in information, no matter what I was doing. I don’t stop being a songwriter in the shower; I don’t stop being a woman when I play the piano.”
Amos, who started studying classical piano at the Peabody Institute at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University at 6 years old, first burst onto the popular music scene with her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes, in 1992. Since then, popular music has changed dramatically, as Amos is more than aware.
“I’m fortunate in the sense that if you hang around long enough, different rules apply to you. I can be supportive of another artist now; it’s not a competition anymore,” said Amos. “It’s hard to know where music is going. America loves karaoke pop music, but that doesn’t nurture your artists.”
Her music has told of her torrid emotional life in the past, but today it seems that Amos has finally found happiness.
“She just sounds so happy,” said one fan of her new album while waiting for the doors to open before the show.
“Yeah,” said another. “We’re [the fans] all really happy for her. It looks like she finally has what she’s been looking for all these years.”
Amos agrees when she looks back at her success.
“Success is being able to not get seduced by happiness. Happiness will drink your last glass of wine,” Amos said. “I had to pull back in my life, and ask myself, ‘Why do I always have to make everything OK? Why do I put that pressure on myself?’ I can’t control how people are going to react to me, I can only control how I will respond,” she said. “Realizing that is the key to success, and ultimately happiness.”
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