From: Mike Harris <mharris@injersey.com>
Subject: Some Tori Stories
Mime-Version: 1.0

Sorry for the length, folks, but I think it'd be of interest to everybody 
on the list.  It's from the first issue of 'Upside Down', and it's Tori's 
description of her audition for the Peabody Conservatory of Music and 
also a second interview which is very poignant.  Hope all enjoy.

Mike

  THE DAY I AUDITIONED AT THE PEABODY...
  
   
   Interviewer: Tom Richards
   Interviewee: Tori Amos
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   I was 5 years old and I remember my mother opening the closet to pull
   out this mint green dress for me to audition in. It had been hand
   embroidered by one of the ladies in the church and it had little red
   fruit stitched on it. They could have been cranberries, or they could
   have been anything... maybe the fruit doesn't really exist, how she
   embroidered it. You know, like cherries growing out of the ground, one
   of those things. Anyway, there were these little embroiders and I
   remember having this dress on because it itched. It was the best dress
   I had. I had nice dresses then because these little old ladies in the
   church would make them for me and their (sic) were ducks on them and
   stuff...
   
   I can't remember what day of the week it was, I sense it was a
   Saturday but I can't be sure. I wore black patent leather shoes... and
   we went. This is when we lived in Baltimore Maryland, my dad had a
   ministry at a church there. I know it wasn't the summer because I
   would have been in North Carolina, so it would have either been the
   fall or spring because it was warm. We went, my father, mother and me.
   My brother and sister stayed home. I remember getting it ready... what
   to play. They asked for a range of music. My father wanted me to play
   something American, not American.. patriotic. Don't ask me, he was in
   the Navy. I had been listening to the Beatles and loads of musicals. I
   knew all the big musicals, "West Side Story," "My Fair Lady," "Sound
   Of Music," you know... all those.
   
   Tom; My intentions were to ask no questions or interrupt Tori's
   thought train during her story. Being a big Beatles fan and music
   lover in general, I wanted to know how at age 5, Tori was exposed to
   such great music. So...
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   My mother had a record collection, so she had all the shows and lots
   of classics from Nat King Cole to Cole Porter. She had all those
   records because she had worked at a record store before she became a
   minister's wife. She had hundreds of records and kept them all those
   years. My mother kept every- thing... I am really thankful she had
   that habit. You know how people "get on" people who keep everything,
   but then if she hadn't, I would have been an organist at a church
   somewhere. Well, I'd probably be dead because I would have played
   myself to sleep one night and never woken up with the pipes. That is
   how I learned, plus my brother was 10 years older than me... he would
   bring home records. That is how I got contemporary influence. You
   know, when you are 10 years older and it was the 60's. This was 1968,
   so my brother was like 15 years old. He was really into music, he had
   been playing guitar since he was 12 years old. So, he was a big
   influence in the music area. My sister was the intelligence of the
   family. She is 6 years older than I am. She is a doctor, but she has
   the mind of a scientist, so she wasn't interested in music or anything
   like that.
   
   Back to the story..
   
   Anyway, I remember getting together my repertoire and feeling like
   this was a really big deal. You know when you are a little kid,
   imagine when trying out for little league or something. You know that
   your life could change if you got this thing, whatever it was. I
   sensed that maybe these people would understand where I was going and
   we could all make music together. It could be like the greatest fun
   that ever was...
   
   I played for hours a day by then. That's what I did. I didn't play
   with dolls, I had these wooden creatures that I put on top of the
   piano and I played to them.
   
   So, we went to the Peabody. The Peabody is still in Baltimore. I drove
   past it actually when I did my last 2 Baltimore shows near the end of
   last year. I think it was November, but back to the story... We went
   in. It's like an old Greek style, classical type building with big
   wooden doors, marble and everything... a building that tries to look
   important. In a sense it is important if that means something to you.
   If you are a Dead Head it wouldn't mean much to you. My Dead Head
   friends all kind of feel sorry for me and they wish they could have
   given me a mushroom or something.
   
   I went in at 5 years old looking at all this marble going up the
   steps, marble floors, the walls are marble and it has very high
   ceilings. I was listening to all these people practicing up and down
   the floors and some of them were playing the same piece. That didn't
   dawn on me... that's another story we will do later on, how everybody
   eventually pretty much plays the same thing. It just went in and out
   of my consciousness. I felt that my parents were kind of nervous. I
   wasn't nervous because at 5 years old, you really don't know how to be
   nervous. You don't understand that you are going for a scholarship and
   that your parents couldn't afford it... well, I didn't at the time.
   
   They ushered me into this room and there were about 5 teachers there.
   I just remember sitting down at the piano and them asking me to play a
   melody. I remember playing about 15 minutes. I did the "Grand Old
   Flag" because my father wanted something patriotic. I did excerpts
   from "The Sound Of Music" and a few other things I can't remember.
   See, my feet didn't touch the floor yet but I played naturally with
   both hands at that time. I had been playing that was as long as I can
   remember.
   
   I knew I did well because my parents took me to my favorite
   restaurant. I had mustard on my french fries which is one of my
   favorite things. I remember I was being accepted it seemed, I caught a
   glimpse of so many feelings in one glance. I knew that my life was
   going to change. I knew I would be exposed to things I never would
   have before. That meant good and bad, but I didn't understand what the
   good and bad was. That was the day I auditioned.
   
   Tori Amos April 1993
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   
  THEN & NOW
  
   
   Author: Tori Amos
   
   When I was five years old, my folks went to this pot luck dinner and a
   friend's house. They were all church members, maybe ten families
   total. All of their kids were there, although I don't remember and
   boys being there. I was really very aware of boys, even in the womb.
   So I think no boys, because I would have remembered that. For some
   reason there were loads of daughters with these families, and my
   sister was friends with many of them. It was just this other girl and
   I who were very young. All of the other girls were teenagers. Every-
   body was doing like a little talent show after dinner. The girls had
   gotten together and worked something up, you know... singing, dancing,
   what ever their talent was. So this other girl, 2 years older than I,
   was always getting some kind of approval. She was kind of a brat, of
   course this is only my opinion... my side of the story.
   
   She was taking piano lessons to, and played this song. You have to
   remember that I was already in the Peabody Conservatory by this time,
   so obviously I was already a good piano player. It is very sad what I
   did... instead of going out there and playing what I knew, I heard her
   play, heard the parents clapping and adoring her, and I said to myself
   "well, maybe that's what they want". I went out and played the same
   song, a song I had never played before. It was pretty good, but she
   had practiced this song for weeks and weeks. I had only heard it
   behind doors, through a crack in the wall, and gone out cold and tried
   to play this song.
   
   My parents, I'll never forget... I looked over and their jaws were on
   the floor, horrified, everybody was horrified. They were so
   embarrassed for me. They knew why I was doing it. I didn't know why I
   was doing it, but they did, and I was stumbling. They were just
   looking at me going...why? Everybody has that in them and it was
   painful for them that I couldn't recognize my abilities, trust it, and
   share it. I needed them to like me so badly, as they approved of her,
   that I was willing to do anything to get it. You know when somebody is
   like that, how we react to them... We go "oh my god" and we hide our
   head in our hands and put spaghetti in our mouth. At a restaurant
   somebody comes up to your table and you just go "oh my god, oh my
   god," and you are so embarrassed because they are so needy. We don't
   want to deal with needy people...
   
   This song was a very sad moment in my life. My mother was just like...
   play "Oklahoma," play "West Side Story," play Mozart. What are you
   doing. Tears started rolling down my face and I ran out of the room. I
   ran all the way home, because I knew what I had done. I had sold
   myself out to try to get approval. I did it again and again and
   again... Until the last time was "Y Kant Tori Read". Well, actually,
   the "Details" magazine photo shoot, but that wasn't music.
   
   It's funny how I choose things in the moment, then start asking myself
   "why am I doing this?" and you go "am I doing this because it really
   feels right, or am I convincing myself that it feels right" so that I
   don't have to confront it. Sometimes it's easier, you think, to make
   excuses. To say that this is just what's happening around me, and
   maybe I'm the one that is seeing it all wrong instead of feeling
   inside that no matter what people are saying about me, this just
   doesn't feel right.
   
   I haven't listened to myself a lot of my life. I've heard those voices
   going Hello? Hello?, you know, that echo way back in you head going
   "wait! wait! wait!" like that little guy I love in "Leathal Weapon
   III". I can't think of his name [Joe Pesci (sp?) as Leo Getz (sp?)
   _Brent], but I hear him in my head all the time, going "wait! wait!
   wait! wait a minute!, wait a minute!" Sometimes I sit there and go
   "no, just do it, stop holding up the train," that kind of thing, and
   yet I do things for the wrong reasons sometimes. Intead of dealing
   with the issue that's really bugging me, I'll take it out on someone
   else. I think we all do that. You know, how sometimes you are in a
   relation- ship and you might need to deal with that, but you take it
   out on a friend instead. A person that has nothing to do with the fact
   that you are not standing up in your relationship, or drawing
   boundaries, or whatever. So, you take it out on other people. I think
   it is the same thing with making choices, or relationship choices. If
   you don't stand up and say "hey, this doesn't feel right," no matter
   what the consequences are, I can't do it.
   
   Now there are some things obviously we have to compromise on, like
   maybe I shouldn't tell the guy that's writing my paycheck what a dick
   head he is today. Maybe I can phrase it a little differently, maybe I
   can say "I'm uncomfortable with this, but I would be comfortable with
   that." What ever it is, if you are not ready to get fired that week.
   Sometimes there is no way around it. I mean there have been times that
   I have to go head to head with people, one of those shoot out kinda
   things. Definitely a high noon situation. Sometimes the relationship
   has just fallen apart because you have drawn your line. I am getting
   better a bit at that, drawing my line. I will go this far, but I
   cannot compromise what I really feel. You know how when you do
   something that goes against honoring yourself, it makes you feel sick
   in your stomach. You get heart burn. It's like if you had green chili,
   sausage, eggs, catsup, and Doritoes on white Wonder Bread. Yeah, it
   feels like that.
   
   The other thing is, we've been taught to be afraid of standing up for
   our- selves. Which is the Inquisition, having your skin ripped from
   your body. It wasn't fun back then, "we have ways to make you talk,"
   that kind of thing. Well, the exercised it back then, they do it with
   television now. This ties in with what is said in the book _Bringers
   of the Dawn_ by Barbara Marciniak, how we are taught not to think for
   ourselves, to be our own sovereign. All of us are a part of this, so
   how do we shake ourselves out of this? I can only speak for myself,
   but I am being challenged every day to have to say, "wait a minute,
   something feels weird, something's not right". If anybody is trying to
   control you, something is wrong. That little guy in your head should
   be shouting "wait a minute! wait! wait! wait a minute!" Put him in
   your head, because anytime somebody is trying to make you feel bad
   about yourself, something is wrong.
   
   You know, all of us dump some of our garbage in other people's yards
   and that is not right. This is not fair, and we need to go and take
   all our trash back, but that's all. We don't have to mow their lawns.
   That's crossing their boundaries, that is guilt. It's like, okay I did
   this, let me go make amends and take responsibility for what I've
   done, but then we can get into this thing of feeling guilty. Feeling
   really guilty that we made a mistake. We have to work through this
   guilt, own up to something, and then go "okay, so I yelled at you. I
   told you that I didn't mean to yell at you." At the same time let's
   look at what was behind it. I'm not going to crawl to give blood
   because I yelled at you. So there is a real balance of owning up to
   when we know we are trying to take another person's choices away. I
   just try to be more aware of it. When do I put a vibe out on somebody?
   When am I not understanding? When am I not loving? And yet, I still
   have boundaries.
   
   When someone isn't respecting me, then it's over, we have no
   relationship. I used to need them to like me. I had this codependent
   relationship with every waiter on the planet. You know that one...
   Here you are in Walmart and you are trying to make friends with
   strangers. Well hang on a minute, you don't have to make friends with
   everyone. It's respecting that they have a job to do, and respecting
   that I have a job to do. Then, if you make friends in the process,
   that's fine. Now there is all this psycho war going on and it keeps us
   from being objective and it keeps us from feeling good about
   ourselves.
   
   I know I'm feeling good about myself because I don't need someone else
   to feel good about me. It's okay if they don't feel good about me.
   I've had some painful fallings out with friends over the years,
   because sometimes I've really been out of line. I wasn't capable of
   honoring them like I am now, and they weren't capable of honoring me
   either. It worked both ways. When it came down to dealing with it,
   I've chosen to have joy in my life. It's a choice, you can either be a
   victim forever or be an abuser. We all swing back and forth at times.
   We kinda choose to hang out on one side of the ship more than the
   other. The point is I've tried to get out of that pattern and so, very
   close friends of mine who haven't been able to take responsibilty for
   what has happened in their life, blame people. I got tired of being
   part of the blame.
   
   You will find once you choose truth and light, love and
   responsibility, then you are in command and control of your life. You
   still have a polarity when one of you chooses to still be a victim and
   allow other people to control and blame you. Or, you can choose to
   take control. To control what is going to happen now as far as if I'm
   not happy here... I can leave. If I'm not being respected here, I can
   leave, but I have to respect myself first. Only you can do that for
   yourself.
   
   No matter how much you love another person, the are the only ones who
   can respect themselves.
   
   Respecting yourself does not mean disrespecting others. This can be
   tricky. When we are working through this it can be easy to say "I have
   always appreciated what everybody else has done, but not what I have
   done. So now I'm going to just appreciate what I have done and not
   appreciate what others have done". If that is a phase we have to go
   through, let's hope it is a short one because we won't have many
   friends left at the end of it. It's being able to appreciate what we
   give and what others give to us. It's all about respecting each other.
   
   
   We are not encouraged by the institutions; religion, government,
   educational, whatever, to respect each other. They push the
   competition thing on us. This is where we are really getting brain
   washed. The real power is in honoring ourselves and each other. Now if
   someone isn't ready to do that, then you can't have a relationship
   with them. It's not our job to dictate to them what their choice
   should be. If somebody doesn't want to respect you, then it's about
   boundaries, saying how far you are going to go, and probalbly move on.
   
   
   I really believe that there isn't a resolve with everybody on the
   planet. Not all of use could sit down at the table and work stuff out
   today, because not everybody wants to honor each other. We can't be
   hurt by this, we have to accept it. Still, it's challenging when
   relationships don't work out, it can be painful. I mean there is a
   sense of loss, and I've had to move through that. Still sometimes you
   love certain people very much, but you just aren't ready to work
   things through. You have to go away from each other, maybe for a long
   time, and take your own road.
   
   Tori Amos August 1993