Tori Amos

I kick on people, and I don’t care what they do. I don’t have to be a friend with well-known rock ‘n’ rollers to work myself up. I force no contacts, and my manager doesn’t have to arrange so-called spontaneous jam sessions, or something like that. But recently I met Björk, and she’s exactly how I picture my best friend of the future. She’s so free and full of wild ideas and without pose or false pretences. Also, she doesn’t have this cramped rock and roll habit to wake all sorts of demons in herself. She sees creativity wider than that. A wonderful person. I don’t see her as a musician, rather like the phenomenon Björk. I had the same feeling with Evan Dando of the Lemonheads. In my songs I am open, but I am still fighting with all sorts of problems. Björk and Evan seem to have passed that stage. Their work is pure life’s joy and childish openness. I have thought a lot about that lately : why am I still in the cellar groveling between the rats, whereas Björk and Evan are upstairs cooking ? And it smells so darn good there... I still need my songs to cope with my double cursing of feelings of religious and sexual guilt. And I would like by now to peek in the kitchen upstairs...

Nieuwe Revu, February 1994