Tori Amos: ‘Somehow we think if another woman fails, we succeed’

Since this week has been filled with endless sad stories, I just thought… why not some Tori Amos? These are new photos of Tori in NYC. You know what I love about Tori? She still dresses like it’s the 1990s, without apology. That’s her thing. She was a creature of the ‘90s and she still loves that fashion, fugly shoes and all. Tori is still promoting her latest album, Unrepentant Geraldines, and this week she gave a nice interview to New York Magazine. You can read the full piece here, and here are some highlights:

She doesn’t consider herself an art scholar: “I’m an ignorant person on that front, and that’s fine.” She says she can “hear” art. “It seems silent, but it isn’t. If you can allow yourself to be invaded by what’s around you when you’re looking at it, then you might be called to prayer.”

Her life in Cornwall, England with British husband Mark Hawley & their 13-year-old daughter, Natashya, whom she calls “Tash.” When, in the mid-’90s, Amos told Hawley she had a “crush” on him, he made isolation a condition of their partnership. “He’s very antisocial,” she says, strolling slowly across the gallery floor. “When we got together, it was ‘No Hollywood, no metropolitan city.’ He said, ‘I’m kidnapping you, and you’re going to thank me for the rest of your life.’ ” She cackles. “It’s good I married a Brit because I needed to laugh. I wasn’t laughing in 1992.”

Dressing like a mom: “Tash tells me the worst thing a mother can do is show up at school and all the guys are saying”—Amos adopts the accent of a lewd British teenage boy—“ ‘Your mother is gagging for it.’ Tash said, ‘Do you want to make a girl’s life hell? Be that mom.’ What I’ve had to learn is there is casting dressing for certain situations. You don’t want to really, really stick out at any end of the spectrum because it should be about [the kids]. It shouldn’t be about the attention you’re causing because you’re in pleather at the assembly.”

Women integrating spiritual and secular aspects on her album: “It’s about, How can I be spiritual and hot? Women have no problem playing that role of mistress, but the key is integrating mistress and wife. When they have to be them, their authentic selves [in bed], they’re not sure.”

Women supporting other women: “Somehow we think if another woman fails, we succeed. We’ve all been guilty of kind of chuckling when one of the sisterhood poops on her Jimmy Choos. You think, Oh, dear! But then you think, Ha-ha-ha-ha. Mine have no stains today. But then you think, What have I just done? Who have I become? You cannot allow other women to shame you. You can’t allow it into your aura. I don’t like that word.”

Whether she’s an iconoclast. “I think of myself as just a voice that has to ask certain questions. Today it’s good to be 50 and in the music industry. But that’s today. But there are other battles you’re always having… Not everything you do will be revered, and as an artist you have to know that. But there must be something really delicious about the battle.”

[From Vulture]

She’s sort of Oprah-ish, but I like when Tori says it more. Now I kind of want to see Oprah interview Tori. That might be sort of magical. I also sort of want to see Tori at the parent-teacher conferences in ALL PLEATHER. But I understand what she’s saying about feminism and girl-on-girl drama and all of it. And I think she’s wonderful. We need more women like Tori Amos in music and in the world. Honk if you love Tori!!

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.