{"id":22338,"date":"2021-05-07T20:50:28","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T20:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&#038;p=22338"},"modified":"2021-05-07T22:37:47","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T22:37:47","slug":"tori-amos-mother","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/tori-amos-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Mother\u2019s Day: I Listened To Every Recording Of Tori Amos\u2019s \u201cMother\u201d For Some Reason"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_22342\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22342\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-22342\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-07-at-3.54.59-PM.png?w=1024\" alt=\"Tori Amos\" width=\"1024\" height=\"399\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-22342\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tori Amos&#8217;s debut album, &#8216;Little Earthquakes&#8217;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Happy <a href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/mothers-day-self-care-gifts\/\">Mother\u2019s Day<\/a>! In recognition of this annual celebration of martyrdom\u2014sorry <em>mother<\/em>-dom\u2014I initially considered writing something <em>deeply<\/em> personal and <em>significant<\/em>. I was going to pitch my editor an essay about my increasingly fraught relationship with my mother, a piece which would also explore the disproportionate burden of care that I think single queer adult children often get saddled with as their parents age. Like,<em> Cool, your presumption of heterosexuality messed me up so much that I\u2019m unable to have a functional relationship, so obviously I\u2019m free to move back home to stop you from becoming a weird hoarder and\/or sell all your gold jewelry to someone on Fox News! <\/em><\/p>\n<p>But I didn\u2019t do any of that. Instead, I decided to just listen to every recording of the Tori Amos song \u201cMother\u201d that I could find to see what would happen.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mother\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d434s_zPK18?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Huh<\/em>, you\u2019re saying to yourself, <em>that is a mood. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Also, you may be wondering, why Tori Amos\u2019s \u201cMother?\u201d Why not, like, any other song about someone\u2019s mom? Like, why not an actual cultural touchstone like Tupac\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2Xi8NvSetZc\" target=\"_blank\">Dear Mama<\/a>?&#8221; Or remember that song \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2Xi8NvSetZc\" target=\"_blank\">Mother Mother<\/a>\u201d from the 90s? That\u2019s a song that people remember, right? I mean, Tori Amos\u2019s \u201cMother\u201d wasn\u2019t a single. And it\u2019s not even a song that I associate with my own mother. It\u2019s not like it\u2019s the song I listened to when, in the middle of an argument when I was 16, my mom told me that I was lucky she and my dad hadn\u2019t kicked me out of the house when I came out, because that\u2019s what happened to gay kids back then. I mean it really actually isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>I dunno, mostly it\u2019s just the first thing\u2014well, the second thing; see above re: fraught relationship, etc.\u2014that comes to mind when I think about Mother\u2019s Day. And, in the late 1990s, I was my high school\u2019s foremost Tori Amos scholar. I read every interview I could get my hands on. I checked fan sites daily for the latest on new releases and TV appearances. I would pore over her seemingly nonsensical lyrics and play her songs over and over, until my mom would scream at me in a way that was absolutely proportional to the situation to <em>turn the music off because the lady who was hosting her Tupperware party was here!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But this has nothing to do with that. All I\u2019m saying is that over-analyzing a kind of obscure album track from Tori Amos\u2019s 1992 debut album is pretty much in my wheelhouse. You know, not to brag or anything.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mother\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8sPVNj6uxOA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The song\u2019s lyrics are pretty typical of this period of Amos\u2019s career. Some songs kinda seem like they could be charitably described as flirting with Dadaist metaphor, while others sound more like they might just be random words that work with the melody. With its feminine imagery and themes of growing up and loss of innocence, I\u2019m putting \u201cMother\u201d in the former category:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGo go go go now \/ out of the nest it&#8217;s time \/ go go go now \/ circus girl without a safety net \/ here here now \/ don&#8217;t cry \/ you raised your hand for the assignment\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, I\u2019m not sure \u201cMother\u201d is even about Amos\u2019s actual mother. Here\u2019s what she had to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yessaid.com\/lyrics\/1992littleearthquakes\/09mother.html\" target=\"_blank\">say about it<\/a> in the <em>Little Earthquakes <\/em>songbook: \u201cA memory of \u2018the fall.\u2019 Not the one we\u2019ve been taught, but the other side of the story, which is the belief of certain ancient mythologies. \u201cMother\u201d changed me because I began to remember, where I believe, we come from.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mother (Live In Indianapolis 11\/2\/07)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/34vmjgeOLYc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So, when she sings \u201cwithout a safety net,\u201d Amos is probably not referencing, for instance, this one time when she was in her early mid-20s and didn\u2019t know anything about doing her taxes so she asked her mom for help, and her mom was like, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll do your taxes for you.\u201d But her mom didn\u2019t do her taxes. And she didn\u2019t say anything about it until Tori Amos got a notice from the IRS the following year saying she owed back taxes and fines. No, that is definitely not something that happened to Tori Amos, and it\u2019s not what this song is about.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Amos has always said that her songs are open to interpretation, that different people will relate to them in ways that she never intended, and that\u2019s fine. So, maybe when you hear her sing \u201cbrides in veils for you \/ we told you all of our secrets \/ all but one \/ so don&#8217;t you even try \/ the phone has been disconnected,\u201d you\u2019re thinking of the last time you had to hang up on your Chardonnay drunk mom because she\u2019s asking you whether you \u201chave someone\u201d and also when is <a href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/rege-jean-page-bridgerton-season-2\/\"><em>Bridgerton<\/em><\/a> coming back? And you\u2019re like, <em>now you want to know about my personal life? And for what? So that you can shame me for being single like some Kafkaesque gay <a href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/the-downward-spiral-to-sloth-dom-pjs-have-become-the-wider-fashion-currency-opinion-working-from-home\/\">Bridget Jones clich\u00e9<\/a>? What is happening?<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tori Amos &quot;Mother&quot; Live Iveagh Gardens Dublin 16th July 2010\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XtKKqcWVgaw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Maybe \u201cMother\u201d is meant to be a balm as well as a lance. It is this kind of gentle, searching ballad that can make you feel safe when you need to do some real introspection. It&#8217;s there for you when you search your soul and discover in the deepest, darkest part of you that when Netflix\u2019s press team does inevitably send out an email announcing <em>Bridgerton<\/em>\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/bridgerton-season-2-details\/\">Season 2<\/a> premiere date, you will withhold that information from your mother. You\u2019ll claim you have no idea when <em>Bridgerton <\/em>is coming back. And you won\u2019t feel guilty. Not even a little bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29097,"featured_media":22342,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,16],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v18.5 (Yoast SEO v20.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I Listened To Every Recording Of Tori Amos\u2019s \u201cMother\u201d For Some Reason<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Happy Mother&#039;s Day! 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