Notes of Tori about her songs, written in her songbooks
no notes in "Boys for Pele", "The Bees Sides", and "Unplugged"
Crucify
Bells started going off every time I wouldn't stick up for myself I accepted Quasimodo was a squatter in my cerebral area. A rhythmic pattern kept chasing me around. I dug out the drum machine and put the pattern down I would leave that pattern on for hours while I just sat and argued with myself about stuff. The first music to get put to the pattern was the "B" section "I've been looking for a saviour"... a door opened and the demons started to show up
Girl
The beginnings were composed on an old upright piano in Virginia. It's horribly out of tune which is one of the things I love about it. The chorus was written but that's about it I threw it down on tape and forgot about it months later I was cleaning the house (truly a happening) and was throwing tapes away. Eric intercepted this one out of a pile I was chopping onions in the kitchen he brought it in and said "listen" - I did
Silent all these years
The bumble bee piano tinkle came first. This one evolved slowly but it stayed an obsession until it was finished. I entered boxer occupation - part of me not wanting to hear what "I" was saying the other part fighting off "The Brain Drain." I finally distracted THE BRAIN DRAIN with the task of filing chocolate cake recipes
Precious things
Heavily into the sandman comics by now the nights were late candles all over the house dripping where they would. Wax is a bit more fun to play with than bubble gum. The doors were open by now I could resist but there's always air suction
Winter
Summoned to the piano this Russian music box round played me over and over and over til I was wrapped in a blanket with the memory of cinnamon apples on my tongue and boys that didn't "We" went back to where I felt no time - it was all happening again, presently
Happy phantom
When the songs began showing up I wrote their names on separate envelopes and made a faery ring in the middle of the house. I'd go sit in the middle of the ring to focus on a song's direction. All of the songs seemed to work toward the completeness of the other they decided we needed to hang out with death for awhile
China
The fifths in the bass represent the beginning of an ancient ceremony This ceremony took me to China took me to the kitchen table where most wars get nurtured I've always felt China and secrets are good friends. This song was the first written on "Little Earthquakes"
Leather
A hole opens sometimes that I fall through a bit like the madhatter I guess where memories coughing in loose molecules come and chase me around for a while. I felt like I had lived 20 different lifetimes from birth through death during the writing of this song. When I looked up from the piano and at the clock, thinking I was hours late for someone, it had only been 8 minutes.
Mother
Mother came on a bit like dream sleep. It was early morning when I made my way to the piano. I knew that "they" were trying to show me something a memory of "the fall", not the one we've been taught, but the other side of the story which is the belief of certain ancient mythologies. Mother changed me because I began to remember, where I believe, we come from
Tear in your hand
Emotionally all these songs come from experiences that trigger them. I haven't chosen to talk much about that side of the songwriting - the seed for all these songs. On the technical side I heard the music as a steady motion no change really from verse and chorus only the bridge that leads straight back like a loop to the same tall booth where you threw in some change to go around only to end up surrounded by the place you left. The only difference is by taking the loop ride you can see the place you left exactly as it is ; some sadness a whole lotta corn field and a puddle
Little earthquakes
My eye twitches sometimes. I was surrounded by the thoughts I smash they decided I would be a good dinner I decided I wanted 3 bridges in this song
mountain biking became a major event in my life for a week. the mud was so thick on the tires we got there just in time to feel the mountain thaw, the sound when these two merged was something like "thclulpleekooh" i said on an intake of breath with no lips moving and no throat usage, i like this word and i liked the idea of the eternal footman saying "asta" on a mountain bike
God
lemons and burnt oranges would come barreling down the skyway on the draw if the dark grey cats didn't open up and let those girls twirl in their fluffy new dresses
Bells for her
sometimes but not very often i journey to this place of bells i know i'm there when i see blue floodlights and i have no hunger for anything, husks of wedding dresses, horse carts, silver liberty churches - anything that i associate with bells remains unharvested until when i journey to this dimension of bells where i here them like they never tasted before
Past the Mission
directions were always interesting... "o.k. honey what you gotta do is you know the Wal-Mart ? well keep going soon you'll see a road across from the chevron take a left and follow that road till you see a bright turquoisey painted bird house it's right after the creek at the bird house it's not the first dirt road but the second go on down past the mission and you wanna take a right and you can't miss it"
Baker baker
there's a stream that runs up in the rockies and it runs into a bigger stream and finally makes it's way to a river but never the ocean and i was thinking about being whole again and that you don't have to make it to the ocean to be whole again maybe you freeze and become a snow witch or maybe a sandwich and melt away and that's o.k. i think
The wrong band
orchards are simple a peach tree says "some of me will be juicy and some of me will be dry i'm not growing for you i grow because thats what i do" you always hear some person complain about how dry their peach is and the peach says "it's not our fault you have no understanding on the proper use for dry peaches"
The waitress
condiments are my favorite thing sometimes when i was lonely i'd line up all the condiments and pound them on the table and let them applaud me adding confidence to my dishes before they got cooked
Cornflake girl
history has recorded some pretty nasty things that have happened to people i think we remember i think it's in our cells and i think i can still hurt sometimes
Icicle
sakura sakura yayoi no sora wa miwatasu kagiri
i dreamed thinks were frozen in ice songs and other dreams and the ice can carry secret messages that warm a little girl's heart
Cloud on my Tongue
i crawled up in a flower when this one was being written it was safe there and i wasn't ready to let this one in too deep it was already too close
Space dog
flying over chicago from new mexico i heard him - him who lives near the 7 eleven fork in hand at a dead dinner table staring at the peas on his plate going "come in lemon pie do you read me do you read me beam me up get me out of this place i can't have their genes in me come in lemon pie" - i read you buddy
Yes, Anastasia
i hope i told your story correctly my friend so many codes it was heard for me to decipher but i believe anastasia's story is everyone's in a way she tried to tell me that and i blew her off