Whispering Lullabies
"I'm doing this so that people who feel that at 21 their lives are over, or they don't know how to have an intimate physical relationship, that they can be beautiful people again."
~ Tori Amos



The music of Tori Amos has been extremely instrumental in my healing. I first heard "Me And A Gun" when I was 14. I cried for two days after hearing that song, Tori's haunting voice standing alone in the dark. The voice of a woman who understood my pain, and my loss, and my vulnerability. I cried for Tori, I cried for me, I just cried and cried. From that day forward, I felt this indescribable, intense bond with a woman I did not know. Tori's music has seen me through some of my darkest hours. It has been with me in the calm before the storm, colored the darkness of the night, and waited for me on the other side of the tunnel. I have, in defense of this intense love for her music, tried to explain what exactly it is. And I have come to two conclusions. One, I shouldn't have to defend or explain anything to anyone, unless I choose to. Two, if I choose to, the best way to put it, I think, is to say that Tori Amos puts into words, what I so often cannot. I had the most amazing experience very recently, of meeting Tori. I spent two days worrying about how I was going to relate exactly how that day was to everyone, and I ended up sitting in front of my computer, and winging it. Because there really is no way to aptly describe any of it.

So. This is for Tori. The woman who helped me to realize that I could save my life. The woman who, without even knowing it, who simply through her sheer courage to share the most painful experience a woman could ever go through, with the whole world, showed a thirteen year old little girl that she wasn't alone. That someone knew. That someone cared. That she didn't have to be a victim any longer. That life was worth surviving. That she deserved to survive.


From Tori's Mouth

"I'll never talk about it at this level again, but let me ask you. Why have I survived that kind of night, when other women didn't? How am I alive to tell you this tale when he was ready to slice me up? In the song I say it was 'Me and a Gun' but it wasn't a gun. It was a knife he had. And the idea was to take me to his friends and cut me up, and he kept telling me that, for hours. And if he hadn't needed more drugs I would have been just one more news report, where you see the parents grieving for their daughter. And I was singing hymns, as I say in the song, because he told me to. I sang to stay alive. Yet I survived that torture, which left me urinating all over myself and left me paralyzed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violence through sex. I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and that now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability."

"I went to see Thelma & Louise, alone, on a whim, and my life changed. When Susan Sarandon killed the would-be rapist, I breathed for the first time in seven years." (Two hours later she wrote Me and a Gun.)

"I was kidnapped and sexually violated. You feel like your boundaries have been crossed to such an extent that there is no law anymore, that there is no God. You feel like the Mother in you will do anything to protect the child in you from being shredded before your eyes. You're thinking 'I gotta get out alive, I gotta get out alive.' With Me and a Gun, I hope that attackers as well as victims are listening. As well as judges, as well as lawyers. I want you to taste in the back of your mouth what it was like to be in the car with that pervert."

"I wrote that song after I saw the movie Thelma and Louise which brought back an experience I hadn't talked about for about five years. But as I was writing the song other voices rose, other voices that had opinions on what had happened. It was then I realized that the biggest mistake I made was not seeking help from people who understood. But then nobody was there for me on the night it happened. I had to call the East Coast and wake people up to talk. I called 20 people. I talked about it for roughly seven days and then just cut off the experience, not knowing that in doing that, I was letting it take control of me inside. How does a woman re-connect with her own body after rape and not associate sex with violence? That's the core problem. If I'd sought help that would have been different, I'm sure. That's what a woman should do. But sexually what happened to me was that I couldn't respond to a guy at all. I broke off the relationship I was having with a man, the next day. I'd been with him for two and a half years yet I started ranting and raving and telling him I didn't want him in my life. I then turned to a male friend and though he wanted me to go to the police I said 'But I'm never going to find that person again.' I also didn't think I had a case. I don't want to go into the details but you've read my lyrics, you know I look at things from as many angles as possible. So, even then I could see it from the other side. Nothing would have happened to the guy! And he would have known more about me than he did. Yes that means he's out there somewhere and yes he may do it with another woman. But he'd have done it anyway. It wasn't a cut and dried case. With American law as it is and the fact that I'm an entertainer and the kind of performer I was - like Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys - I knew I was going to be set up. And I was not going to be a victim of another experience. But what happened then was that I became a victim of myself. You *know* I would have killed him if I could have, yes. But I was busier trying not to get killed," she says. "But sure, when she killed him in 'Thelma and Louise' do you think I had remorse? Absolutely none. And if he walked into this room now, would I kill him? No. Because I wouldn't want to make it that easy for him. But any man who gets killed raping someone has crossed the line..... But I didn't kill him. I finally wrote a song about it instead and *that* has given me the freedom. 'Me and a Gun' is *not* about him. It's more about me forgiving myself. That's why my music now is so therapeutic, so cathartic for me. I made a commitment not to be a victim again, by writing and by singing as often as I can 'Me and a Gun'. It's like I refuse now to be a victim of my own guilt. I refuse to be a victim of not having a wonderful sexual experience again. And you are a victim when you can't allow yourself to have sexual pleasure again. I refuse to put all men in the same category, as I was doing. When something like that happens you do want to punish men, punish the ones that crushed the flower. But no one should choose to hold onto that hatred. It choked me. Sexually, I feel I won't be able to give completely and love to the extent, say, that I will want to have kids with him, for quite some time yet. I couldn't even consider that for a few years. I'm only beginning to fulfill myself now because I'm beginning to accept, and love, the parts of me, of woman, that I was trained to hate all my life. Particularly the bad girl I still can be."

"In America some radio stations didn't want to play Me and a Gun because of 'too feministic' and 'too realistic'. I sing: 'Yes, I wore a slinky red thing. Does that mean I should spread for you?' That's the way it is, yes? 'But mister judge, she was hitchhiking in a mini-skirt!' Bullshit!"

"The rapist knows Me and a Gun. The boyfriend of the girl who was raped knows Me and a Gun, because he's had to live through it in a different way. The parents of the girl....We could go on and on."

"…If it happened to you or your daughter, you'll shut up, your whole life will change. You might be uncomfortable dealing with this, but if your daughter needs help, there is a place where people can go. At least they can advise your daughter or son where they need to go if they've had a problem that you can't deal with. You'd be surprised just how many parents just don't want to talk about hits. Somebody said that Howard Stern said sarcastically that I was a 'real party,' but you know, rape isn't about a party. If something like that happened to somebody he loved, he better hope I'm not about a party when that moment happens and they need help. I'm really doing this so that people can go to a party. I'm doing this so that people who feel that at 21 their lives are over, or they don't know how to have an intimate physical relationship, that they can be beautiful people again."