I’m so tuned into Tori at the moment sometimes I wonder if there’s anything left of Me. So here I was reading some more reviews of The Beekeeper, wondering why most reviews are so short, then I came across a review by some bloke that quite frankly repulsed me. I’m not going to provide a link to it, it’s simply not justifiable.

His complaint was that Tori was now too happy and therefore diving headlong into AOR territory. Lyrics that once needed a little bit of thought to comprehend were now replaced by clues from cryptic crossword puzzles. He then went onto explicitly wish Very Bad Things to happen to her family in order to drag Tori back to the emotional turmoil and glory days from Little Earthquakes through to From the Choirgirl Hotel.

So here are two thoughts: Firstly, what’s wrong with Happy? And secondly, The Beekeeper isn’t all Happy. Sure, there are references to her daughter Natashya (but then lots of Kristin Hersh’s work is chock full of family references, and much of that isn’t Happy), but there’s also a lot that harks back to the core of what makes Tori write the music she does.

Chapter 1 of Tori Amos: Piece by Piece covers her genealogy, the start of her career, and in great depth describes the profound and shocking influence her paternal grandmother had on her parents and herself. Chapter 2, entitled Mary Magdalene: The Erotic Muse takes this influence and her upbringing and explains how it affected her, particularly as a woman and as a musician. It’s a deeply intellectual piece of writing, which if I was so inclined could keep me in libraries for ages. Ever wondered why her Boys for Pelé album is so lusty, passionate and sexual? Blame it on the Dark Prince archetype. Ever thought that God is about God? It’s not. Well, not quite. Chapter 2 also includes a jawdropping recollection of an encounter with her future husband. And that hit me like a truck.

Okay, so I’m midway through Chapter 3 at present, and whilst, yes, I can appreciate that Tori is happy at the moment, it doesn’t necessarily mean that her music is Happy. Take The Power of Orange Knickers, from The Beekeeper. A duet with Damien Rice, that thankfully doesn’t include any strummy bits from him, is built around the idea of Personal Terrorism, battles between two friends, co-workers or lovers, hence “Those girls that smile kindly, then rip your life to pieces.” In any case, with lyrics so obtuse, that according to the reviewer are impenetrable, how can he assume that she’s happy? Is it just the music? If so, it’s hardly AOR. It does appear more generically commercial on first listen than her earlier works, but as I wrote previously there’s more to it than is immediately apparent. First impressions don’t count. You need to work with The Beekeeper and that makes it very welcome proposition.

I just wish that Tori had started writing books years ago.

Just over 15 years ago I was horrified to discover that 10,000 Maniacs didn’t write their songs together. At that time I thought that all bands wrote their music together. (I also thought that REM came from Athens, Greece, rather than Athens, Georgia. I never lived that down!) Instead, Natalie Merchant would come up with the lyrics and the rest of the band came up with the music. I felt cheated. It made music appear to be more of a construction rather than something that just evolved. Music would have to be rewritten and tweaked to match the lyrics, and vice versa. Neither original idea would remain intact. Perhaps that’s why I’m drawn ultimately to solo artists and in particular those who write, arrange, perform and produce their creations in isolation.

With the launch of Tori Amos’s new album The Beekeeper, there’s also a special edition DVD which includes bonus photoshoot material and a special bonus track. There is however a much more interesting coincidental release: Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is the result of a two year long collaboration between Tori and respected music journalist Ann Powers. It consists of an organised collection of conversations and thoughts about Tori as an artist, as a private and public individual, and as a woman. Through all of this, it is ultimately an unfinished biography. One of the interesting things about her music has been the lyrics. Heck, it took me 12 years to understand what her debut album was about. Reading the start of this book makes me understand why. Tori involves herself with people when she’s out and about, particularly on tour. She buys books, newspapers, talks to people and wants to learn about the people and places she goes to. It’s this nature she represents in her songs. Fortunately, throughout the book are a couple of pages about some of the songs she has written for this and previous albums. For example, the song Ireland represents her Irish part of her ancestry, but also fleetingly incorporates the story of Macha, a goddess of Motherhood and Blood who was forced by her husband to run a race against the king’s horses when she was nine month’s pregnant to fulfill a boast. Apparently, there’s a whole troop of Toriphils who research her lyrics to find out what they’re all about. And there’s poor me trying to work them all out on my own: take the background to Marys of the Sea (buy the book, or you can find it on my coffee table, page 79) as a stark example of this.

Which brings me back to the art of songwriting and while I’ll probably never love Tori’s music as much as, say, Kristin Hersh, Jane Siberry or Nerina Pallot, although if there is any possible measure of difference, it’s very marginal. These three songwriters embody and represent themselves entirely in their music. Occasionally they do divert to tell other stories, but in the main, it’s all about themselves, their family and their emotions. Tori is proportionately opposite: or so I thought. But I was wrong. Tori’s music is mainly personal, but she encodes it. Her book explains why. Having realised this, I feel a duty to spend more time with Tori’s music, because without the understanding of her writing I’m only seeing half of her story..

For those who’ve been confused by Sky Magazine’s March 2005 strapline pronouncing ‘Alias’ and it’s lack of presence anywhere in the magazine, Bravo will be showing Season 4 in April. Although you won’t find this information on Bravo’s website.

I just received a letter and a really bad coaster from a company in Manchester trying to flog us cheap (but official) Xerox consumables. There’s a company in Inverness that rings us up every couple of months asking if we need more stuff for our printer. They both think that they can offer really good prices.

They can’t. I can buy official Xerox products directly from Xerox in Europe and have them shipped to us in 2 days, cheaper than these two companies. So guys, keep trying.