Expert: Nancy - 5/4/2008

Question
Hello Nancy,

I am 25 years old. About 10 years ago "Cornflake Girl" was a huge hit and it was played on the radio in my high school gym every single day. Since I had heard it a million times I absolutely hated Tori Amos (and Fiona Apple) and was utterly sick of that cornflake girl song. Radio stations tend to do that to good songs. Absolutely loathed it. That was when I was a teenager.

Yesterday I randomly heard "Cornflake Girl" for the first time in about a decade.

I HYSTERICALLY BURST INTO TEARS.

I absolutely love this song and have been listening to it nonstop for the last few hours. It is strange that I used to hate it so much as a kid, and now it has such a profound effect on me. It almost gives me the chills. True, total mood music.

Why do you think this is? Possibly because pop music nowadays is just glitz and glamour and retarded drivel? Am I nostalgic for the 90s when good music was coming out?

Or do you think I have grown into my sexuality/sensuality as an adult woman, and I have embraced my female spirit since I am a girl no more? And now I REALLY UNDERSTAND where Tori was coming from as a female artist?

Have you ever had that feeling. You hated a song, and then years later, it made you stop dead in your tracks and become very emotional?

Oh yeah and another thing - Tori has a real, true raw natural beauty with that fiery red hair and peircing eyes. She (to me) looks 500 times sexier than any of those glammed up 'pop' stars. Her unorthodox beauty in the cornflake girl video reminds me a bit of a young Kate Winslet in Titanic.

It's funny I'm having all these thoughts. Guess it's all part of becoming a woman, huh :)

Answer
Hi Ana!

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you.

Cornflake Girl has always been a favorite of mine. Probably because the premise of the song is something that I have had plenty of experience with - girls treating each other badly, men thinking they have it all figured out.

As human beings we change every single day - it could be the smallest thing that happens to you today, but it changes you. So hearing this song years after you hated it and now loving it - makes a lot of sense when you think about it. You're in a completely different place in your life. Your 20's are such a time of discovery and figuring out just how to be here as we float around on this blue marble :o)

I've totally experienced the same thing with music myself. For example, I've recently become a mother. Now when I hear songs about daughters and sons, it's a completely different experience because I now relate in a whole new way. I cannot begin to describe how life changes when your heart is out of your body and in these little humans you created. Tori's Ribbons Undone means so much more to me now than it ever did before.

I'm so glad you're getting reacquainted with some of the old Tori tunes. Tori had a lot of great things to say in Under The Pink and Cornflake Girl will always be near and dear to my heart. And now, it seems it will be the same for you as well!!

Keep on growing girl :o)

Thanks for asking!!

Nancy