Expert: Nancy - 7/17/2011

Question
In the song "Spark" by Tori Amos, Tori writes 'She's addicted to nicotine patches.'  Do you know whether Tori currently is a cigarette smoker?  Has she ever been a cigarette smoker?

Answer
Hi Sherri!

Tori has never been a smoker. That song & the video have a lot of symobolism in it, a lot of which she's never revealed. Here are some quotes from her about it:

“Spark is about when I miscarried, in 1996. I was three months pregnant and very excited. All of a sudden I woke up one morning and started to feel bad. The songs started coming soon after. I was really angry at God. Going into a shopping mall and seeing some woman knock the head off her child, I’m going - ‘So this is fair?’ I don’t know where the spirit went, whether she picked another mummy, like, “OK, choose her, then! Hope you’re tone deaf!” [Deluxe - May 1998]

“There’s a lot of symbolism in it, there are moments when I turn around and I say something like, ‘she’s convinced she could hold back a glacier/but she couldn’t keep baby alive.’ Really clear. There are moments when it gets really clear and it goes back into symbolism again - ‘ballerinas that have fins that you’ll never find.’ Which makes a lot of sense to me, because it’s obviously a mermaid reference, but it’s more than that. Maybe you’ll be a mother and you’ll never have that physical experience - like you’ll never have the experience of being a mermaid. But even though you might not be a physical mother, it doesn’t mean you can’t have that kind of maternal love.” [Rolling Stone Online - August 8, 1998]

Thanks for asking!

Nancy