Expert: Nancy - 12/22/2004

Question
I have heard that Tori was raped...when did this occur? Is there a song of hers based on this?  

Answer
Hi Ruth!

I'm so sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you. I have had a virus hit my home computer and also at work!!

Yes, Tori is a rape survivor. In her first album, Little Earthquakes, she wrote a song titled "Me and a Gun" which tells the story. In January 1985, she was working as a bar entertainer, playing piano and singing as usual, a guy asks Tori for a ride home and rapes her.

Tori Quotes:
“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 paralysed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violation through sex.” [Hot Press - February 23, 1994]

“The biggest mistake I made [after being raped] 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.” [Hot Press - 1992] Here are some quotes from Tori regarding Me and a Gun:

Tori talks about

Me and a Gun

“I saw Thelma & Louise in London. When I saw this film, memories came flooding back. I wrote the song that afternoon, and I wrote part of it on the Baker Lou Line going to North London. I went to the Mean Fiddler that night and I sang it and I've been singing it ever since.” [CFNY Toronto (radio) - January 29, 1996]

“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 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. [Glamour - August 1992]

“I wrote that song after I saw the movie Thelma & 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.. 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.” [Hot Press (Ireland) - 1992]

“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!” [Nieuwe Revu magazine]

“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...” [Keyboards - November 1994]

“I wrote it after I saw Thelma & Louise. And that had, umm, I had to let out all that incredible hurt and anger. The anger came. The song was written in the afternoon that I had seen Thelma & Louise and completed. It had always been a capella. And when I started writing it… I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I mean, I was almost in a trance writing that song. I was back there in that experience, and yet, another part of me was guiding it on. I felt like I was protected writing it, when it was over, when I had looked at what I had written. And the hardest part is performing it every night because, although I know I'm safe, a part of me has to go to that place to sing it. And what this whole process has taught me is, I'm not a victim. Although when I go in and sing it every night, there's a certain energy I bring to make it very real and then after the performance is over I can go and have an ice cream and have a life and say, ‘This is over. I can talk about it and I have love in my life.' And it's really important to get to that stage.” [Nomad (Australian TV) - Fall 1995] “The gun is about owning and claiming your anger, claiming yourself as warrior.” [High Life - November 2001]
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When she toured in the early days, she sang that song at EVERY show. It was her way of 'crossing that river of victomhood' as she puts it. She also recived an overwhelming amount of fans responding to the song, sharing thier stories with her. After a while she knew she had to do something. In July of 1994 she helped in funding RAINN - Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, with the help of grants from the Atlantic Group and the Warner Music Group. It was the first toll-free rape help-line in the US, and continues to be a great help to people today.

You can also find her singing, writing, surviving this expereince in the other songs as well. Blood Roses from Boys for Pele - is just naming one.

There are several GREAT websites full of information about Tori that I just love. The one I used to pull the quotes from is: http://www.yessaid.com/toriphoria.html
And for all the latest and greatest news you can visit:
www.thedent.com

Thanks for asking!

~ Nancy