you for a while

Cornflake Girl

Music, lyrics, and commentary by: Tori Amos

“We had already shot Cornflake Girl once, but I felt like we needed to do more of a storyline for the Americans. Bunty, who is the gal in the red shirt, that you see right now in the back, she was the choreographer, and she was a good friend of Karen Binns, we used to hang out in London together. So we brought her over with Karen and they were casting the girls…and it was real important you got a sense of the raisin girls versus the cornflake girls. And I think this girl with the hat, it was essential that you understood the dynamic that can go on in a girl group. Um, this is sort of Mean Girls before Mean Girls.

“The brain trust was a female team with Nancy Bennett directing. I mean I was there as sort of a storyline person with Karen. But Nancy was really at the helm with her visuals. We decided that we wanted a good old American landscape so you could understand where I had experienced, um, the evil that can happen on the playground. Being part of a directing team for the first time, I think, you know, there was a lot of hands on for me…learning on the job kinda thing.”

“Um, of course I had Leslie Chilkes there on make-up. So, you know, Karen and Leslie being two of my closest friends..,um, we were able to have a real giggle. I think this was one of the most fun of all the videos just because there were so many women on the set. Um, and all of us had been tormented by a girl. I have always dreamed of girls pulling lipsticks out of their pockets and watching them grow, that just kind of excites me.”

“And, I think when we were trying to plan the fight scene…Bunty had said, “Well, let’s do a ballet scene on a truck.” And I kinda thought, “Well, you know, I haven’t really seen that much when I, you know, in the Grand Tetons hanging around with buffalo, so I think we should do it.”

“So she had those girls, in dance, having their power trip. And back on the playground I’m fighting, I think, my own demons. And the only way I know how to do that is on a piano…even if I’m on a wooden swinging twirly thing. This girl, obviously, that I’m trying to reach is a version of me that sometimes just lets herself down.”

~ Tori Amos on Cornflake Girl (US) (Fade to Red)