God
God by Tori Amos
Lyrics, Music and Commentary by Tori Amos
“Melody McDaniel, the director, had an idea that we should make a film that showed the different kinds of worship for different kinds of gods and how, in each scene, the people believe their form of worship, well, thats the right way. But they are able to speak about what God is to them, what their faith is, what their ritual is. And, as we know, some rituals aren’t necessarily religious, but a salon can be a ritual in itself. So we liked that idea of the secular with the spiritual and also with the religious/political.”
“I guess, um, when it was suggested that rats, being a ritual Melody had investigated, was something that she really kinda felt was central to this. I didn’t really, um foresee, um, what was…what it was going to be like having 100s of rats crawling over you. You know, we had all the pet people, the rat catchers and the snake handlers. And, um, clearly some of the characters had an easier time with the little critters than others. Karen Binns was threating the rats. I caught her, you know, when the rat catcher wasn’t looking. And she was saying, “If you get anything on my garment I’m just gonna…” it was ridiculous.”
“I didn’t understand, um, maybe I should have taken a serious bath before I started handling the snakes, because they kinda thought I was one big rat. So that was a little technicality. And I think the shaving scene, even though it was a ritual, it was one way for me to quickly get from rat to snake. Um, you know, the addiction element here with the junkie…it was important if we were going to be fair, we needed to really explore, um, what people turn to to give them strength–even if it destroys them. And in my case, I liked the snakes quite a bit. I liked them more than the rats I must say.”
~ Tori Amos on “God” (From Fade to Red DVD)
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