you for a while

Past the Mission

Lyrics, Music and Commentary by Tori Amos

“This bull scene…you wouldn’t believe how long it took to shoot that one shot. The light just wasn’t quite right. So they had to keep shooting and shooting until they got it right.”

“Because Past the Mission was really written about Cortes, the Spanish conquistador, and people like him that came to what is known as Mexico now and New Mexico, um, at first I wanted to shoot there. But Jake Scott the director had found this village in Spain named Arcos and I liked the idea of going back in the bloodline historically to where people like Cortes had come from.”

“So he found the perfect location and, um, no people didn’t dress like this all the time in the early 90’s. So when we were off set, then you would see a modern kind of, you know, looking village as far as how they presented themselves. But on set everybody was wearing black and white. And there were times when I would look around and think, “Oh my goodness, I’ve walked into a different time.”

“When we were shooting we were also immersed in their culture. There wasn’t really anywhere else that you wanted to go. So we all stayed in the village. Because my mom had been planning to visit me in England I had her come with me, um when the shoot just happened to come up at the same time. And having her with me really was a big ice breaker because she is a love bunny and the women, the older women of the village, they ended up really connecting with her. And because of this quiet strength that she has the other mothers just, well, they liked her. And so they began to open up to me.”

“No one in this village really spoke English very well. I remember trying to help the choreographer, um, who was trying to communicate with the villagers. And it was fascinating getting them to sit down and then back up again, um, when we are at the scene where the women were confronting the priest.”

“I love the idea that this priest, um, was really kind of the talk of the set because the women were saying, um you know, if we had a priest that looked like that we’d go into church a lot more often. And you I’m not the greatest speaker of anything but even I could understand that tidbit in Spanish.”

“I felt that, um, the Mary Magdalene element, which let’s face it, I’m always playing with the black Madonna, I’m always playing with this mythology…the independent woman who is passionate but also compassionate and is being shamed for her sensuality and her power. And I felt that to do it in Spain where Catholicism is still very strong and Catholicism is where, um let’s face it, women were marginalized. So this was really, um, a triumph for me to do this with these women.”

~ Tori Amos on Past the Mission (From Fade to Red)