you for a while

Raspberry Swirl

Lyrics, Music, and Commentary by Tori Amos

I guess you could say that Raspberry Swirl was a piss take of my dance career.  Um, this really was, you could say, a collaboration that Karen Bens had with the director team.  She brought them in and we really wanted to have a bit of fun with the whole kind of E culture that had been going around and how when you go into clubs sometimes you don’t even recognize yourself–you become a different person.

And I sort of liked the hallucination, the aspect of poking a hole through your own idea of who you are.  So the casting, of course, was pretty essential to this.  And, um, Karen was quite rigid about what the casting should be.  And I’ve always loved the fact that she’ll say to me over and over again, “Come on girl, we have to represent the children.”  And I’ve always loved her for that.  She was, um, very much involved in the New York dance scene in the late 70s early 80s and so, um, you know she’s really kind of established as far as um, you know, what is thought of maybe, um, she’s thought of it before I could even think of it.  So I really wanted her to be able to take this with her styling abilities.

And the little boy…again, I love the idea that he’s trying to show the grown-ups a different extacy.  Um, you know, having endulged myself in jello and deciding its not really my kind of ecstasy, I found it funny that these little redheads, who he’s kind of shown her are her, um, are reduced into becoming pigs because, you know, overindulgence does make you a pig whether its with dessert ecstasy or other.  And, um, we’ve all overindulged, haven’t we?

~ Tori Amos on Raspberry Swirl (from Fade to Red)