Tori Amos: The Enchanted Forest (Con't)

"But aside from writing a radio-friendly track or two, Amos made few artistic concessions. venus is as beautiful and weird as anything in her oeuvre, full of all-over-the-map song structures and elusive melodies that take several listens before they lodge into your consciousness. And on a lyrical level, it's as inscrutable as ever. A line from "Bliss" reads, "A hot kachina who wants into mine / Take it with your terracide." Then there's the love vs. lust debate "Concertina": "I got my fuzz all tipped to play / I got a dub on your Tori Amos

landscape / Then there's your policy of trancing the sauce without the blame.'" The eight-minute-plus "Datura," named for a potentially lethal hallucinogen, is a florid, distorted list of herbs that Amos grows in her garden. The elegiac "Juarez," dedicated to the hundreds of working women murdered in the Mexican border town of its title, is written from the point of view of the desert. It may be Britney and Ricky's world, but Amos refuses to slum in it.

Unlike such thematic records as Little Earthquakes (sexual trauma) and Boys for Pele (bad breakups), venus is hard to peg. Amos claims there is an underlying concept. "It's a shape. It's circular," she says, launching into a very-Tori explication. "And it's not like you take a trip-it's more, like, in constant orbit. And I like the idea that there's this camera that orbits around the heart and sees things she can't see-yet. And then they form themselves into songs and they can work as a reflector, and then she can hear it through that image but not necessarily as the camera sees it.

"She" being...? "'She' being the character," Amos responds, as if all of this should be quite obvious. "What's hidden behind the heart fascinates me. I'm fascinated by everything that isn't said."

The woman who would once begin interviews by launching into the emotional repercussions of her 1997 miscarriage now prefers to talk about her life mainly in the context of the Work. "I think my marriage has changed me a lot," she says. "I don't really throw myself into situations like I used to. I would just go and observe as I was writing this record, and observing makes you write different things."

Amos and Hawley were married last year in a traditional Church of England ceremony. It was perhaps the ultimate act of insurrection for a woman who said she would never get married because she "didn't want the church in my bedroom." The choice, Amos says, "was instinctive. Going to a justice of the peace doesn't do anything for me. It wasn't about marrying into belief. It felt very legal, and it was how people got married hundreds of years ago." Amos narrows her eyes, and her voice gets flinty. "You know, I didn't get married trying to defend anybody's history. And I don't feel like it's fair that people analyze why I made my choices."

It would be a valid point, were it not for Amos' own tendency-no matter how well-intentioned-to lean toward the pedantic. She is very sweet about it, but her conversation can sometimes make you feel like you're taking an impromptu course in spirituality. "How do you get to your own source?" she asks, rhetorically. "There's no ticket you can buy. There are books you can read, but the truth is, only you have an access-all-areas pass to your realm."

The more impenetrable her lyrics become, the more distance she puts between herself and her cult, the more obsessed fans become with cracking her code. Amos has transformed from humble empathizer to diviner of truth, one who feels that the People That Come to the Shows need her to enlighten them, that she can take them someplace better if they follow her music's metaphorical map. And many of them now relate to her the way housewives relate to Oprah: Disciples studying at the feet of a secular leader who has read all the right books and found a higher wisdom. Amos would rather liken it to being a "pied piper."

"I enjoy being inspiring," she says. "There is no drug that's like that-when somebody comes up to you and opens their heart up. There is no drug."

Pat Kochie is explaining her "Birth Ritual." First she bakes the doll heads in her oven as she plays the Amos song "Mother." Then, when they're hard, she puts on "whatever feels appropriate." Visiting Kochie today is her friend Shana Young, a 20-year-old singer/songwriter she befriended after hearing her do some Tori covers in a local bar. A shy, soft-spoken woman who looks like Claire Danes, Young says she's surprised Kochie took to her, given "how particular Tori fans can be about people covering her songs." As Kochie plays Young's demo tape of original music, the singer curls up into a ball, hiding her head in her hands as her voice blares from the speakers: "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!"

"Tori's been a real inspiration," Young whispers. "Before her, I wasn't so comfortable with my anger.

"Kochie plans to give the demo to Amos at her next show. Even now, weeks before the concert, Kochie is wracked with anxiety about getting an access-all-areas pass. She says she was given the all-clear to visit after a recent Amos show, then drove for hours only to endure many security-guard rebuffs before working her way backstage. "It wrecked it for me to go through that," Kochie says. "You really would expect to get a little respect, but I guess it's too much to hope for."

Other fans are much more philosophical, seeing their role in Amos' dilemma. They realize there is only so much of her to go around. Really Deep Thoughts' Caldwell thinks that "Tori, if allowed, would spend more time than she can afford talking to her fans. She has a staff that she trusts to draw the line. She may not always agree with their decisions, but she understands that someone else needs to make that call."

"I don't have any illusion about what my responsibility is," Amos says. "I understand that when you write emotional work, it can bring things up, and I genuinely have time for people when they are opening that heart-space." But what is her responsibility really? Has she taken on more of a burden than anyone could manage? Are her fans too dependent? Or is this still one of the best relationships rock's got going?

TORI AMOS STRIDES THROUGH THE LOBBY OF HER SWANK NOTTING HILL HOTEL, ready for an interview-inspired trip to London's Serpentine Gallery. As driver Dave waits outside in the car, her twentysomething personal assistant hovers over her, breaking down her morning itinerary like a protective mom. When Dave drops her off at the entrance to London's Hyde Park (no cars allowed), he cautions her to be careful.

Amos leads the way through an array of trails leading to the Serpentine, a squat, unassuming brick building tucked away in the middle of the green. Amos is amazed she can even find it, though she used to spend entire days in Hyde Park when she lived in London in the early '90s. She laughingly admits she is disoriented and worries she'll never remember where Dave is parked. She just doesn't walk around alone much anymore.

Inside the gallery, she moves impatiently from one postmodern piece to the next, stopping only to study a canvas filled with rows of gray ovals. "I love gray," she says, sighing. "I really feel like I live my life in shades of gray."

True, she wants to be regarded as more than a cult artist but has reservations about making her music more commercial. She wants to stay approachable but has grown fiercely protective of her privacy. And she realizes she needs her fans as much as they need her. "The side of me that wants to be liked, my husband knows her, my friends know her, but you can't expect..." Her voice trails off.

"You know, it literally makes me weep when I see artists looking for love from the public," she says. "You just can't expect it. Everybody's looking for love-even when they're acting like they don't need it."

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