Challenging the patriarchy with "Boys For Pele" (1996) by Tori Amos, a thread:
The first songs for the third Tori Amos studio release began their life mainly during her "Under The Pink" promotion tour in 1994/95. Approximately 35 songs would be written and recorded, most of which became sought after B-sides. All of them were included on the 2016 reissue.
Various encounters with men and a break-up of an intimate relationship with her previous co-producer Eric Rosse made Amos reconsider her relationship with masculinity. She felt she was never given the same level of adoration and compassion she kept showing men, only jealousy.
She also felt she needed to reevaluate herself outside of the male gaze: "I had to learn that I had to create some kinda space inside myself where I could not only light my fire, but also let it burn, without needing the confirmation of the men in my life."
"Boys For Pele" went on to be Amos's first self-produced record, as she needed "a bid for independence" to properly put the themes together. Its material was recorded in a County Wicklow church (Ireland), a rented house in County Cork (Ireland), and New Orleans (Louisiana, USA).
Recording most of the album in a church was a return to Amos's Catholic upbringing, in order to "bring a fragmented woman back to freedom". It could be read as ironic, considering the fact "Boys For Pele" confronts the Catholic church in its lyrical themes.
Amos said that if she was going to return to her womanhood properly, it was supposed to be done in "a place that did not honor anyone else's truth unless it was the church's truth", to contradict its denial of certain aspects of femininity.
This decision was also beneficial from the technical side, as it granted richness of the acoustics. Tori's sound engineer offered to enclose her with her instruments - piano and harpsichord - in a box. To record the tracks, the artist had to stand up.
On some songs, such as "Beauty Queen / Horses", a Leslie cabinet can be heard in the background when being turned on and off. We can also hear how Tori turns around to change her instrument in the short break during "Caught A Lite Sneeze".
The album consists of 18 songs, four of which - "Beauty Queen", connected with following "Horses", "Mr. Zebra", "Way Down" and "Agent Orange" are interludes leading into particular parts of the album, as located on double vinyl LP.
The number 14 refers to Ancient Egyptian mythology and represents all the parts of Osiris's body that his wife, goddess Isis, had to find to put him back to life.
The story of Osiris related to the artist's personal situation at the time, who felt she was "finding parts and pieces of myself that [she] had never claimed" on the record. This exploration was compared by Tori to "Alice In Wonderland".
Sonically, the album is composed mainly out of piano/harpsichord dominated tunes; the use of harpsichord was supposed to stand for "time that holds secrets". Each of the four parts introduces us to slight difference in the sound, making the emotions fluctuate.
The songs would be conceived in the idea of stealing fire from the men in Amos's life in order to find her own fire as a woman: "The vampire in me came out. You're an emotional vampire, with blood in the corner of your mouth, and you put on matching lipstick so no one knows."
"Boys For Pele" confronts the vision of womanhood in both patriarchal religions of the world and male-female relationships. The first theme had been already explored by Amos on her 1994 track "God".
The protagonist seeks her place as a woman in the male-dominated world, noticing of how destructively absorbant it is of feminine energy: "The feminine part of God has been circumcised out of all religions. ...
... God (is) a patriarchal force, a very masculine energy, with the feminine having been subservient, either being the mother, the lover, the virgin, but never the equal, never to have the whole."
The title of the record would come from Tori's recovery trip to Hawaii, where she learned about a fire and volcano goddess named Pele. Feeling deprived of life forces, Amos went to the Hawaiian north shore to meet a "medicine woman", ...
... with whom she spent time walking along the coast and returning to her sense of self: "I just began to feel the presence of Pele all over the island, even though I know she's not on that island. I just felt this deep little flame start to happen."
The boys in the title represent men in Amos's life as offered to the Hawaiian goddess. "First I wanted to sacrifice all these guys to the volcano goddess and roast them like marshmallows, then I decided they gave me a really wonderful gift", the artist said.
Commenting further, "["Boys For Pele"] is a nice summary of the phenomenon 'men', don't you think? [It] can simply mean worshipping heroes; the boys that show their best in football to impress their idol (...), but it's also a metaphor for 'going to war' (...);
... [it] could then refer to patriotism: men going to war under the leadership of their hero. It's typical, men always admire other men. Girls, on the other hand, also mostly worship men. Something's wrong here."
The title was also supposed to balance the energies of creation and destruction under the intercession of Pele, described by Tori as "either the lovey- doveyest-woviest sweet pea, or a madwoman", respectively.
The cover of the album is a reference to Amos's song "Me And A Gun", included on her debut album, which dealt with the rape at knifepoint she suffered at 21. The pose on the cover is resemblant of Lillian Gish's performance in a 1955 movie "Night of the Hunter".
Tori called the cover "Southern gothic", as she said "there's a hiddenness about the South, and I wanted to go back there because it was similar to how I felt in my relationships with men."
The repeated theme of fire is represented in the piano set on flames.
The hung rooster and the snake at her feet are representations of death and life, respectively. The mud on her legs could represent the dread of the events she underwent, or, more specifically, how the patriarchal system is like unescapable mud.
1) BEAUTY QUEEN / HORSES leads us into the album. The first title refers to the 1:50 interlude in the beginning, which is about "the girl in the moment" beginning her journey of self-rediscovery. Her being a beauty queen was never enough; she needs to redefine herself, ...
... without the constant notion that the only thing that defines her is her beauty. Tori imagined her standing in the bathroom and putting on lipstick while writing the track.
The horses of the second part of the track are coming back to the protagonist from "Winter", another song from Amos's debut album. They do so to help her find her demons, to explore the hidden side of her psyche. The track is escapist in nature, compared by Tori to a lullaby.
2) BLOOD ROSES is a harpsichord-driven track, dealing directly with Tori's break-up. It was partially inspired by a 1989 movie "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover", infamous for its violent, humiliating imagery.
Tori, as a victim of rape, had been feeling as if she needed to surrender in order to be praised in her life. This song was supposed to be an anger-fueled refusal. Lyrics like "sometimes you are nothing but meat" highlight the dreadful feeling of wanting to be dominated ...
... in order to be accepted. Rape victims often blame themselves for allowing their abusers to be dragged down. The character of the song reclaims herself with such lyrics as "You think I'm a queer/I think you're the queer" and "I shaved every place where you've been, boy".
Abusers are projecting their own insecurities and self-inacceptance on their victims, and now she's opening her eyes.
The song is also about how male music journalism works: "It was that feeling of ripping open your vein and going, "This blood has sold millions of records. ...
... This blood can do many things." And the men are like, "Yes, Tori, and this blood isn't enough for us." This treatment could be a reason for the lyric "he likes killing you after you're dead" - Tori, as a female artist, was still demanded more and more personal pain from, ...
... because her art would be appreciated only when it came from this pain; still, the system is hypocritical, as her feelings are then perceived as a gimmick, something to make the record sell well.
3) FATHER LUCIFER was initiated at the traditional Southern ayahuasca ceremonies Tori participated in, apparently meeting the Devil. The song was described as "going to have a cup of tea with Lucifer"; the protagonist gets intimate with a usually daunting persona.
Lucifer is called "father" here, which is contradictory to how the Devil is perceived in Catholicism - generally, it's a term associated with God. The Devil is a synonym for the dark side of one's life; since our heroine wants to explore it, the father of darkness himself ...
... is the best persona to ask for advice. The protagonist refers to the medieval Nordic fable of Devil's Milkmaid, where the maids would be accused of dealing with demons due to their hard work. She is then asking Lucifer "how's your Jesus Christ been hanging", ...
... questioning the sacrifice of Catholic deities in wake of their conflict with the Devil. Further discussed topic with Lucifer is love and overall interhuman relationships - Tori said that "understanding love is the only way you get to [the dark] side of things."
She questions love based on her past relationships and how mutual misunderstandings terminated them. This is refefenced in the line "Does Joe bring flowers to Marilyn's grave?"; Joe DiMaggio would send flowers to Marilyn Monroe's grave for about twenty years until ...
... he was forced to stop because of visitors stealing them. Tori's personal experience of being mistreated is put in the verse "He wiped a tear and threw away the appleseed", referencing to the forbidden fruit of Genesis, usually associated with an apple.
4) PROFESSIONAL WIDOW is widely recognized as a song about Courtney Love, however, it is more possible that it's supposed to criticize the patriarchal family model from the viewpoint of a Lady Macbeth-like figure.
Women are often abused and expected to shrug it off or even desire such treatment ("honey, bring it close to my lips"). Men, on the other hand, have to rely on the toxic masculine standard that demands they sacrifice their wellbeing for a status of a "real man" ...
... ("don't blow those brains yet, we gotta be big, boy"). Such expectations on both sides are passed on from a generation to a generation ("starfucker, just like my daddy, yes"). The aggressive harpsichord melody and upbeat drumming reflect those moods throughout.
In addition, the lyric "Mother Mary, china white" criticizes how women are supposed to be pure and humble, almost as fragile as porcelain, to the point where they resemble a saint figure. Tori wants to go beyond this, to explore the hidden aspect of femininity.
5) MR. ZEBRA leads us into the second part of the album, which is more mellow and nostalgic in its sonical structure. The track features a character called "Ratatouille Strychnine", who symbolizes women that are somehow double agents in their life.
Tired of poisoning everyone in order to defend their sanity, those women are now allowed by Tori to strip it all down. The hidden parts of womanhood are now about to be unveiled; we meet their personal stories to understand why exactly they became who they are.
6) MARIANNE was inspired by a high school friend of Tori, Maryanne Curtis, who would die of drug overdose at 15. The song represents "the death of girlhood". Amos compared the heroine of this track to Mary Magdalene.
"They said Marianne killed herself/And I said, 'not a chance'" is about how myths surrounding Marianne's death arose; people were claiming it was suicide, whilst Tori, familiar with personal situation of the girl, knew perfectly it was just an accident.
In aspect of the Mary Magdalene archetype, it is how women are lied about in the general history of the world; they found all their power in their pain only for others to dismiss it with irrelevant outlooks.
Despite everyone else moving on, Tori still thinks about Marianne's death, as she unites with her in the general mistreatment. Once again, the physical beauty becomes the only value a woman should have in this world ("don't you love the girls, ladies, babes, old hags ...
... who say she was so pretty?"), as if the only reason for Marianne to live was her appearance. Tori sees she also fell in this rabbit hole, that's why she tries to come to terms with her friend's death so desperately.
7) CAUGHT A LITE SNEEZE contrasts with its precedessor due to the upbeat composition. It's about the protagonist desperately trying to keep the relationship going, despite it being obviously over.
The attraction is compared to having a lite sneeze; despite men thinking they are something as longlasting as flu, the feeling is in fact superficial. The relationship is over, just like the sneeze, yet Tori is still holding on to it because she doesn't remember life without it.
Men (described as boys to point out their immaturity) play a big part in her life ("boys on my right side, boys on my left side, boys in the middle"), yet it's still not the man she would like ("and you're not here"). She notices this is a flawed trap and wants to escape.
Fed up with men mishandling her, she "need[s] a big loan from the girl zone", meaning she wants to reach out to women for mutual support. It could also mean that she's rejecting her attraction to men in order to focus on relationships with women.
Chorus mentions Inanna (Ishtar), the Mesopotamian goddess of love and fertility, as well as war and justice. The chant is supposed to bring the goddess's powers to Amos in order to help her make the relationship alive once again.
"Made my own pretty hate machine" references Nine Inch Nails' 1989 debut album, which led the press to rumours about this song being directed at Trent Reznor. The band then honored "Professional Widow" in their 1999 song "Starfuckers, Inc.", a rumoured attack at Courtney Love.
8) MUHAMMAD MY FRIEND is an intimate conversation with the Muslim prophet. It is a direct callout for circumcising the female aspect of God and an attempt to restore it.
The song may shock the listener with the lyric "we both know it was a girl back in Bethlehem", as not many people would actually accept Jesus's message if it was a female deity preaching it.
Despite her being crucified for the humanity's sins, she's still portrayed as a regular being, with Shiseido red lipstick on her lips, drinking tea besides her friends. Jesus led a regular life too, but not many remember this, blinded by his heavenly mission.
Men's contributions to the world are never questioned; when a woman has a salvation plan, it is easily dismissed, as she is expected nothing above average.
Tori then asks Muhammad to "teach [her] how to love [her] brothers who don't know the law", citing worldwide religions' universal rule we should practice love even to those who spread hatred. Those who don't know the law may unbeknowingly do so, because lack of knowledge ...
... results in the law being broken. Tori, a daughter of a minister, had encountered a lot of people who claimed their Christianity yet never really practiced what they preached, relying on false prophets. She could also be calling them out for dismissing the power of womanhood.
Further lyrics mention Moses witnessing God in a form of a burning bush. Amos draws assumptions that he wouldn't be able to handle godly power if it came from a female deity, such as Pele blowing out of a volcano, simply because he could never witness it due to women's erasure.
9) HEY JUPITER came from the lowest moment of Amos's life, when she'd felt like never being able to recover from the break-up because there was no one she could turn to. This grieving is frightening yet freeing at the same time; it is a transition from girlhood to womanhood.
The song would be written after Tori's stay in Arizona during her tour, where she encountered a ghost-like male figure sitting at the end of her bed. She'd follow the singing ghost to the bathroom to take a shower, where its voice united with water and became orchestra-like.
In the steam, the ghost left her a picture on the mirror. The picture was interpreted by Tori as Earth and Jupiter being deeply in love, yet unable to express it due to celestial separation. The song eventually became Earth's love song to Jupiter & an analogy to Tori's feelings.
Her loneliness at the time is reflected in the opening line: she would call 13 numbers but received no answer, being left to drown in her thoughts. She is confused by all the dread and has no way to release it.
She asks her lover, disguised as cold, unattainable Jupiter, whether he's gay (happy) or blue (sad). She thought they would be there for each other at any time, without having to ask such naive questions, yet something shifted and they both have to go their own ways.
The song is a turning point in the story of "Boys For Pele", as it shines a new light on the protagonist's situation and makes her accept that what she was missing for is never coming back. She is ready to move on with a new perspective.
10) WAY DOWN leads us into the third part of the album. Tori is obligated to move on with her feelings into the real life, like a professional. She puts on a mask for the industry and goes "way down", to the underground.
The singer explained she was always fascinated by the story of Persephone and Hades, but on here, she understood Demeter's motherly solitude. This is Tori yet again "traveling to the underworld to find something of yourself."
11) LITTLE AMSTERDAM witnesses the protagonist travel deep into the South - a symbol of the primitive and primal, where one finds out the rules of domination and being dominated.
It's more particularly "a story of a daughter whose mother fell in love with somebody that society didn't think she should", a reversal of the Demeter-Persephone dynamics. It was heavily influenced by how interracial relationships would be treated back in the day in the South.
The narrator is ostracized, telling her mother to "keep [her] head down" in order to avoid trouble. A murder happened, and she tries to convince her mother it wasn't her who was involved in it. She doesn't want return to the South, as the memories of it are prison-like.
She's learned from her mother's story that she needs to escape from this horrible place; the protagonist's (white) mother would fall in love with a black man and be forced to have sex with the Sheriff to make sure he wouldn't do any harm to her lover due to his race.
The narrator is now living in the city, presumably New York City ("Boy, you're my Fifth Avenue"), yet she's still haunted by what happened to her mother. Once a religious girl ("playing the organ in church must count for something"), she returns to her faith in regard to ...
... what's been happening. Her mother got "buried with a butter bean bouquet", presumably killed by the Sheriff who'd been suspicious that she admitted to him raping her. However, he "can't ride away (...) into the sunset" because he got killed as well.
The girl keeps on insisting she wasn't the one who shot him, despite the fact she desired revenge on him. The oppressive hierarchy of South confuses and scares her, and she won't admit anything because of the eye-for-an-eye law that reigns in the area.
12) TALULA is, as Tori described it, "a permission to dance" for the protagonist, almost like a breath of fresh air. The title of this track is a given name, arguably of Native American (of Choctaw language, meaning "leaping water") or Irish (anglicized "Tuilelaith") origin.
The whole song is read like a riddle. The protagonist is numb from all the emotions, tired from meeting her demons. She tries to accept her loss, because if it happened, there must be a certain life lesson in it ("it must be worth losing if it's worth something").
Women of significant historical impact, such as Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn and Mary Magdalene are mentioned, all of whom were at some point defamed misfits. They are now granted a chance to rest from the patriarchy by Tori's invitation to dance.
Amos mentions her own defamation as well in the words "I got my rape hat on". Male critics often accused her of trying to victimize herself in order to be famous. She doesn't want her name to be associated only with her suffering just because men say so.
She wants to be allowed a platform to speak about it, yet she is ready to deny it if it's the only way to define herself in the society.
13) NOT THE RED BARON was "the moment when [Tori] began to have compassion for boys again." It was influenced by the romantic struggles of her road crew: "[they] would let me into this world of boys, where it was safe and I could see it from their side of things."
The song includes an inaudible male voice, supposed to be reminescent of World War I plane pilots. The titular Red Baron was a nickname for Manfred von Richthofen, a German pilot known for about 80 air combat victories.
Tori's sympathy towards men takes an anti-war route on here. On the first verse, she compares their love issues to their plane crashing during military operations. They would be "taken into the flames" while their women were mourning after them.
As Tori put it, "[women are] always connected to Fire, always all of us trying to find our own fire." The second verse references women who would be objectified by the male gaze, like Judy Garland and Jean Harlow; their roles were always centered around men.
Those women also happened to be victims of the so-called beauty industry, making them rely on their looks only. When their physical attributes burned out, all that was left was pain.
The last verse as induced by the image of "these pilots would be taken into the flames with these winged sirens, and they’d wrap them in these beautiful red ribbons. I don’t know where that vision came from, but I was being haunted by the war and the casualties from that war."
14) AGENT ORANGE introduces us to the last part of the album. The title references a harmful herbicide spread over Vietnam during Vietnam War. The hilarious character met in this song is a orange-coloured bodybuilder, a Casanova-like figure.
The protagonist of the album is having a carefree moment there, letting herself go before she expresses her final thoughts. This track is one more, after "Not The Red Baron", reference to war, making its colours transform one into another. This time, the war is a boy/girl matrix.
15) DOUGHNUT SONG is yet another defining moment of claiming one's womanhood. The protagonist understands her ex-lover was never there for mutual support and stops "hanging on to [his] shade" because it makes her disappear ("way beyond the pale").
The line "Two sons, too many able fires" cites the biblical story of Cain and Abel, where two polarizing beings cannot coexist in whole. The power happens to be too much to balance.
16) IN THE SPRINGTIME OF HIS VOODOO is a seductive blues-based song about female sexuality. Tori is pointing out how men often failed to satisfy her, hence the part "he was going to show me spring" - he was going to, but never really did.
Amos begins with a hilarious image of "2 girls, 65 [years old]", whose spirit of youth hasn't been lost over the years. They are recovering Christians, which means they are finally freeing themselves from sexual repression pushed upon them by the Church.
"Swiveling that hip doesn't do the trick" implies that women often are frustrated with men's lack of interest in female sexual dynamics, so they have to rely on their own skills. The protagonist eventually gets involved in masturbation.
Despite men possibly being repulsed by the image of female sexuality that isn't made up by them ("I know she's not that foxy"), Tori says that anyway, "you gotta owe something sometimes".
17) PUTTING THE DAMAGE ON is a brass section led track. The song was written at the end of the "Under The Pink" tour in Australia. It's mainly about realizing that one's life follows certain patterns, especially in interhuman attraction, that keep reappearing without notice.
Tori cannot get rid of the leftovers of her last relationship, and so it subconsciously overshadows what is next to come ("it's just your ghost passing through").
18) TWINKLE is the last song off "Boys For Pele", the moment where the flame starts to go out. Until this moment, it had to be fed. The track ends the album in a lullaby-like mode, closing the circle.
Tori weighed in on the background of this song: "I was on this little island off the coast of Scotland with a couple of my girlfriends. And we kind of fell out - you know how that is when there’s three of you, and two of you want to kill the other one."
The flame of this album became a star, twinkling in the distance. The ex-lover is watching it, but so does a mysterious girl - we aren't sure whether it's the protagonist as described in third person, or some other woman, until the second verse comes in.
We can then assume the girl is in a certain kind of sisterhood with the protagonist. Women are being forced by patriarchy to rivalize, so they don't notice they are of unique value, able to support each other; they both can twinkle and not overshine each other.
"TO PELE, TO THOSE WHO HAVE BROUGHT ME TO PELE,
TO PERSON (A VERY PARTICULAR FAERIE) AND ALL NON PARTICULAR FAERIES

WITH LOVE
TORI"
Possibly on behalf of this whole Twitter corner, I dedicate this thread to our beloved mutual (who I'll keep unnamed), whose love of women musicians and courage to call out misogyny in music industry is gracefully reminescent of this album's themes. Thank you for your service 💙
You can follow @whispertine_.
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