Tori Amos Isn't One To Glaze Over The Truth

Let me start with an apology to anybody who thinks this review of Tori Amos's "Doughnut Song" has any mention of lyrics with words including "glazed" "sprinkles" or "powder". It doesn't. Feel free to "D'oh" like Homer Simpson. To be honest the words in this song are so laced with high drama that you might be compelled to spit out the doughnut you're eating. This is not because Tori is the Mensa scholar of the female singer circuit but because she's got a way here with using her piano to perform the psychological equivalent of stabbing a betraying lover in the heart with a freshly polished steak knife. I focus on "Doughnut Song" because today is Donut Day. Nothing sweet about the swirling thunderstorm of discontent Tori is stirring up. As best I can I'll try to explain what I've gleaned about the opening lyrics to this song. Cliff's Notes might have been a thoughtful gesture but I'm sure the record retailers would've gone painfully in the red. Time to crack the knuckles vigorously, roll up the sleeves and enter the operating theatre with our heroine/Glenn Close wannabe. "Doughnut" the word is mentioned once, count it once in the whole song. The first lines read as follows: "Had me a trick and a kick and your message. Well you'll never gain weight from a doughnut hole." In order to make sense of this obvious throwback to classic poetry a la Emily Dickinson I had to at least a scant bit of fact digging. From what I managed to glean that first sentence alludes to a relationship going sour. The "message" is: "This relationship has become redundant." Any Amosites out there that have "Boys For Pele", the CD "Doughnut Song" comes from are welcome to claim I'm misinformed. The doughnut hole is the empty part of the doughnut so one assumes the hole equals the empty, unsatisfying part of the relationship. Moving on Tori states that: "Then thought that I could decipher your message. There's no one here to. No one at all." What I appreciate about Tori is that she is a confident female singer who uses piano as her other signature instrument. Billy Joel and Elton John have forged their legacies putting the ivories front and center but Tori, to my memory, is the only female singer who opts for this direction. If you lean in closely while Tori plays you can hear her hissed venom in all its fang-based regalia. The air is growing heavy, oversaturated, ready to explode at any time with little advanced notice. She resents her now apparently former lover just strutting away like she was never part of his picture. The gray clouds get meaner and meaner as this violated beast rallies around full recoil mode. And on we go scratching even deeper below the surface with: "And if I'm wasting all your time, this time, maybe you never learned to take. And if I'm hanging on to your shade I guess I'm way beyond the pale." Does Fergie ever get that deep? I mean sure she bangs in the tired reverse role stereotype of "Big girls don't cry" but would she even have the gray matter needed to comprehend "I guess I'm way beyond the pale?" Like I said, Tori's no dummy. Her words sting as much as the rolling boil of notes her piano lays out. The next block of fully realized screech therapy is no less a car wreck you don't want to turn away from. You might want to shake the cobwebs loose after digesting: "And southern men can grow gold, can grow pretty. Blood can be pretty like a delicate man, copper to steel, to a hinge that is faltered, that lets you in, lets you in, lets you in. Something's just keeping you numb." Uh....okey dokey. She and Sylvia Plath would've been thick as thieves. Tori has taken a strong man, and has zeroed in on the pressure points that now have accumulated way too much pressure. I can't speak to the validity of "Blood can be pretty like a delicate man". Biology class left me squeamish at times so I think it can appreciated for keeping me moving down life's weird 'ol highway but let's leave it at that. I respect Tori's commitment to putting poetry on CD. The plot thickens much like blood clots on a minor emergency injury. Further along Tori declares: "You told me last night, you were a sun now with your very own devoted satellite. Happy for you and I am sure that I hate you. Two suns too many, too many able fires. Hey, yes." Basically he's found a new woman to woo the socks off of him, or so it appears. A classic case of "The world now revolves around me." It's with some pleasure that I report Tori turns the tables on her hot to trot ex guy by spitting: "You've been wasting my time, this time." So you see it takes two to snooze in this tired out tango. He claims she wastes his time. She retaliates by insinuating he wasted hers. Nice to hear Tori go on the offensive. If she bored him it certainly wasn't because she's a wordy little vixen. I sense a lot of men would be intimidated by her intellect, kind of the Stallone of brainy bombshells. So to repeat, no glaze, no visions of multiple napkins and maple frosting. "Doughnut Song" is poised to strike the jugular on an upward slope throughout. I wouldn't sink my teeth into this creature on an empty stomach. At least a smartly selected appetizer would keep the karmic wooziness at bay.