hey i'm tori amos and to all of you at amazon, i'd like to welcome you into the world of The Beekeeper. may all your stings be sweet.

(sleeps with butterflies plays)

when you speak of roses and thorns, the paradox within one beautiful flower. the marriage of a male and female, the crown of thorns with jesus and mary magdalene being known as the rose. i thought that all of us at some time in our lives experience a sacred marriage of sorts. and i truly wanted there to be in the garden a place for union.

in all of us, there is a love. in all of us, there is another piece. a mirror piece. yes, of course within you have to find your own twin fling within your being. but there is someone, and sometimes it's more than one person, that you go into sacred marriage with. and i explore it in different songs in this record.

(marys of the sea plays)

especially "marys of the sea" which is about her journey out of jerusalem and fleeing. and when she gets to the south of france, she takes on a ministry herself. the gospel of mary magdalene is something that i had heard about but hadn't read until i was much older. my mother, a minister's wife, read it for the first time very, very recently. and she looked up with tears streaming down her face, and she took my hands in hers, and her name is Mary, and said, "darlin', why oh why has this been kept from me my whole life? i'm not someone who isn't exposed to literature, particularly christian literature." my mother was a literature major. and she said, "this is something that has not been available." and i said, "well, i think that is the key question. why 2000 years later would the gospel of mary magdalene be hidden from the masses? not to me that is the greatest story never told. and i explore this greatest story never told in "mary's of the sea".

if we can all begin to start looking more at our lives like a garden. and within a garden it has different shapes. i mean, yours might not be based on a hexagram concept. The Beekeeper is, however, mainly because the cells of the hive itself are based on the principle of the hexagram.

(jamaica inn plays)

from my wisdom and my sort of tree of knowledge to expand, i chose to follow my heart so i followed my husband down to cornwall. welly boots and all. this would not have been my first choice. i enjoyed living in cities, but now..over the last four years there's a different rhythm here. and the weather is very much a character in this theater piece of my life, it's a huge part. and the power of it, when the gales blow in off the cornish coast. there's a song "jamaica inn" that i wrote, as i...didn't get trapped but i was just driving down on a beautiful, quote unquote, beautiful you know it's raining, it's england. and all of a sudden the gales started to come in and my mind started to wonder. and i pulled over on a cliff and i started to think about this story that i'd been told by some of the locals. where the wreckers would come in when a ship would run aground and take everything. and i started to think about this story that was taking over my car at that moment. "jamaica inn" walked into my Saab and she said, "you might not like my story because i'm not gonna tell you how it ends yet, and you need to travel it with me. and we're going to have to explore your deepest fears." and i think my deepest fears come down to betrayal in love, friendship. it's not death, that's not my greatest fear...tragic if it's untimely, but it's going to happen to all of us. what always stops me is betrayal and if i betray someone, that scares me too.

(sweet the sting plays)

elixirs and herbs is a place that the passion that this woman has for her beliefs or the man that she loves, for the direction that humanity is going is very much where she's exploring and allowing herself to not only heal what our wounds, but to allow her wounds to express themselves. and this doesn't always have to be a place of victimization. this sometimes is a place of being able to confront something that's out of balance. and it's an ancient practice that the bee shaman have been working with for thousands of years. they work with a tradition that forces you to look those places that may need to be stung. and there is a song on this record in the herbs and elixirs garden called "sweet the sting". and in order for you or i to gain the sweetness, wisdom does not come without the sting.

(mother revolution plays)

"mother revolution" is core because the album centers very much around this idea that in order for there to be a continuance of life for the next generation and the next generation and the next generation. the songs began to speak about if the masses didnt' choose to listen to the needs of the next generation, then the mothers would need to make a choice. which was were the mothers ok about sending their sons off to a war that they may not believe in. and i began to understand an internal revolution that is more powerful than thousands of soldiers. that there is an artillery of the soul and a resolve that i have seen in a concerned mother. bee masters have spoken about the complexities of the hives that love living in the orchards. i was drawn to it mainly because of the vine and the fruit and the transformation of life.

(ribbons undone plays)

becoming a mother has brought me my greatest teacher...she is four. and we're in communication, we're in harmony, we're in a balance of mother and daughter. not me as the authority, or her as the precocious child that's totally in control - which is true sometimes - but when we're in balance, we're sharing this dance, this sonic dance that the songs have been trying to show me since i was little. but she, through her love of music is beginning to show me and that lives in the orchard along with the tree of knowledge. "ribbons undone" is a song that really i guess explains a mother's love and a father's love for their daughter. they see their little girl running in the fields with her ribbons flying as their like little flashes of lighting that go by. especially when you're in the back field here and you can run and run and run and run and catch butterflies thinking that you can fly like one.

when i was watching tash run and i started to remember something my mother said to me. she told me years ago, we would look in a mirror and she said, "this woman that i see, that you see, this old wrinkled woman is a stranger to me." i said, "you're the most beautiful woman i know." and she said this, "don't get distracted by what i'm telling you." she said, "that is a stranger to me. inside i'm running, inside my legs can carry me. i don't have a heart condition. i'm not someone who is in a wheelchair, i am someone who catches the butterflies in my mind's eye." and when i watched my daughter running, i saw my mother. and i began to understand that this case (gestures to her body) is a distraction sometimes. and it tricks us because it can start making us believe that we are old spirit, not just that the violin case is beat up. but you can begin to believe that the violin has no music to play anymore. and that is where you have to go to the tree of knowledge. and i tasted my mother's wisdom looking in that mirror. and i see her running now. and my mother will always be running next to tash together hand-in-hand, and ribbons undone is something that i hope one day i can see myself running alongside them.

(general joy plays)

the desert garden is very much about the crossroads. it's a place where you must make choices, grave choices. this is where our garden of sinsuality differs from the garden of eden because in a place where the creator is the feminine scribe telling the story, the bard. in our book of genesis, in our "in the beginning", we as women were encouraged to eat from the tree of knowledge because that's how we could help our pride and our tribe. and if we don't, then we will be subservient and unequal to the male and therefore cannot help him and cannot serve the pride.

as a songwriter and someone who chronicles time, um, i had to feel the pulse of what is current. i was able to include "general joy" because i wrote it, um, in july 2004 and recorded it. and it was relevant then and it's relevant again now. we are still at war as of this taping and "general joy" is very much a current figure. or not because there are not alot of general that we would call "general joy". and that's the point. "general joy" has lost his voice and they've been left behind. he needs a soldier girl now that liberty has been gagged.

(the beekeeper plays)

my mom was very ill this year. i was having to realize that i was not willing to let her go at this time. so what do you do? well then you go to the beekeeper, don't you. so, in this song "the beekeeper", i traveled to find the master beekeeper. who is really sort of the master shaman keeping everything together within the gardens. making sure that everything's pollinated, making sure that there is life, making sure that when and if there's disease...that that is extricated from the garden.

i wasn't guaranteed that my mother would survive. but the master beekeeper explained that, of course she will awake. don't you believe in infinity? don't you believe in the shape of infinity. (moves her hand around in the shape of the symbol for infinity) that's the bee's dance. that's what the worker bees do. that is their dance. don't you believe in the mystery of the Magdalene. don't you believe in this lineage of demeter. the endless of cycles of mother and daughter. because wherever she awakes, she's still your mother, even if it's not on this plane. she will always be your mother.

(witness plays)

i don't necessarily see it as barren, the rock garden. and i think the songs take us into a place that i certainly didn't expect. there are little surprises that i find all the time. there's a song called "witness", the gospel choir is on that. we go back to the agnostic gospels...the text talking about being a witness. and did you witness christ's teaching. i started to think about judge and jury. and i started to think about crimes against humanity, against each other. stripping it away to a very personal place of crime. and the gospel choir becomes very much the jury.

(cars and guitars plays)

do you ever start screaming in a car. just having an argument, reliving an argument. "why didn't i say that? why is he so stupid? why can't he understand, mmrruhh!" and you go, what is it gonna take. what language is it going to take to communicate on this issue. so i decided what is the language that this guy understands. so i decided to become a car, one with a stick that he can put his hands on and maneuver. and he can polish my rims. and he can step inside me and feel himself become manly and have a conversation with his car. and then i decided that i could also become a guitar. and he could pick me up and play me and i could listen to what he's trying to say. and if i could just change my shape, we could maybe get through this, because it never was the cars and guitars that came between us.

(parasol plays)

"parasol" is a song about deep betrayal and how this woman survives this experience without becoming victimized in the end. by being able to transform herself and as the song says "if i'm the seated woman with a parasol, i'll be the only one..."

there will always be someone who feels trapped in a situation like the seated woman with the parasol.

(the power of orange knickers plays)

there's a song, "the power of orange knickers", that really kind of explores the idea of the word "terrorist". so, i put on a pair of orange knickers one morning and i decided if i'm going to stalk the idea of a terrorist, without having a picture of what one was, then i'm going to need my orange knickers. and as i started to walk over to the piano, i started to think about words that rhymed with "terrorist". and this song kept drawing me in and drawing me in deeper and deeper and deeper. and it said, yes it's easy to see the enemy if it's in another country. it's easy to see the enemy in another culture. find the enemy in your own culture. then find the enemy in your own being. and she's there. we all have this part of ourselves that will choose to obliterate an idea instead of negotiate with it. because it takes great skill to negotiate with ideas. it doesn't take alot of skill to obliterate, unfortunately.

(begins to play "the power of orange knickers" on the piano during the interview)

it doesn't sound like this on the record. but just alone here with us...the essence is.

(sings)
the power of orange knickers
the power of orange knickers
the power of orange knickers
under my petticoats
the power of listening
to what you don't want me to know
can't somebody tell me now
who is this terrorist
those girls that smile kindly
then rip your life to pieces
can't somebody tell me now
am i alone with this
this little pill in my hand
or with this secret kiss
kiss
am i alone in this
(stops playing)

and it goes on and on. and i began to understand how the opposites, if they don't have an understanding and a respect for one another and hold it into balance then the whole thing begins to bring chaos.

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clips originally available for viewing if you pre-order The Beekeeper (Special Edition) at Amazon.com
video clips captured and encoded by Lin and Riley
clips available for download at turbidblue.com
transcribed by Audrey @ hereinmyhead.com