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"I think she's absolutely magic."
Neil Gaiman knows a bit about magic. The Englishman is the author of The
Sandman, a monthly graphic series that is among the most successful - and fanatically followed - titles in
the history of DC Comics. He also writes novels, film scripts, and is involved in projects with Alice Cooper
and Lou Reed that you'll be hearing more about. He also turned up as a character in a song by a certain red-headed
Sandman reader.
"Whenever I do signings," he tells me, "people give me presents. I get a lot of tapes. Most of
the demos are awful. When you're handed the umpteenth Scandinavian death-rock tape - four Swedes gloomily accompanying
themselves on bass and harmonium, going [sings in mock Sweedish accent] `Morpheooos, Lort uff dreams! Comm down frum
the heavoons!' - your enthusiasm tends to wane. "Occasionally there are pleasant surprises. At the San Diego comic
convention in '91, I was given a tape and told I was mentioned in one of the songs. There was just a slip of paper
with this name I'd never heard, Tori Amos, and an address. When I finally got around listening to it three weeks
later, I was gobsmacked, a colloquial English expression denoting amazement. It was stunning and terrific
and wonderful. I immediately sat down and wrote her a fan letter."
Not surprisingly, considering their
creative similarities, a genuine friendship has developed. Tori contributed an introduction to Neil's
recently-published hardcover edition of Death : The High Cost of Living. Bits of Amos lyrics - Neil quite
cheerfully admits, whole clumps of her dialogue - have been known to creep into The Sandman. Some claim
that the Sandman character Delirium has evolved a more-than-passing resemblance to the singer. "As a live
performer she's stunning." Neil marvels. "I mean she sits there and she fucks the piano stool!" Wondering
where her performance style comes from, I tell him that I'm not sure I can imagine five-year-old piano prodigy
Tori humping her way through Bartok at the Peabody Conservatory. "Terrifyingly enough, I can," he laughs.
"One of the things that's most delightful about her is the wonderful combination
of the precocious five-year-old and the fucking the piano stool. "The show that sticks in my memory was her
first big concert in London when Little Earthquakes came out. Halfway through the set a drunk started acting
up in the audience. `Show us yer legs' and that kind of stuff. "She just stopped playing, turned around and focused
on the guy in the audience. She smiled and said `What's your name?' He grumbled something and she said, `You have
to understand, I've been playing cocktail piano for 15 years. I deal with guys like you every night.'
At which point the rest of the audience were ready to take the guy out and hang him if she so much as gave
the word. But she just smiled at him. `This song's for you,' she said, and went into `Leather.'" "Look,
I'm standing naked before you Don't you want more than my sex?" "It was the most elegant handling of a heckler
I've ever seen.
"To create anything approaching real art, there's a certain amount of nakedness involved.
The willingness to bare more of your soul than is comfortable for you or the audience. She allows herself
to say things that most people wouldn't dare say."
-- Neil on Tori, Creem; March 1994
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