Tori Amos' Rape Survivor Story

"Somebody will come backstage and go, 'You saved me.' And I will have to say, 'Stop right there. You saved yourself'." - Tori Amos

Singer, Tori Amos, describes how she survived the night of her rape.

"I'll never talk about it at this level again but let me ask you. Why have I survived that kind of night, when other women didn't?

How am I alive to tell you this tale when he was ready to slice me up? In the song, I say it was Me and a Gun but it wasn't a gun. It was a knife he had. And the idea was to take me to his friends and cut me up, and he kept telling me that, for hours. And if he hadn't needed more drugs I would have been just one more news report, where you see the parents grieving for their daughter. And I was singing hymns, as I say in the song, because he told me to. I sang to stay alive. Yet I survived that torture, which left me urinating all over myself and left me paralyzed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violation through sex.

I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and that now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability."

Me and A Gun

5 am friday morning thursday night far from sleep
i'm still up and driving can't go home obviously so i just change direction cause they'll soon know where i live
and i wanna live got a full tank and some chips
it was me and a gun and a man on my back
and i sang "holy holy" as he buttoned down his pants
you can laugh it's kinda funny the things you think at times like these

like i haven't seen barbados so i must get out of this
me and a gun and a man on my back
but i haven't seen barbados so i must get out of this
yes i wore a slinky red thing does that mean i should spread
for you your friends your father mr. ed
and i know what this means me and jesus a few years back

used to hang and he said "it's your choice babe, just remember
i don't think you'll be back in three days time so you choose well"
tell me what's right, is my right
to be on my stomach in fred's seville
and do you know carolina where the biscuits are soft and sweet
these things go through your head when there's a man on your back

and you're pushed flat on you stomach it's not a classic cadillac

me and a gun and a man on my back
but i haven't seen barbados so i must get out of this

next:  Marcus' Page
~ all Escaping Hades articles
~ all abuse library articles
~ all articles on abuse issues