Tori Amos - Benjamin

Many years have passed since my high school obsession with Tori Amos' Little Earth Quakes and Under the Pink. A few times over the last decades I have occasionally sampled her new releases, but nothing resonated.

Her new album, Native Invader, has pulled me back in. It's rich songs are lyrically compelling, harmonious and based around great drum beats (something I loved in her earlier work). Released in September, it is both timely and timeless. The album weaves environmental, spiritual, indigenous  a and political themes into a dizzying sonic tapestry. There is also an ethereal, pagan vibe coming through many of the lyrics (in my opinion).

The song I want to spotlight is Benjamin. At this point, no one has written a more powerful call to action for protecting the environment agains the onslaught of Trump and his cronies.

"campaigns
funded by
the fossil fuel industry
how many of us
will they own
to give them global mastery

sucking hydrocarbon from the ground
those pimps in Washington
are selling the rape of America
as they attack Juliana"


Here are some insightful quotes from Tori Amos on the topic of the song (taken from Toriphoria):

"I think there is a lot of distraction right now, while things are happening. It shocks me that people are talking about... the erosion that's happening at the Environmental Protection Agency: protecting whom? Protecting what -- the American oligarchs? That's the shocker for me -- what's going on in the courts, Juliana vs United States [a case which inspired the track "Benjamin"], the Water Protectors for Lakota nation -- those things that we only hear snippets about now. The distractions are there. And, look, I know that people in New York are consumed with yet another tweet and, if you're a political journalist, that's fine. You have to be on the front line, you've got to know what's going on, that's your gig. But if your gig is something else and you're not doing that gig because you're being diverted, then you've taken yourself away -- you're not seeing things, you're just a consumer." [The 405 - September 5, 2017] 

"Benjamin" is about the fact that agencies such as the EPA, that's the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of the Environment are supposed to be protecting the natural world but really what's happening is that they are protecting the big oil, energy and sugars companies who have no hesitation about destroying the world. There are people out there, who I call the Benjamins, although they can be male or female, who are trying to show us what is really happening. There are things happening in America behind the scenes that mean we are losing protection for basic things like clean air and water. And really whatever political aisle you align yourself to, or don't, surely we should all be fighting for and entitled to those things, it's very basic." [Boyz - September 13, 2017]