Wow! Look this! They ran ahead of me!
Tori talks about
Cornflake Girl
“There are many layers of jazz influence in Cornflake Girl. But while I was writing it, I refused to go back and listen to those influences because it had to evolve itself.” [Virginian Pilot - July 27, 1994]
“Originally, Steve Caton, who played mandolins and guitars on the record, came up with this little line on the mandolin, and that was the ‘Ding ding-a ding ding’ with the strumming to it [in the beginning of the song]. Everybody really liked that. And even in the mix studio, I was screaming at the top of my lungs that it had to be a whistle. I want the cowboys coming over the hill. Eric was laughing his head off, and the mixer, Kevin Killen, said to me, ‘This whistle is naff, Tori.’ And I said, ‘Well, guess what, Kevin. When you make your own song, you can put your own mandolin on it. This is a whistle. Fucking put it in. Put the sample in.’ So I got my whistle, and I’m happy as a clam to this day.” [Baltimore Sun - July 1994]
Cornflake Girl. I like that Ghost Riders in the Sky/High Plains Drifter whistling part. Who did that?
“Me. I didn’t whistle, though. We found it in an Apple computer.”
Who’s Rabbit in that song?
“Rabbit is a Deadhead, who lives in Northern California. Rabbit is a girl. She lives in the forest, and makes beads, and she lives with Fox...I wished I could have been Rabbit!”
Tell me about the “man with the golden gun.” Is he a wolf?
“No. Never. He is dreams. He was never a contender, nor did he ever want to be. He is someone who, you know, he is just someone who...” [BAM - March 11, 1994]
“So Cornflake, Bells, and Waitress are a triangle together. Part of this record is dealing with the betrayal of women, between women. These three, Cornflake is, I’ve been reading Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker. It went in depth of just women betraying women, and how the mothers really sold their daughters to the butchers, and had their genitalia removed, et cetera. A lot of memory came to me. Just social memory, not necessarily personal memory - collective memory of how women have turned on each other. And the concept of a sisterhood is not real. I think that hurts me more than most concepts, because the idea that - we’ve been, women have had obviously very little to say in their lives, and it’s been a difficult road. See, I believe in past lives, so I’ve been a man making it hard on women also. Just if we look at it from objective viewpoints, just the history of woman has been very lonely, and when you think that we should support each other, understand each other, that makes sense to me. You would think.” [Baltimore Sun - January 1994]
“After I read Possessing the Secret Of Joy by Alice Walker, about how mothers sold their daughters to the butchers, that kind of floored me. One always feels safer when there are good guys and bad ones. But there are no good guys out there. And its not as if one sex can make it okay. Now with Cornflake Girl, the idea was that I always had this sisterhood and it was just blown to bits. I was betrayed by someone, a girlfriend, who gave me a pretty shitty deal. Her opinion was - I’m a shit - it depends on whose table it is that you’re having arsenic at. I think the disappointment of being betrayed by a woman is way heavier than being betrayed by a man. We expect it from you guys. It hurts, but I’m not shocked.” [The New Review of Records - 1994]
“There’s the Cornflake Girls and the Raisin Girls, and they represent two different ways of thinking: narrow-mindedness and open-mindedness. It’s about the disillusionment that comes from the realization that someone has gone from one way of thinking to another. It’s also about this idea that women are the good guys and men the bad guys, which just isn’t true all the time.” [Upside Down flyer - February 1994]
“In Cornflake, you think, no, this is not really happening - you bet your life it is. It’s a betrayal of women against women, which I really wanted to go into.” [St Louis Dispatch - July 15, 1994]
“It’s been - again, it’s the victims become the abusers, it’s that whole - which is explored in Waitress, too, where I become the one who wants to slice this person’s head off. But the thing is, it’s been, it’s so disappointing for me when I feel betrayed by another woman. So Cornflake Girl is that disappointment. ‘This is not really happening, you bet your life it is. Never was a cornflake girl, thought that was a good solution.’ Cornflake being white bread, closed. ‘Hanging with the raisin girls,’ you know, whole wheat, multicultural, open, a little more going on. ‘She’s gone to the other side, giving us a yo heave ho. Things are getting kind of gross.’ I think that’s clear. ‘And I go at sleepytime, this is not really happening. You bet your life it is.’
“The second verse, it just supports the whole thing. ‘Rabbit, where’d you put the keys, girl?’ Rabbit, in certain Indian traditions, it represents fear. ‘Rabbit, where’d you put the keys, girl? And the man with the golden gun thinks he knows so much.’ Well, those are my God references again. ‘All the sweateaze are gone, gone to the other side, with my encyclopedia. They musta paid her a nice price. She’s putting on her string bean love.’ Anorexic. They just put it on. If you go to their side and take up their case, then you’re a strong, independent woman. Well, you know, I’m tired of strong, independent woman equals. And there’s a list. Instead of - well, hang on a minute, the most interesting word here is vulnerability, that’s getting left out, because it’s associated with weakness. You don’t dress a certain way to be a strong independent woman. It’s fascist, and it’s the same - they’re no different. They’re the other extreme. I don’t feel a part of any kind of sisterhood.” [Baltimore Sun - January 1994]
“It [Alice Walker’s book, Possessing the Secret of Joy] talks about how the mothers took their daughters to the butchers to have their genitals removed. Even though it may be instituted by the patriarchal group in the culture, it’s very telling that the monsters were the ones who took this away from the daughters. When I just started to feel what that made me feel like, I started to really have to deal with my illusion of the sisterhood. I mean, we all like to think that only guys can do something like that, but we [women] can be very, very vicious and we have to be responsible as women for the fact that we’ve got a lot of blame going on. We blame each other, we blame men, we take very little responsibility for what we’ve created.”
“In the book [Possessing the Secret of Joy], it wasn’t the men, it was the mothers, the ones you trusted more than anyone, telling you it’s the best thing for you. It brought an ache to my being. What we as women haven’t really owned is how we withhold from each other - we’ll cut each other out of our lives so fast if we feel our position’s being threatened. We don’t look at how vicious we can be toward each other. You can blame men for eternity, but the blame is not going to give us self empowerment.” [Life - February 7, 1994]
“Again, it’s not about good guys or bad guys. It’s not about this team or that team, although on Cornflake Girl there are the cornflake girls and the raisin girls. And you know I’m a raisin girl.” [Creem - March 1994]
“The fact is that women have betrayed one another. I agree with Alice Walker when she talks about the cellular memory that is passed down, which all women have to come to terms with. Whether it is the women taking the daughters to the butchers to have their genitalia removed, or the mothers that bound the feet of the daughters, it is often women who betray their own kind, not just men. Likewise the mother who sells her eight year old daughter in Egypt, to the Saudi Prince, or, as I said, women who say I shouldn’t express myself as I have chosen to. That’s why I say Cornflake Girl is about how I came to terms with the naive notion that all women are the good guys and men are always the bad guys. That, obviously, is not always the case. I still feel so much love for my women friends, nothing is more sacred to me than that, except my relationship with Eric. So when we turn on each other it has to be devastating.” [Hot Press - February 23, 1994]
“Cornflake Girl is about betrayal between women. It was based on Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy. That book hit me on so many levels, if you know what I mean. I believe that cultural memory is passed down through the genes. Why do I react to certain things that... hey, I just fell off the swing. What’s happening here?” [Creem - March 1994]
“History has recorded some pretty nasty things that have happened to people. I think we remember, I think it’s in our cells and I think it can still hurt sometimes.” [Under the Pink songbook]
“It’s like in Possessing the Secret of Joy, that novel by Alice Walker: cornflake girls are prudish, unconformistic and obedient to authority, whereas raisin girls are original, wilful and sexual. A cornflake girl is Wonder bread, whereas a raisin girl is whole wheat bread. In an American perspective the cornflake girl comes from a redneck-family from the mid-west and the raisin girl would be the product of a multi-racial circle of friends from the big city. It’s of course, like all previous generalizations, a black/white picture. And the whole idea of good girls and bad girls is of course relative. That’s why I like Trading Places, with the homeless moron Eddie Murphy temporarily takes the place of a manager. So much depends on the way you’re living... I must admit, by the way, that long ago, I played the role of a bar pianist in an ad for Cornflakes [actually it was for Kellogg’s Just Right cereal]. I flattered myself with the thought I was the Trojan Horse there: a raisin girl amid cornflake girls.”
“That book [Possessing the Secret of Joy] deals with women betraying each other. You have the Cornflake girls and the Raisin girls and they are two different beings. Cornflake girls are narrowminded and full of prejudice, whereas Raisin Girls are open to everything. My song is about someone who turned from a Cornflake girl to a Raisin girl and think it a disillusion. It’s also about the idea that women are always the good ones and men the bad ones, which is not always true.” [Hitkrant - March 12, 1994]
Never was a cornflake girl
Thought that was a good solution
Hanging with the raisin girls
She's gone to the other side
Giving us a yo-heave-ho
Things are getting kind of grose
And I go at sleepy time
This is not really, this, ah this, ah
This is not really happening
You bet your life it is
You bet your life it is
Honey, you bet your life
Peel out the watchword
Just peel out the watchword
She knows what's going on
Seems we got a cheaper feel now
All the sweeteaze are gone
Gone to the other side
With my encyclopedia
They must've paid her a nice price
She's putting on her string bean love
This is not really, this, ah this, ah
This is not really happening
You bet your life it is
You bet your life it is
Honey, you bet your life
Peel out the watchword
Just peel out the watchword
Never was a cornflake girl
Thought that was a good solution
Rabbit
Where'd you put the keys, girl?
Rabbit
Where'd you put the keys, girl?
Rabbit
Where'd you put the keys?
Rabbit
Where'd you put the keys?
Where'd you put the keys, girl?
And the man with the golden gun
Thinks he knows so much
Thinks he knows so much, yeah
Tori talks about
Cornflake Girl
“There are many layers of jazz influence in Cornflake Girl. But while I was writing it, I refused to go back and listen to those influences because it had to evolve itself.” [Virginian Pilot - July 27, 1994]
“Originally, Steve Caton, who played mandolins and guitars on the record, came up with this little line on the mandolin, and that was the ‘Ding ding-a ding ding’ with the strumming to it [in the beginning of the song]. Everybody really liked that. And even in the mix studio, I was screaming at the top of my lungs that it had to be a whistle. I want the cowboys coming over the hill. Eric was laughing his head off, and the mixer, Kevin Killen, said to me, ‘This whistle is naff, Tori.’ And I said, ‘Well, guess what, Kevin. When you make your own song, you can put your own mandolin on it. This is a whistle. Fucking put it in. Put the sample in.’ So I got my whistle, and I’m happy as a clam to this day.” [Baltimore Sun - July 1994]
Cornflake Girl. I like that Ghost Riders in the Sky/High Plains Drifter whistling part. Who did that?
“Me. I didn’t whistle, though. We found it in an Apple computer.”
Who’s Rabbit in that song?
“Rabbit is a Deadhead, who lives in Northern California. Rabbit is a girl. She lives in the forest, and makes beads, and she lives with Fox...I wished I could have been Rabbit!”
Tell me about the “man with the golden gun.” Is he a wolf?
“No. Never. He is dreams. He was never a contender, nor did he ever want to be. He is someone who, you know, he is just someone who...” [BAM - March 11, 1994]
“So Cornflake, Bells, and Waitress are a triangle together. Part of this record is dealing with the betrayal of women, between women. These three, Cornflake is, I’ve been reading Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker. It went in depth of just women betraying women, and how the mothers really sold their daughters to the butchers, and had their genitalia removed, et cetera. A lot of memory came to me. Just social memory, not necessarily personal memory - collective memory of how women have turned on each other. And the concept of a sisterhood is not real. I think that hurts me more than most concepts, because the idea that - we’ve been, women have had obviously very little to say in their lives, and it’s been a difficult road. See, I believe in past lives, so I’ve been a man making it hard on women also. Just if we look at it from objective viewpoints, just the history of woman has been very lonely, and when you think that we should support each other, understand each other, that makes sense to me. You would think.” [Baltimore Sun - January 1994]
“After I read Possessing the Secret Of Joy by Alice Walker, about how mothers sold their daughters to the butchers, that kind of floored me. One always feels safer when there are good guys and bad ones. But there are no good guys out there. And its not as if one sex can make it okay. Now with Cornflake Girl, the idea was that I always had this sisterhood and it was just blown to bits. I was betrayed by someone, a girlfriend, who gave me a pretty shitty deal. Her opinion was - I’m a shit - it depends on whose table it is that you’re having arsenic at. I think the disappointment of being betrayed by a woman is way heavier than being betrayed by a man. We expect it from you guys. It hurts, but I’m not shocked.” [The New Review of Records - 1994]
“There’s the Cornflake Girls and the Raisin Girls, and they represent two different ways of thinking: narrow-mindedness and open-mindedness. It’s about the disillusionment that comes from the realization that someone has gone from one way of thinking to another. It’s also about this idea that women are the good guys and men the bad guys, which just isn’t true all the time.” [Upside Down flyer - February 1994]“In Cornflake, you think, no, this is not really happening - you bet your life it is. It’s a betrayal of women against women, which I really wanted to go into.” [St Louis Dispatch - July 15, 1994]
“It’s been - again, it’s the victims become the abusers, it’s that whole - which is explored in Waitress, too, where I become the one who wants to slice this person’s head off. But the thing is, it’s been, it’s so disappointing for me when I feel betrayed by another woman. So Cornflake Girl is that disappointment. ‘This is not really happening, you bet your life it is. Never was a cornflake girl, thought that was a good solution.’ Cornflake being white bread, closed. ‘Hanging with the raisin girls,’ you know, whole wheat, multicultural, open, a little more going on. ‘She’s gone to the other side, giving us a yo heave ho. Things are getting kind of gross.’ I think that’s clear. ‘And I go at sleepytime, this is not really happening. You bet your life it is.’
“The second verse, it just supports the whole thing. ‘Rabbit, where’d you put the keys, girl?’ Rabbit, in certain Indian traditions, it represents fear. ‘Rabbit, where’d you put the keys, girl? And the man with the golden gun thinks he knows so much.’ Well, those are my God references again. ‘All the sweateaze are gone, gone to the other side, with my encyclopedia. They musta paid her a nice price. She’s putting on her string bean love.’ Anorexic. They just put it on. If you go to their side and take up their case, then you’re a strong, independent woman. Well, you know, I’m tired of strong, independent woman equals. And there’s a list. Instead of - well, hang on a minute, the most interesting word here is vulnerability, that’s getting left out, because it’s associated with weakness. You don’t dress a certain way to be a strong independent woman. It’s fascist, and it’s the same - they’re no different. They’re the other extreme. I don’t feel a part of any kind of sisterhood.” [Baltimore Sun - January 1994]
“It [Alice Walker’s book, Possessing the Secret of Joy] talks about how the mothers took their daughters to the butchers to have their genitals removed. Even though it may be instituted by the patriarchal group in the culture, it’s very telling that the monsters were the ones who took this away from the daughters. When I just started to feel what that made me feel like, I started to really have to deal with my illusion of the sisterhood. I mean, we all like to think that only guys can do something like that, but we [women] can be very, very vicious and we have to be responsible as women for the fact that we’ve got a lot of blame going on. We blame each other, we blame men, we take very little responsibility for what we’ve created.”
“In the book [Possessing the Secret of Joy], it wasn’t the men, it was the mothers, the ones you trusted more than anyone, telling you it’s the best thing for you. It brought an ache to my being. What we as women haven’t really owned is how we withhold from each other - we’ll cut each other out of our lives so fast if we feel our position’s being threatened. We don’t look at how vicious we can be toward each other. You can blame men for eternity, but the blame is not going to give us self empowerment.” [Life - February 7, 1994]
“Again, it’s not about good guys or bad guys. It’s not about this team or that team, although on Cornflake Girl there are the cornflake girls and the raisin girls. And you know I’m a raisin girl.” [Creem - March 1994]
“The fact is that women have betrayed one another. I agree with Alice Walker when she talks about the cellular memory that is passed down, which all women have to come to terms with. Whether it is the women taking the daughters to the butchers to have their genitalia removed, or the mothers that bound the feet of the daughters, it is often women who betray their own kind, not just men. Likewise the mother who sells her eight year old daughter in Egypt, to the Saudi Prince, or, as I said, women who say I shouldn’t express myself as I have chosen to. That’s why I say Cornflake Girl is about how I came to terms with the naive notion that all women are the good guys and men are always the bad guys. That, obviously, is not always the case. I still feel so much love for my women friends, nothing is more sacred to me than that, except my relationship with Eric. So when we turn on each other it has to be devastating.” [Hot Press - February 23, 1994]
“Cornflake Girl is about betrayal between women. It was based on Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy. That book hit me on so many levels, if you know what I mean. I believe that cultural memory is passed down through the genes. Why do I react to certain things that... hey, I just fell off the swing. What’s happening here?” [Creem - March 1994]
“History has recorded some pretty nasty things that have happened to people. I think we remember, I think it’s in our cells and I think it can still hurt sometimes.” [Under the Pink songbook]
“It’s like in Possessing the Secret of Joy, that novel by Alice Walker: cornflake girls are prudish, unconformistic and obedient to authority, whereas raisin girls are original, wilful and sexual. A cornflake girl is Wonder bread, whereas a raisin girl is whole wheat bread. In an American perspective the cornflake girl comes from a redneck-family from the mid-west and the raisin girl would be the product of a multi-racial circle of friends from the big city. It’s of course, like all previous generalizations, a black/white picture. And the whole idea of good girls and bad girls is of course relative. That’s why I like Trading Places, with the homeless moron Eddie Murphy temporarily takes the place of a manager. So much depends on the way you’re living... I must admit, by the way, that long ago, I played the role of a bar pianist in an ad for Cornflakes [actually it was for Kellogg’s Just Right cereal]. I flattered myself with the thought I was the Trojan Horse there: a raisin girl amid cornflake girls.”“That book [Possessing the Secret of Joy] deals with women betraying each other. You have the Cornflake girls and the Raisin girls and they are two different beings. Cornflake girls are narrowminded and full of prejudice, whereas Raisin Girls are open to everything. My song is about someone who turned from a Cornflake girl to a Raisin girl and think it a disillusion. It’s also about the idea that women are always the good ones and men the bad ones, which is not always true.” [Hitkrant - March 12, 1994]
Never was a cornflake girl
Thought that was a good solution
Hanging with the raisin girls
She's gone to the other side
Giving us a yo-heave-ho
Things are getting kind of grose
And I go at sleepy time
This is not really, this, ah this, ah
This is not really happening
You bet your life it is
You bet your life it is
Honey, you bet your life
Peel out the watchword
Just peel out the watchword
She knows what's going on
Seems we got a cheaper feel now
All the sweeteaze are gone
Gone to the other side
With my encyclopedia
They must've paid her a nice price
She's putting on her string bean love
This is not really, this, ah this, ah
This is not really happening
You bet your life it is
You bet your life it is
Honey, you bet your life
Peel out the watchword
Just peel out the watchword
Never was a cornflake girl
Thought that was a good solution
Rabbit
Where'd you put the keys, girl?
Rabbit
Where'd you put the keys, girl?
Rabbit
Where'd you put the keys?
Rabbit
Where'd you put the keys?
Where'd you put the keys, girl?
And the man with the golden gun
Thinks he knows so much
Thinks he knows so much, yeah
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