I moved to CA with many dreams that all died a miserable death . This song made me feel like someone understood the pain of broken dreams . Reading the responses… this wasn’t only about leaving somewhere. I’ve fought cancer from 2018 until now 2022 still working wondering what the point of this is .
"I never make records alone, I make them with teams of people. But I compose alone. And that's a very lonely process, although the songs are rich and depend on themselves. But in order to conjure them, I have to go through something in order to translate them. It can be excruciating. Mark will say, "I do not envy you. I used to envy you being able to write all these songs. It's trying to translate and understand them and feel all this feeling." With "Maybe California" I was just blue for weeks, because I allow the mothers and the feeling of wanting to remove yourself from a situation to take over my life. I had an experience that sort of made me hold that feeling. And I think sometimes to be a good composer you do walk a very dangerous line of having to feel things emotionally. If you're not a composer and just a player you don't have to take it there. But you have to excavate the unconscious to go to these dark caves and sometimes I know that Mark's there on the other side with his motorcycle and a hand that says, "You need to get outta here and jump on the back, I'm taking you out of this." [Wiener - May 2009]
This song got me through tough times... I remember the CO... I remember playing this in my car trying to fall asleep... New cars eh... Well my ex made me buy new...
I used to smile a lot more when I was younger. At the age of 54, I am wiser, more experienced, and I have big sorrows in my heart. But I do still smile inside. :)
It's interesting that singing this song with her makes it feel like a prayer or a chant. It invokes so much: despair, hopelessness, sadness, and HOPE. beautiful.
@48luv I live in LA too. If it helps, know there is someone here, who doesn't even know you and she is saying, "Don't jump." This city is hard, its kicks my ass all of the time, in ways that astound me. But there are others like you here. We may not know you but we are pulling for you.
When I first came online in 1998 there were text-only chat rooms. I met a group of people around the world in a chat room. We quickly became friends. I used to laugh with an American woman and her two kids. Then one morning I got an email. She had killed herself and left messages for her chat friends. She thanked me for the laughter and wished that she could have met me years before. I was devastated, so much so that her mother contacted me. I never even saw her picture or heard her voice. This song still chokes me and brings those memories back. I only knew her as “Homebody” of Lycos News Chat Room.
"The song is about the mother's role in our new world, where so many men are losing their jobs and the women are not, because they're cheaper. What is that doing to a home? If the mothers start breaking down then everything starts breaking down. It's one thing to have young college girls cutting themselves, and that's tragic -- I talk about that in "Ophelia." The idea that the mothers could really be contemplating jumping off a bridge or a cliff -- that's coming out of a reality where a man is defined by being successful because he's a provider, and that's being taken away from so many homes. He's left there being stripped of this. And she can't give him that back. Wives and mothers live to make it better, and wives can't make this better. Some of them would come up to me and say, "If I just try harder, or if I just jump off that bridge, then they'll have to give him his job back as he'll be a single parent." The things people would stop me with in a coffee shop, or in the street over my time of travelling. I would say, "Stop, do you know what you're saying?" It began to hit me because we've all been in that place where you think, "If I just take myself out of the equation" -- it may not be suicide -- but "if I keep on driving and get out of their life then it will be okay." It is an escape but at the time when you don't feel like there's anything you can do, and maybe if you're out of the way it could get better. Because there's no solution. This is a political statement. In "Maybe California" it needs to be told from the personal. [Polari - May 9, 2009]"
As much hate as this songs has among the Tori community, it is probably one of the most connected songs I have. My mother was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer on 11/4/08 and was given less than a year to live. My family had just adopted a 4yr old and a 3yr old a year prior. After extensive chemo and radiation, mom made it through. She did it with a fight but she was mentally hurt and exhausted. I remember on Christmas day of 2008, I found her crying because she couldn't cook Christmas dinner and had to rely on everyone else. She was bald from the chemo. She said she didn't know where to go from where she was. GREAT depression. Today, she called me to wish me a Happy Easter. She is still alive, and a true statistical miracle based on her illness. I promised her before anything happened to her, I would whisk her away to California or somewhere she would like to go. So, for the haters of the song, know that this actually means something to someone else. I am so glad she played it for me in Atlanta back in 2011 on the Night of Hunters Tour.
I really did not like it very much, but hat right now, right here- Moment, makes me well up everytime. I feel for your mom, I hand B-Cancer in 2014 and even if you make it out, you still lose a lot of yourself and the other people often think you should be fine by now, because you´re not visibly sick anymore. They say it makes you stronger and maybe it does, but it also leaves you much more fragile. Big Hugs to your Mom!
Thank you for sharing this. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 days after turning 36. After surgery I spent nine months going through an aggressive chemo treatment that quickly stripped me of more than I had imagined. It was a physical, emotional, and spiritual toll that challenges you in every way.
"I think a lot of people have come close to feeling like she does in the song, and when that song came to me, it was at a time when I was seeing mothers -- not just one -- ask the question that if they weren't there anymore, would it just be the better answer for the family? And when I started to really understand the gravity of what that meant... because these aren't women who are crazy; these are just women pushed to a point that can't fix the tragedies that happen to families, where they've lost everything and can't put their kids through college and the husband's lost the job, and it goes on... I was traveling a lot during the middle of making Abnormally Attracted to Sin, and there were a couple of different phases of the writing, and there is a phase when songs like "Ophelia," "Maybe California," and "Starling," where there is great suffering, and it's hard to sometimes find that strength when no one is stepping in and offering you that hand at that time. You wonder what is it that's going to step in? And for me, it's always the songs that step in, so this song was influenced by watching women getting so close to jumping over the edge and having to come to terms with that, and looking in my own life, sometimes you have to look -- how close are we all? I think some of us... it just depends on the day. I think you'd like to think that you're a bit further away. Then maybe she found herself on the road that day." [Buzzine - July 2009]
Me = huge fan. My mom = not so much. When I first heard this song, she had just finished chemo and radiation due to small-cell lung cancer. She is still in remission after 18 months :) Anyways, she went through an incredible depression (as a mother, as a wife, etc) and I played this for her. We held each other and cried. To this day, she listened to this song on occasion and it will *always* be special to our hearts. Love ya, mom.
It's probably not her best video, but still the song is very touching and empowering. It's a very important track. I believe that sometimes a song can save you, this is one of those songs that can save your life. Yes, she did a botox or something with her face and that was not a good idea but anyway, no matter what she looks like, she is and will always be a big and great artist. An artist that through her music touch people hearts and heal people.
She was my first concert. It was 96, I believe. In Sacramento. My ex-aunt took me and two of my cousins. My aunt and I are the only two that are actual fans and love her music SO much.
so strange but i love this song, my favorite of hers and i'm not quite sure why. some songs just really get to you and this is one of them. they make you feel different emotions and i love it
i listen to this song when i get sad. i live in LA and have thought many times of jumping off one of those cliffs or off the santa monica pier to end it all..
Tori is so versatile and the most original artist ever. She will always be the coolest rock chick. I wanted to see her musical "light princess". I hope the show tours. Or she makes a film of the Light Princess. If not, I'll just listen to her songs and feel deliriously happy to hear the work of an amazing lady who is beyond genius. ❤❤❤❤🌞🎈
I’ve been a Tori fan since “Little Earthquakes “- then when I heard “Y Tori Kant Read “ I having a real hard time relating to her recent work , the last album of work “ Scarlets Walk “ was the most amazing to hear - but since that , and I know there has been many albums - I haven’t heard anything I can relate too - I will always be a fan , met her twice , she is a really beautiful person , gave me a hug both times .... 💜
To me it’s the most beautiful song on this record...so wtf you taking about? However...I guess I’ll never understand all those so called critics or even human beings at all! Stay safe and healthy
Cheeseplant7 - You took the words from my mouth! I am not a fan of her new music, I used to attend every concert when she came to town and bought every CD she produced (even singles) ... no longer a fan of her new music but, BECAUSE if her early works, I respect her and she remains my favourite singer/song writer!
@olivethis thank u my friend. i have been very depressed for weeks now, and all today i have been contemplating suicide. LA really is a hard town to live in. I feel lost and totally invisible here. It is nice to know there is someone kind out there that cares....x
@loreleileediamond So what if she had plastic surgery? She can do what she wants, she's an empowered woman and her body is hers to do what she wants with. Isn't it about the music anyway? People will change their looks and ideas as they grow, it's just life.
Hey Jupiter, Jackie's Strength, Gold Dust and Maybe California are some of the most beautifully written songs you'll ever hear
I moved to CA with many dreams that all died a miserable death . This song made me feel like someone understood the pain of broken dreams .
Reading the responses… this wasn’t only about leaving somewhere. I’ve fought cancer from 2018 until now 2022 still working wondering what the point of this is .
"I never make records alone, I make them with teams of people. But I compose alone. And that's a very lonely process, although the songs are rich and depend on themselves. But in order to conjure them, I have to go through something in order to translate them. It can be excruciating. Mark will say, "I do not envy you. I used to envy you being able to write all these songs. It's trying to translate and understand them and feel all this feeling." With "Maybe California" I was just blue for weeks, because I allow the mothers and the feeling of wanting to remove yourself from a situation to take over my life. I had an experience that sort of made me hold that feeling. And I think sometimes to be a good composer you do walk a very dangerous line of having to feel things emotionally. If you're not a composer and just a player you don't have to take it there. But you have to excavate the unconscious to go to these dark caves and sometimes I know that Mark's there on the other side with his motorcycle and a hand that says, "You need to get outta here and jump on the back, I'm taking you out of this." [Wiener - May 2009]
That was me when my wife and kids left me... Many times this song was played... When love is crushed so is my soul...
Have a seat...
This song got me through tough times... I remember the CO... I remember playing this in my car trying to fall asleep... New cars eh... Well my ex made me buy new...
The world needs more songs like this.
I used to smile a lot more when I was younger. At the age of 54, I am wiser, more experienced, and I have big sorrows in my heart. But I do still smile inside. :)
😭😭😭😭
The lyrics are heartwrenching. The song is sad but true, and achingly beautiful.
This Tori, she picks me up...even her most somber songs. She is a part of my soul. The music I mean. I can
It's interesting that singing this song with her makes it feel like a prayer or a chant. It invokes so much: despair, hopelessness, sadness, and HOPE. beautiful.
@48luv
I live in LA too. If it helps, know there is someone here, who doesn't even know you and she is saying, "Don't jump." This city is hard, its kicks my ass all of the time, in ways that astound me. But there are others like you here. We may not know you but we are pulling for you.
This song kills me in the best way.
Tori's music always brings back bittersweet memories
It is her version of the blues. I love her voice and her piano playing.
I cannot listen to this on without tearing up. I feel you all. Stay strong. Keep you head up. Life is worth living!
When I first came online in 1998 there were text-only chat rooms. I met a group of people around the world in a chat room. We quickly became friends. I used to laugh with an American woman and her two kids. Then one morning I got an email. She had killed herself and left messages for her chat friends. She thanked me for the laughter and wished that she could have met me years before. I was devastated, so much so that her mother contacted me. I never even saw her picture or heard her voice. This song still chokes me and brings those memories back. I only knew her as “Homebody” of Lycos News Chat Room.
This song would give me strength and I would hear it on loop when I was pregnant with my second and getting separated at the same time.
"The song is about the mother's role in our new world, where so many men are losing their jobs and the women are not, because they're cheaper. What is that doing to a home? If the mothers start breaking down then everything starts breaking down. It's one thing to have young college girls cutting themselves, and that's tragic -- I talk about that in "Ophelia." The idea that the mothers could really be contemplating jumping off a bridge or a cliff -- that's coming out of a reality where a man is defined by being successful because he's a provider, and that's being taken away from so many homes. He's left there being stripped of this. And she can't give him that back. Wives and mothers live to make it better, and wives can't make this better.
Some of them would come up to me and say, "If I just try harder, or if I just jump off that bridge, then they'll have to give him his job back as he'll be a single parent." The things people would stop me with in a coffee shop, or in the street over my time of travelling. I would say, "Stop, do you know what you're saying?" It began to hit me because we've all been in that place where you think, "If I just take myself out of the equation" -- it may not be suicide -- but "if I keep on driving and get out of their life then it will be okay." It is an escape but at the time when you don't feel like there's anything you can do, and maybe if you're out of the way it could get better. Because there's no solution. This is a political statement. In "Maybe California" it needs to be told from the personal. [Polari - May 9, 2009]"
As much hate as this songs has among the Tori community, it is probably one of the most connected songs I have.
My mother was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer on 11/4/08 and was given less than a year to live. My family had just adopted a 4yr old and a 3yr old a year prior. After extensive chemo and radiation, mom made it through. She did it with a fight but she was mentally hurt and exhausted. I remember on Christmas day of 2008, I found her crying because she couldn't cook Christmas dinner and had to rely on everyone else. She was bald from the chemo. She said she didn't know where to go from where she was. GREAT depression.
Today, she called me to wish me a Happy Easter. She is still alive, and a true statistical miracle based on her illness. I promised her before anything happened to her, I would whisk her away to California or somewhere she would like to go.
So, for the haters of the song, know that this actually means something to someone else. I am so glad she played it for me in Atlanta back in 2011 on the Night of Hunters Tour.
I really did not like it very much, but hat right now, right here- Moment, makes me well up everytime. I feel for your mom, I hand B-Cancer in 2014 and even if you make it out, you still lose a lot of yourself and the other people often think you should be fine by now, because you´re not visibly sick anymore. They say it makes you stronger and maybe it does, but it also leaves you much more fragile. Big Hugs to your Mom!
Thank you for sharing this. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 days after turning 36. After surgery I spent nine months going through an aggressive chemo treatment that quickly stripped me of more than I had imagined. It was a physical, emotional, and spiritual toll that challenges you in every way.
so much luv to your momma
It's unbelievable to me how REAL Tori fans can hate this. Maybe they don't have the California spirit of being absolutely FREE.....
why don't people like it?
Tori... Thank you for your beautiful music.... This song was on repeat in a very difficult time
Beautiful song and video it’s breathtaking 💛🖤🤍🧡💙💚🤎💜❤💗💗💗💗
she is gold
"I think a lot of people have come close to feeling like she does in the song, and when that song came to me, it was at a time when I was seeing mothers -- not just one -- ask the question that if they weren't there anymore, would it just be the better answer for the family? And when I started to really understand the gravity of what that meant... because these aren't women who are crazy; these are just women pushed to a point that can't fix the tragedies that happen to families, where they've lost everything and can't put their kids through college and the husband's lost the job, and it goes on... I was traveling a lot during the middle of making Abnormally Attracted to Sin, and there were a couple of different phases of the writing, and there is a phase when songs like "Ophelia," "Maybe California," and "Starling," where there is great suffering, and it's hard to sometimes find that strength when no one is stepping in and offering you that hand at that time. You wonder what is it that's going to step in? And for me, it's always the songs that step in, so this song was influenced by watching women getting so close to jumping over the edge and having to come to terms with that, and looking in my own life, sometimes you have to look -- how close are we all? I think some of us... it just depends on the day. I think you'd like to think that you're a bit further away. Then maybe she found herself on the road that day." [Buzzine - July 2009]
This song always make me emotional..in many ways..love tori :)
Me = huge fan. My mom = not so much. When I first heard this song, she had just finished chemo and radiation due to small-cell lung cancer. She is still in remission after 18 months :) Anyways, she went through an incredible depression (as a mother, as a wife, etc) and I played this for her. We held each other and cried. To this day, she listened to this song on occasion and it will *always* be special to our hearts. Love ya, mom.
Empowering someone who feels their most powerless.
It's probably not her best video, but still the song is very touching and empowering. It's a very important track. I believe that sometimes a song can save you, this is one of those songs that can save your life. Yes, she did a botox or something with her face and that was not a good idea but anyway, no matter what she looks like, she is and will always be a big and great artist. An artist that through her music touch people hearts and heal people.
OMG why she doesnt concert more often...such an inspiration...such talent!!!
Love your voice Tori Amos!!
She was my first concert. It was 96, I believe. In Sacramento. My ex-aunt took me and two of my cousins. My aunt and I are the only two that are actual fans and love her music SO much.
so strange but i love this song, my favorite of hers and i'm not quite sure why. some songs just really get to you and this is one of them. they make you feel different emotions and i love it
i listen to this song when i get sad. i live in LA and have thought many times of jumping off one of those cliffs or off the santa monica pier to end it all..
Did it get better? 💗
Tori is so versatile and the most original artist ever. She will always be the coolest rock chick. I wanted to see her musical "light princess". I hope the show tours. Or she makes a film of the Light Princess. If not, I'll just listen to her songs and feel deliriously happy to hear the work of an amazing lady who is beyond genius. ❤❤❤❤🌞🎈
Love the song!Tori is just great!
She sure is!
She writes what she thimksand how she exactly feels n that's y I like all her music! from 80-prexently
Love this video, very nostalgic for me
Thank you Tori.
This some always makes me cry, so tender and compassionate
*Tear*
I’ve been a Tori fan since “Little Earthquakes “- then when I heard “Y Tori Kant Read “ I having a real hard time relating to her recent work , the last album of work “ Scarlets Walk “ was the most amazing to hear - but since that , and I know there has been many albums - I haven’t heard anything I can relate too - I will always be a fan , met her twice , she is a really beautiful person , gave me a hug both times .... 💜
Love this song!
From Russia with love
I love this song so much.
To me it’s the most beautiful song on this record...so wtf you taking about? However...I guess I’ll never understand all those so called critics or even human beings at all! Stay safe and healthy
Cheeseplant7 - You took the words from my mouth! I am not a fan of her new music, I used to attend every concert when she came to town and bought every CD she produced (even singles) ... no longer a fan of her new music but, BECAUSE if her early works, I respect her and she remains my favourite singer/song writer!
You're missing out on Native invader...
The Beekeper and Night Of Hunters are very good albums... huh...
@@bookowl1775 quite liked all of them to be honest.. Beekeeper being my lease favourite
I luv this song
If Tori knew her Vevo channel was showing Justin Beiber and Nicki Minaj ads, she's kick some ass!
hey, mrs.c please don't jump, why nothing is making sense anymore to me..i don't know when i stop making him smile...
Breaks my heart
Beautiful song, Beautiful Tori ...Suicide is not painless !!
Amazing ❤️
love the cello.
Amazing song, my fav. of hers.
Looooooove it. one of her best
wow...talking about striking a nerve. whoa.
Lost people in los ... Well... With all there voices they sit back... Let's see angels in los angel...
Ondine on the beach!
beautifull song..thank u for sharing!
Beautiful lady
Awesome
Love, love, love !
@frugalmumma
I appreciate ur kind words my friends that left me comments. u r very sweet and thoughtful to think of me. xx
I'vw never seen nothing worst!
lovely :)
@Little_Effy: Happy Easter kid! 🙋❤️
Nothing says empathy for the working mother like walking around california in thousand dollar haute couture.
@@kristymakeshift6260 yes, thank you.
@olivethis thank u my friend. i have been very depressed for weeks now, and all today i have been contemplating suicide. LA really is a hard town to live in. I feel lost and totally invisible here. It is nice to know there is someone kind out there that cares....x
how are you doing now? nothing but love to you ❤️
♡
❤❤👍👍фром Раша
@48luv "please don't jump".
Super 8
@loreleileediamond So what if she had plastic surgery? She can do what she wants, she's an empowered woman and her body is hers to do what she wants with. Isn't it about the music anyway? People will change their looks and ideas as they grow, it's just life.
GOOOD GAWWD :( ;'( "Maybe Californiaaa....." :(
@noclassatall I was desperate when I wrote this comment... Because I love Tori So much...
Howdy!
An aging woman's battle with whether to continue in life, or commit suicide and leave her children
What's this song about?
Tori Amos :the greatest Kate Bush aprentice of all.
Age.
@Chn0ck serusly??? hate hate hate
I ask...
/watch?v=HZUhwfrBdjY
I'f you love Tori Amos ^^
@loreleileediamond A husband who makes you feel ugly might do it
@malodavido u just lost the meaning of this song :(
and yeh the visualetes might be kinda boring but who cares the songs are amazing :D
I come here from a DevilDriver video.
Now I'm traumatized....
I love Tori...But she is so desperate.