‘Welcome to England’: Tori Amos’ tale of losing yourself when leaving America behind
One of the most powerful tools for artistic expression is the concept of love. For some, it means navigating the privilege of transition. For others, it means adapting to the perils of compromise, whatever that may entail. A gentle lifestyle change might be enough for some to consider it a definitive act of commitment, while for some, like Tori Amos, it means embarking on something more drastic, like moving to another country.
Uprooting your whole life to pursue someone across the globe isn’t entirely unheard of in today’s world, especially not in the artistic realms. There are countless movies about heroes and heroines throwing out the rulebook and setting up camp somewhere other than their hometown in the name of love, but those narratives are also often brimming with themes of self-discovery and the value of love when it comes to changing everything else you’ve ever known.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin was by no measure an album solely about the challenges faced when in love, but Amos’ intimate parusal of the thoughts, memories, and experiences that define her means that many of these lovelorn intricies infiltrated the corners of bigger statements about loss, relationships, fitting in, and finding yourself when nothing seems familiar. This idea of changing all of your surroundings for one person was then condensed into ‘Welcome to England’, inspired by Amos’ move from America to Cornwall to be with her fiancé.
Writing a song intended to be “positive about a man, and yet ambivalent about a place”, ‘Welcome to England’ details the premise of becoming intertwined with somebody else, with ambiguities that become harder and harder to define as positive or negative, suggesting that by moving to another country, it becomes more difficult to decipher whether life has become about sacrifice or fulfilment. According to Amos, therefore, the general message centres around “how to not lose yourself, when you don’t fit into your lover’s world”.
However, these symptoms of loss and homesickness seem more simplistic than the overwhelm of a sudden change of environment, with Amos leaning into the different “parts” of yourself you may no longer feel connected to in a place that bears no resemblance to home. “There was something, or maybe things, that you didn’t really want to leave behind,” she told Drowned In Sound, adding, “That you do begin to miss. Sometimes, it’s the mountains. Sometimes it’s the earth.”
In the song, it’s not just identity she struggles to reckon with; it’s the promise that everything will be okay because all she needs exists within her. However, these promises fall short, with Amos’ lyrics delving into someone else’s life in ways she doesn’t recognise, with remorse and even resentfulness beginning to creep in at the corners of their seemingly perfect paradise. As she sings, “It’s not a question / If I can
Fight by your side and withstand / Anything, but I forgot / That you said, ‘Girl if you come…'”
Ultimately, it’s an unmistakable slip from promise into disillusionment, with Amos suddenly questioning whether her decision was the right one, and whether the love is enough for her to rediscover home somewhere that feels anything but. Beyond the mere practice of adapting, the song looks at loss in every aspect of her makeup alongside the struggle to regain control, not only of her surroundings but of who she knows herself to be, only in a different light, on a different continent.
