It all started at Tower Records in 1992 when a CD single of a woman wearing a necklace made of scallions caught my eye.

It had covers of three songs I knew well: “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Angie” and “Thank You”; and two original songs. I was intrigued, thinking who would dare cover Nirvana’s signature song? So, I bought it. Nirvana’s version hid the despair and sadness of the song behind a wall of angry guitars, but Tori’s piano and vocal version stripped it down to the honesty at its core. I was hooked.

One of the original songs, “Crucify,” was the story of my life then (“I’ve been looking for a savior in these dirty streets, looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets.”) I bought the Little Earthquakes CD and played it from start to finish, actively listening.

I first saw her live in August, 1994 in San Jose when she toured for her Under the Pink album. She opened with another cover, The Beatles "She's Leaving Home." Again, the solo piano got immediately to the emotion at the heart of the song. I knew then that the vegetable-necklace impulse purchase was the start of something big.

Thirty-four years later, I have every album, single, download-only bonus track, official live recordings, fan made remixes and even songs on which she sang backing vocals before anyone knew who she was. I have bootlegs of shows I was at, bootlegs of shows I wasn't at and even some bootlegs of bootlegs. I can have a heated discussion with other Tori fans about why the October 2007 live version of "Taxi Ride" in Syracuse, New York is better than the November 2007 Melbourne, Florida version, even though there’s a mistake in the first verse.

By the time Boys for Pele came out, I was fully immersed in the Tori Amos community which intersected a lot with the LGBTQ+ community. We listened to Madonna on the dance floor, then some of us went home alone, put on headphones, and listened to Tori while crying on the bedroom floor.

In April, 2003, I spent my entire tax refund buying a ticket to a charity lunch with Tori Amos put on by a local radio station. It was just her, someone from her record company, and 10 of us. For a week before, I rehearsed what I might say and ask her when we met. “Your music has meant so much to me” sounds cliché. “I want to tell you why I really like 'Virginia'” (the song, not the place) sounds too pretentious. I finally decided that, since Tori always referred to her songs as “girls,” I’d ask if any of them were male.

When the day of the lunch came, all 10 of us were in place in a secret room in a restaurant we’d been told to go to only one day earlier. We made small talk, but the table got immediately quiet when the door opened and in walked a short woman with a hat. It was her! We all glanced, then quickly looked away, trying to be cool.

Tori sat down at the table. She seemed more nervous than us and, of course, who wouldn’t be. Here were 10 strangers who knew way more about her personal life than anyone should, and this was before the days of social media and TMZ.

I was starstruck. Here I was, less than 10 feet from her and probably breathing in some of the same air molecules she had just exhaled. I didn’t want to stare but kept catching myself doing it and jerking my head away. “Please don’t think I’m deranged, Tori, please” I thought to myself.

We went around the table and each of us asked a question. I asked my question but it came out convoluted because I was a blubbering mess. Tori said that the songs were female because they gave birth to themselves, or something like that. The other people at the table asked sane questions, like “what kind of wine do you drink?” and “how do your hands not get tired playing the piano?”

After that, Tori chatted with each of us individually. I have no idea what we talked about. She posed for a photo with me (notice my “deer-in-the-headlights” look), then the record company guy gave me a radio station-only CD of her telling stories about each song on the Scarlet’s Walk album, and tickets to her show that night.

While that lunch shattered the image I had of Tori being a goddess on stage pulling magic out of thin air, it gave me a huge respect for the time, energy and work she puts into her craft while still always being kind to her fans.

The other two times I met her briefly were stage door meet-and-greets, which are controlled, polite, slightly assembly-line events but they were still fun because I got to hang out with other Tori fans. Before Tori comes out, a security guard scans the crowd, comparing faces to a sheet of mugshots of people I assume are required to keep at least 100 feet away. I got my 30 seconds, she signed my CD, I thanked her and left without making it weird.

Today, I admire her tenacity. The music business is unfortunately not kind to older women, yet Tori keeps making music and traveling the world with her piano and family in tow.

My friends sometimes ask me why. Why this artist, why this long, why 30 bootlegs of the same song, why fly to another city for a concert when she's playing 20 miles from my house six weeks later? The honest answer is that I bought that CD single at exactly the moment I needed to hear someone like her, even though I didn't know I needed it. I’ll always be safe and welcome at a Tori Amos concert.

The other answer is that long-term fandom for anything becomes a bit less about the artist and starts being about the version of yourself who was there for each record. “Little Earthquakes” was my early relationships (“doesn’t take much to rip us into pieces”). “Taxi Ride” was losing so many friends to AIDS (“just another light missing in a long taxi line”). “I Can’t See New York” was my NJ friends on 9/11 (“And you said you would find me … even in death”). I listened to “Reindeer King” every day during cancer treatment (“You gotta get you back to you”). Provincetown fits the current political situation (“Grab the lifeline, build a bridge for those left behind”).

And the last song on her most recent album, In Times of Dragons, “23 Peaks” (“you just need to accept that this will be”) is me coming to terms with how different I am now from the guy who bought a CD 34 years ago just because the woman on the cover had a scallion necklace.

John and his husband, Carlos, moved to New Jersey from California in 2021 and are enjoying the suburban life. John can be reached at jsr26 at msn.com.