Past the Mission

"'Past the Mission' is about a girl who refuses to be a victim anymore," Tori Amos explained in a 1994 issue of the fan magazine Really Deep Thoughts. "But she has to face a lot of thought patterns to do that. I wrote this when I was reading the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail. It talks about different theories on Christ. It talks a lot about Mary Magdalene. It's an underlying theme about how the church, the mission, has suppressed all this truth down through the years - the Goddess energy. They refer to Mary Magdalene as the Black Madonna. She had this cult following in France. They believe that she came to the shores pregnant. When they say the Holy Grail, they mean the Holy Blood, the Blood Royal in her body, Jesus' baby. And some scholars believe this. The other parts don't necessarily ring right, but there have been these secret societies. That's what I'm talking about also in 'Space Dog.' There are loads of secret societies, this is only one of them."

This is also about the singer's mission to reclaim her life after she was raped at 21, an experience that inspired her earlier tune "Me And A Gun." She told the St Louis Dispatch in 1994: "'Past the Mission' refers to a personal experience with sexual violence, which I had a song about on Little Earthquakes also. So, the remark 'I once knew a hot girl' is painful. Where's she gone? On this record there are songs about the healing from that experience, like 'Baker Baker' ('Make me whole again'), 'Past the Mission,' 'Yes, Anastasia.' The idea is to rescue myself from the role of a victim. That I have a choice left. Though I can't change what has happened, I can choose how to react. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life being bitter and locked up. That's also the thought behind the phrase 'past the mission I smell the roses.'"

This features backing vocals from Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, whom Tori befriended in the early '90s. According to Reznor, their relationship soured due to "some malicious meddling on the part of Courtney Love." Amos also mentions NIN's album Pretty Hate Machine on her Boys For Pele track "Caught A Lite Sneeze."