General Info

written by Tori Amos

Piano and Vocal: Tori Amos
Bass: George Porter, Jr.
Drums: Carlo Nuccio
Programming: Eric Rosse and Paul McKenna

“The Waitress” is the rock track of Under the Pink with “God.” In the infamous chorus “But I believe in peace, bitch,” her high-pitch turns into an irresistible scream, very far from the way she had ever sung in her other tracks. “It comes pretty naturally,” she told Axcess magazine in February 1994. “I like the way it makes me feel when I say it. It’s really good for me, it’s almost like words have anchors on them and they’ve been weighted down, like in The Piano when the rope is pulling her down. Its just getting out that little blade and cutting that rope, but with words... with thought.”

When she began to play with her own band in 1998 during the Plugged Tour, she rearranged “The Waitress,” giving it an even more straightforward rock approach with distinctive parts for the drums, bass and Caton’s guitar and the 3 minutes and 40 seconds song turned into an over 10 minutes track closing the main set of almost every show this year. Space was also granted to allow Tori to do improvisations in the middle of the track, leading to playful jam battles between her piano and Matt Chamberlain’s drums. She performed the song with this arrangement ever since and made it a live tour de force and a fan favorite, pretty much in the same way “Precious Things” is, although she doesn’t perform “The Waitress” as much as this Little Earthquakes hit track.