Cornflake Girl
| "Cornflake Girl" | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cover art for U.S. editions
|
||||||||
| Single by Tori Amos | ||||||||
| from the album Under the Pink | ||||||||
| B-side | "Sister Janet" "Daisy Dead Petals" "Honey" "A Case of You" "If 6 Was 9" "Strange Fruit" "All the Girls Hate Her/Over It (Piano Suite)" | |||||||
| Released | January 10, 1994 (UK) January 17, 1994 (UK limited edition) February 14, 1994 (AUS) May 5, 1994 (US) |
|||||||
| Recorded | May 1993 | |||||||
| Genre | Alternative rock, baroque pop | |||||||
| Length | 5:06 (Album Version) 3:54 (Edit) |
|||||||
| Label | Atlantic, EastWest | |||||||
| Writer(s) | Tori Amos | |||||||
| Producer(s) | Tori Amos, Eric Rosse | |||||||
| Tori Amos singles chronology | ||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
"Cornflake Girl" is a song by American singer–songwriter and musician Tori Amos. It was released as the first single from her second studio album Under the Pink. It was released on January 10, 1994, by EastWest Records in the UK, and on May 5, 1994, by Atlantic Records in North America. Singer Merry Clayton provided backup singing and sang the "man with the golden gun" bridge.
The song reached #4 on the UK singles chart, and was Amos' most successful international hit at the time. In Australia, the song peaked at #19, and was placed at #35 on the radio station Triple J's 1994 Hottest 100 poll. The song was also ranked in Blender magazine's The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born at #433.
The inspiration for "Cornflake Girl" came from a conversation she was having with a long time friend about female genital mutilation on the African continent, specifically how a close female family member would betray the victim by performing the procedure. Tori has said that growing up, the name they gave to girls who would hurt you despite close friendship was "cornflake girls."
The reference to cornflakes and raisins comes from their distribution in a box of breakfast cereal, implying that "raisin girls" are much harder to find than "cornflake girls". Amos has spoken in interviews about being referred to glibly as "the cornflake girl" due to the song's title being applied to her, when she considers herself a "raisin girl". Moreover, she specifically states in the first line of the song: "Never was a cornflake girl." The confusion may be related to her 1985 commercial for Kellogg's Just Right, made before she achieved widespread fame. Just Right includes both raisins and cornflakes, so the song and the cereal are related either through coincidence or intent.
Atlantic released a series of cornflakes boxes with picture of Amos on them to promote this. They are now collector's items.
...
Wikipedia