“Baby, you listen to me like you’ve never listened to me in your life – calmly you are going to have to run for you life . . . he’s going to destroy your insides. I don’t care what you tell him, but get out of there now and call me as soon as you’re outside in your car.” (Dr. Marie Dobyns, per Tori, Piece by Piece)

In which we meet our protagonist. Or, at least, in which Tori does.

Before working on the Great Expectations soundtrack, choirgirl was slated to be a different album. Tori had already experienced the miscarriage that would inspire “Spark,” and was about to embark on the research journey that would inspire “Cruel.”

The rest of the album – the trickle that flows back across the disc from “Pandora’s Aquarium,” stemmed from a second, unexpected miscarriage Tori experienced while recording vocals for what would become “Finn” on the Great Expectations soundtrack.

In her autobiography Piece by Piece Tori recounts the harrowing journey, of not only the miscarriage, but nearly being vivisected by a sadistic doctor and barely escaping with her life and womb intact.

Almost brave. Almost pregnant. Almost in love. “Siren” became the seed of the album – an early touchtone of what it would become. The production aesthetic of “Spark.” A quote of piano from the eventual extended bridge of “i i e e e.” The loss and emptiness of “Playboy Mommy.”

In “Siren” she claims, “you don’t need the light to guide you though this.”

What she meant is that her spark was gone.