Agent Orange

"There’s one called Agent Orange. Naturally, if we're talking about the boy/girl matrix, there's going to be a war zone at some point in our story...and we go into Agent Orange. If we're gonna have a war, we have to bring warfare in. I decided to make him a bodybuilder because that memory has to transmute also - the skin. To become like tango, the idea of tang, or the idea or orangina, an orange muscle secret agent who we long...that song, Agent Orange is the one o'clock cabaret moment, where you're had a couple of amarettos on the rock, and there's just a sadness. But you know that sadness when you know your relationship is over and you're still alive? You know you're not dead. You've got all your body parts. You're all there. You've got a date. He's got a new love...(long dreamy pause)..and you go on with it." -- Tori; Musician, May 1996

"There's certain times when I wanted the listener to just lay there. With Agent Orange, I was hoping you could see this orange-bodied muscle man, and give yourself a giggle so that we'd transform this being from a mutilated skin person to Orangina. It's the idea of becoming Tang - transmuting the chemical effect. You can't forget that happened - you can't forget the warfare. So, of course there's that level. I just had to bring it in. I decided to bring it in as a muscle man." -- Tori; Aquarian Weekly, 02/21/96

Sorry, this song HAS to be about her bodyguard Joel. Especially the "Mister I know the girls on all the world tours" plus the physical description comes pretty close too :)

Agent Orange is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was used from 1961 to 1971, and was by far the most used of the so-called "rainbow herbicides" used during the program. Agent Orange (as well as Agents Purple, Pink and Green) contained dioxins which have caused serious harm to the health of exposed Vietnamese, Australians, Canadians and Americans, as well as their children and grandchildren.

does the "palm oil" hands refer to napalm then? to carry on the bio/chem weapons theme?

I met Tori Amos when she had her bodyguard Joel with her and introduced him to me and the other fans waiting to meet her before her gig in Sheffield when From The Choirgirl Hotel came out. She dragged him over and said, 'THIS is Agent Orange' and they openly joked about his fake orange tan. It definitely makes sense she is talking about him.