Tori Amos “was grieving not playing live” by the time of the UK’s third lockdown.

The 58-year-old singer spent time in the English countryside during the coronavirus pandemic and although she admits to being in a better situation than most people, the lockdown experience eventually took its toll on her.

The American star – who Natashya, 21, with her husband Mark Hawley – shared: “There’s a ferocious beauty to the Cornish coast. There’s the gorgeous beaches, but then there are the crags and the rocks. There’s something gently brutal about it.

“I surrendered to the land at a certain point: OK, I’m in exile here. I can’t get back to the States, because I don’t know if I can get back [into the UK] if I go. If I can’t get back to Mark and Tash, then I’m going to evaporate. Because they are the reason I wake up in the morning.

“By the third lockdown, however, in January of this year, I was not at my best. I was grieving not playing live for the longest time in my life, not doing what musicians do. There isn’t the spiritual ceremony of the collaboration with a live audience.”

Tori found that there was nothing else in her life that could replicate the thrill of playing in front of a live audience.

The ‘Crucify’ hitmaker told the Guardian newspaper: “We’re talking about a voltage that I can’t achieve by myself.

“That was gone, and there was no way to recreate that. The closest thing was to go to the ocean and feel when the tides are coming in and hitting those rocks. Yes, the sea can be calm and gentle, but when the gales are blowing, my goodness – now that’s voltage.

“I became despondent and sad, and filled with loss.”