Singer turns the tables by retelling songs from woman's perspective.(The Orlando Sentinel)

The songs that Tori Amos performs on her new album all began as stories about women by men, but it's likely they've never been interpreted quite this way before.

It's not that Amos changed the words. Instead, she twisted the perspective solely by introducing her gender into material ranging from the Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" to Eminem's controversial wife-killing fantasy " `97 Bonnie & Clyde."

The album's title, "Strange Little Girls," is adapted from her cover of "Strange Little Girl," a 1982 single by British punk band the Stranglers. Like the rest of the material, the song is recast from the female viewpoint.

Still, Amos rejects the notion that the project is consumed with man-bashing.

"It's not an `I don't like guys' record," Amos says during a rehearsal break. "I love guys. I'm so close with my crew, and a lot of rock `n' roll crews are men as are a lot of the musicians that you work with. So I've been surrounded by them.

"It just occurred to me that some bridges needed to be built. We were losing our way a bit. Partly, it's because we don't know how each other thinks. Certainly, I didn't know how men saw these songs, and they certainly didn't see how I was seeing it."

In her vision, Neil Young's yearning "Heart of Gold" is transformed into an industrial-tinged paean to corporate climbing; 10cc's glossy "I'm Not in Love" is stripped of the sheen that diminished its denial; and the Velvet Underground's "New Age" emphasizes psychological needs more than carnal conquest.