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CAUGHT A LITE SNEEZE was the first single and video shot for the album Boys For Pele. The video was directed by Mike Liscombe.
The video carried on the dreamlike, almost hallucinatory quality inherent in the album's artwork. Directed by Mike Liscombe, who was given full creative license from Tori, the video is rich, multi-layered, and, according to Liscombe, "open to many interpretations." He feels that it represents "a surreal spiritual journey" and "the process of finding inner peace with oneself.". Tori says that Liscombe "wanted to take the video into a place that brings together the fight of the soul with the fight of the physical self." This concept manifests itself in recurring sequences of multiple Toris pushing, pulling, and being swept along with another Tori seated in a white armchair that is sliding back and forth along a leaf-strewn wooden floor. The field of vision twists and turns, rotating to show alternately the inside of the room and a vast expanse of water that ends in a waterfall. The cyclical nature of the song itself is perfectly suited to the rhythm of the video which Billboard magazine called "strange," "complicated," and "visually stunning." -- All These Years Biography
At first Caught a Lite Sneeze was going to be filmed in Black & White so that the special effects could work, so it was a nice surprise when Mike the Director said he wanted to give it a go in color. A Ghost. He kept feeling my character was my own ghost trapped between the worlds. Whether a part of me had gone so close to the edge that she went over the edge there by resulting in a death of some kind... I find it funny sometimes that although "Pele" was really playing with emotional death, my character physically dies in 2 of the Pele videos (Sneeze & Jupiter). "Choirgirl" on the other hand, which confronts physical death, has the most energetic --
being physically present -- from Super Girl in Spark, to Running Bride to Rave chick in Raspberry.
When I was studying all the videos with my friend, Tam, I tried to remember my impressions when we were filming. Sneeze was physically demanding, whereas Jackie was the most emotionally challenging.
I remember on the Sneeze set, which was at a studio somewhere in London, having conversations with
Karen and Leslie about parts of "one" dying when in particular relationships. It really took until "Choirgirl" with the inception and then the loss of the baby for me to need spiritually to the two men of whom Sneeze references. Karen & Leslie knew I was s???ing thru the whole video shoot demanding my heart to race across the planet and back into my body -- a theme I came back to time
and again as in "calling for my soul at the corners of the world I know she's playing poker
with the rest of the stragglers." The chair scene here has become a mechanical dragon dragging parts of myself from other parts -- it's a long way from the protective chair in Pretty Good Year.
--Tori, "Tori Stories, her take on the videos" promo booklet
Caught A Lite Sneeze was released in collectible form in the Tori Amos Video Compilation.
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