Songfacts®:

• "Strawberry Moon" is a track from Tori Amos' 18th album, In Times of Dragons. The title refers to the traditional folk name for June's full moon; Amos uses it as a recurring, almost hypnotic chant throughout the song, mixing it with raw thoughts on guilt, secret confessions, and feeling completely lost:
  
  I am confessing
  Not to a priest or confessional box
  Not to a shrink... Strawberry Moon
  Dark force
  I am confessing
• The song plays a central role in In Times of Dragons, an album where Tori channels her frustration with American politics into a dark fairy tale. She told Mojo the record centers on "the struggle for democracy over tyranny," framing it through a fictional world where her alter ego is married to a "demon lizard-king billionaire." Amos said the character was based on real-world political power players operating behind the scenes.
  
  Within that storyline, "Strawberry Moon" serves as a major turning point. Trapped in a toxic marriage, Tori feels a sudden pull toward Lugh of the Long Arm, a figure from Celtic mythology associated with light, skill, and mastery of many crafts. He steps in as her love interest, and this track marks his introduction.
• Rather than falling head over heels right away, Tori is torn apart by doubt and guilt:
  
  I'm questioning me
  I'm changing our life
  Will the stars align?
  
  Tori isn't just falling for someone new, she is questioning the entire foundation of her life. Lugh turns up again later in the album during the "Song of Sorrow," "Flood," and "Pyrite" sequence, which eventually brings them back together as Tori transforms into a dragon. As midlife crises go, it has considerably more mythology than most.
• Tori Amos' real husband, sound engineer Mark Hawley, was unfazed by the storyline. When Mojo asked whether he felt threatened by being replaced in the concept by a lizard-king billionaire, Amos laughed: "Oh, Mark went with it. What unnerved him was the love story with Lugh Of The Long Arm. He said, 'As long as he doesn't show up at our door, we're good."
• Amos co-wrote "Strawberry Moon" with her daughter, Natashya "Tash" Hawley. Co-writing is a rare move for Amos, who traditionally writes alone. Tash has co-writing credits on two other In Times of Dragons tracks: "Veins" and "Stronger Together."
• The three songs Tori wrote with Tash grew out of an informal piano session at the family's home in Florida. Tash, taking a break from her final year of law school, dropped by for a visit. "She flew into our place in Florida and it was so natural," Amos told Mojo. "As the sun set, she drank Aperol spritz and I had a Chard, we sat down at the piano, she pressed record and we wrote 'Veins,' 'Strawberry Moon' and 'Stronger Together.'"
  
  Amos forgot the recording session had happened until months later, when she was struggling with writer's block. "She said, 'Mom, six months ago, we were hanging out and I recorded us just jamming at the piano in Florida,'" she recalled to Rolling Stone. "And I said, in my menopausal mind, 'We were jamming?' She sent me 'Strawberry Moon' and 'Stronger Together.' That gave me the launch."
• Tash is a familiar presence on her mother's records. She made her studio debut as a child on Midwinter Graces (2009), singing backing lines on "Holly, Ivy and Rose" and on Night of Hunters (2011), Tash appeared on "Cactus Practice" and "The Chase."
  
  Unrepentant Geraldines (2014) brought their most substantial collaboration to that point with "Promise," a mother-daughter duet about supporting each other through difficult times. Tash was only 13 when they recorded it.
  
  She later contributed to "Up the Creek" on Native Invader (2017) and supplied backing vocals on "Speaking With Trees" from Ocean to Ocean (2021). By the time In Times of Dragons arrived in 2026, therefore, Tash was hardly a newcomer to the Amos recording studio. What changed was they were her first songwriting credits.