| Tori Amos – 500 Miles Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I think that much like "Not Dying Today" is about Tori's bond with her bandmates while touring the world, "500 Miles" is about she and her husband during that same time. That as much as she's with "the boys" on the tour, her husband is there, and she loves him, and they share that time together as husband and wife just the same. His walking 300 miles to bring her bread is a gesture of affection, possibly one she dismisses slightly at first, but finds he "breaks" her of her dismissive attitude. The second verse / middle section is a series of "snapshots" they see along the way, culminating with a big fight "In the Land of the Midnight Sun." She "lost herself" during that fight -- she was in the wrong. So to make up for it when she realizes it, she walked 300 miles to bring HIM bread this time. "In love, some gifts are simple, others I underrated." She didn't hold so much stock in his offering until she herself realized the simple gesture means a lot. So they'll wake the next day, and they'll deal with their rough patch like "any lovers must." "Blueness pales within a flames lust" A small flame will have a bit of blue in the center, but as it grows, the blueness pales. The fire comes back, they make up. She worries they might break, or even brake, but just the same they ride on, in lovers communion. The brake/break wordplay is interesting. I think it relates to several elements of the song -- the breaking of bread, of course -- their lover's communion. But also the idea that he could break her again, that their love could break again, or even brake -- stop completely. |
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| Joan Armatrading – Save Me Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Right there with you. I'd known her song "Love and Affection" for a while before that, but that scene and the expert use of this song is what got me into Joan Armatrading. | |
| Charlotte Martin – The Dance Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Charlotte said when this album came out that this song was inspired, I presume in part, by the book, "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" by Sue Monk Kidd. Certainly puts an interesting angle on things. | |
| Joni Mitchell – Edith and The Kingpin Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I don't see Edith as a moll, per se. I think she's a girl at a disco that the kingpin is instantly drawn to, in a way that he perhaps never was before. He's so fixated on her that it arouses jealousy out of the 'passed-over girls,' who are fully aware of who he is and what he does. They go to Edith and tell her about the kingpin, probably to intimidate her. That gives me the impression that she doesn't know who he is. "Women he has taken grow old too soon" - These women know who he is and probably end up more interested in the lifestyle he lives (money, clothes, jewelry, etc) so no sooner than they start dating, he suddenly finds he's taking care of them at every turn. There's something different about Edith. I think we're left to wonder if she was the love of his life or if she's just another girl who may 'grow old too soon.' Ditto to all the comments about this record, it is one of her finest, start to finish! |
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| Joni Mitchell – Dreamland Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| A vacation to central or South America that I'd guess she took in the dead of winter. | |
| Tori Amos – Digital Ghost Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I think it's simpler than that, if for no other reason than that there was a time when I felt like the person she was singing about. I was very depressed at one point and had kind of pulled into myself and disappeared in my own little world, and a few friends were making several attempts to reach me, to help me, to get in, but I wasn't letting anyone in, and I had to 'take a closer look at what it is that's really haunting you' in order to get out of it. The 'digital ghost'--ghosts in the machine--is as close as she can get to the person, and she has to trust the part she has access to that this will turn around, only she's afraid they won't be the same the change doesn't start soon. She probably wrapped it in computer terminology to set the stage, but at the core I think it's a song about trying to reach someone who is keeping themselves so untouchable that their personality is changing for the worse. |
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| Tori Amos – Curtain Call Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I get the impression this one is probably one of the most personal autobiographical songs she's written in recent years. I think the song is largely about her relationship with record labels, the affect it can have on a person, their perception of themselves. The "blown it/blown them all" references seem to be me to be references to her career. By the time Tori was 25, Y Kant Tori read was a huge failure -- she'd gone and blown it. There was an interview when Strange Little Girls came out, where she said that with each album release, Atlantic wanted the album to sound more like it's predecessor. And despite Tori's obvious worldwide success, she has never been what you might call "loved" by the radio and video gods, at least not since the LE days. Record labels always want a single, but in America she hasn't had many singles that did well in the mainstream. In spite of not being the most radio-friendly artist (in the US) Tori has continuously sold millions of albums, embarked upon extremely successful tours in the US and worldwide. She's done incredibly well for herself considering the treatment the labels have given her as well as the lack of radio success. And yet, she faced a lot of opposition from her labels for just about everything she wanted to do. In these respects, by the time Tori was 35, as far as Atlantic was concerned, she's "gone and blown them all" -- all her chances to be completely commercially successful. She's done incredibly well, but her best was never good enough for the labels, so even though she's figuratively climbed the Great Wall of China with her career, they're telling her she's irrelevant, and to take her curtain call. "They closed China's Wall" seems to suggest, again, that her accomplishments (her climbing the wall) are invalid as far as the label is concerned. She speaks in second person, almost as though she's advising someone. Upcoming artists, women, warning them. Now she's done what she's done, and it has the ultimate consequence -- this could be a reference to her leaving Atlantic, or signing with either Sony or Universal, and finding perhaps the same or more opposition. I think it could also be a reference to surgery, and the adverse effect it may have had on her voice, her psyche, her self-image, as well as perhaps thinking "If I do this, then they'll give me the attention they should," and then finding it not so. It still wasn't good enough. "This is not business, no, it's more like spiritual" could be what she told herself to do what it is that she did, but this time she's learned, and is protecting herself, as parasol said. |
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| Tori Amos – Curtain Call Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Also, following From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998, age 35), she released "To Venus and Back" -- the beginning of her exit strategy, because each disc of that album counted as an "album" in terms of her contract agreements. This was also the reason for "Strange Little Girls" -- an album of covers would fulfill her contract obligation without her having to give them control of her any more of her new songs. This could also connect to the "right on cue, just act surprised..." because she knew they would let her go easily. |
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| Tori Amos – Mrs. Jesus Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I've come to really love this song recently. I think it's definitely Mary Magdalene, and the references are definitely Biblical. BUT -- Tori is a huge Beatles and Led Zeppelin fan. I think it took everything she had to not put the song in the liner notes the way shedontcare wrote it. Look at the Zeppelin line: "Even as I'm climbing up the stairs, I know there's Heaven there" listen to the flutes there...that's clearly a musical reference to Stairway. She's telling a story that has nothing to do, most would agree, with either group, but she happens to love them, so those are likely nods, including the LET IT BE. :-) |
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