Black-Dove (January)

I am guessing the song is about the Indians been driven out of Texas in the 1800s by the government,after Texas won their independence over Mexico. I think she could be speaking from the point of view of a scared, Indian female on the brinks of forced assimilation, violence and oppression. I'm guessing... :)

So many parts of this song to love -- abuse is "how a lion becomes a mouse"; a strong child becomes meek and subservient out of fear and degradation.

"You're not a helicopter, you're not a cop-out either, honey" and again when she talks about not needing a spaceship, and "they don't know you've already lived on the other side of the galaxy" -- other kids, other people in general, can sense when something is wrong with a child, even if they can't articulate it. And the other people take that out on the child by treating her differently, like an alien.

Except they can't understand why the kid is so different, usually, and end up just ostracizing her further.

"When I sleep I often have nightmares. I can already hear your readers saying: 'I knew that. The way your songs sound you must really have horrible nightmares.' Just like the one I'm describing in the song Black-Dove on my last album From the Choirgirl Hotel. I see a black dove. I see its face clearly. The dove is transparent, like it is made of ice. I can see my hand through it. An auger goes through it and it is bleeding water. To get the same atmosphere musically I had to describe a scene of the movie Fargo to my musicians. A car is coming towards the camera from a long distance, very slowly. You know it will arrive in a moment. But you hope that this will never happen. My nightmares are so bad, that I mostly reject it when my friends want to take me to a cinema to watch a horror movie. Then I say: 'No, thank you. I will dream in a few hours.' Sometimes I feel like Hermann Hess' Steppenwolf... The nightmares agonized me since my childhood. I am the daughter of a Methodist preacher and as a child I was sexually abused by a friend of the family. I think that the nightmares are telling me things about me I need to know. And I try to understand what they mean. Maybe so I can get to know something more about my soul." [Die Zeit (German newspaper), November 11, 1999]

Well, taken on an abuse level many children escape from the situation, by "going to another place". The nightmares still with them even if it's long been over. And how many people do you know have been abused? More than you think. Since it's usually kept secret. "They don't know you've already lived..." Very sad. Once of my favorites.

This song is so beautiful. I don't care the meaning of it really, it just is amazing. I love tori.

As a child who was molested too; I can relate to this

Yeah, Keyyooo, this does sort of sound like a bad dream. The music has a haunting, magical, otherworldly quality to it. And the lyrics speak for themselves in metaphors and symbolism. But what else can we expect from Tori Amos?

um Hotel-Paper, unless you're using the medical term for a miscarriage (which is "spontaneous abortion"), I think you might be a bit confused--Tori has never had (or at least admitted to having) an abortion.

she has, however, had three miscarriages. the first two happened before she released the album that this song is on, and the third one happened in 1999.

I love that she's read "Steppenwolf" by Herman Hesse! I'm 17 right now, but I was 15 when I read that book, and it was possibly the only thing that kept me going after my suicide attempt. Just reading about someone's loneliness got me through so much bullshit. If there's one thing that I love about myself, it's that I actually enjoy reading. Being a loner kind of gives you time to do that. I mean...there's pros and cons, but for the most part, I'm grateful. I would never give up being able to read "Steppenwolf" lol. It's weird how connected I felt to a fictional middle-aged man's experiences :D

I was going to comment on the song but my whole theory about a girl escaping her painful home life has already been voiced. I'm in total agreement.

I love the line about it not being a cop-out. Running away from a dangerous, emotionally and/or physically abusive situation is not the easy way out. Sometimes it's the only way out, and nobody should feel guilty, cowardly, or weak for taking it.

I also love this line: "You don't need a space ship. They don't know you've already lived on the other side of the galaxy."

It just speaks to the outsider status you find yourself in when you're carrying around a secret like that. If all your life you've dealt with things that nobody could imagine. You're immediately set apart and alone. On another planet.

God this song is fantastic. I have the unpopular opinion of not really liking Tori's previous album, "Boys for Pele," but this one made up for it times ten.

Here's Tori Amos herself describing the song:

When I sleep I often have nightmares. I can already hear your readers saying, "I knew that. The way your songs sound you must really have horrible nightmares." Just like the one I'm describing in the song "Black-Dove" off my last album From the Choirgirl Hotel. I see a black dove. I see its face clearly. The dove is transparent. Like it is made of ice. I can see my hand through it. An auger goes through it and it is bleeding water.

To get the same atmosphere musically, I had to describe a scene of the movie Fargo to my musicians. A car is coming towards the camera from a long distance, very slowly. You know it will arrive in a moment. But you hope that this will never happen. My nightmares are so bad, that I mostly reject it when my friends want to take me to a cinema to watch a horror movie. Then I say, "No, thank you. I will dream in a few hours."

Sometimes I feel like Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf... The nightmares have agonized me since my childhood. I am the daughter of a Methodist preacher and as a child I was sexually abused by a friend of the family. I think the nightmares are telling me things about me I need to know. And I try to understand what they mean. Maybe so I can get to know something more about my soul.