Pretty Good Year

General CommentI got a lettre from a guy named Greg. He's a fan, and this lettre just happened to get to me, because a lot of times I don't get them. But he's from the north of England and he drew this picture, a self-portrait of himself. It was a pencil drawing and Greg had glasses and long hair and he was really, really skinny. He had this drooping flower in his hand. And he wrote to me this lettre that touched me to the core about how at twenty-three, it was all over for him. In his mind, there was nothing. He just couldn't seem to catch the kite by the tail. You know, sometimes you see that kite flying and bloody hell, you just have to grab the tail, bring it down and see what's on the kite. Well, he just couldn't find a way around putting his desires and his visions into anything tangible, except this lettre. Many people today, before they even reach thirty, feel this way-it's a functional exercise waking up, brushing your teeth, going through your day. People have just numbered themselves. I don't know the answer why. I think there are loads of answers. It's not my job to come up with an answer. Nobody wants to hear an answer from me. The point is, what I tried to come up with is the feeling we all feel. Shanking us out of this numbness. I was just telling Greg's story and Greg affected the singer so much that it brought my own stuff into it, and that was kind of a neat surprise.
-Tori Amos

-from the book In Their Own Words:Songwriters Talk About The Creative Process written/compiled by Bill DeMain

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General Comment"Heard the Eternal Footman bought himself a bike to race" - A realisation of time starting to go faster.

This song always struck me as one about a sad, unhappy guy, "pretty good year" is said in a bittersweet tone.

He doesn't want his good days to be over, but they are soon gonna be "sometimes he's aware that they're drawing him in" - time and history are drawing him in, making him lose his youth, and that makes him unhappy.

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General Comment"Whether it bums you out or not, the truth is, all this happened, as much as the first record did. But there are other characters involved a bit more. There are just other beings involved in this one. Like Pretty Good Year, for example, I got a letter from a guy named Greg in England. This one got to me - it missed getting to me for, like, three months. But it just got passed around to different people, and finally somebody just - I was walking through the record label in between the tour up in England, and somebody put it in my bag. They just said, "You know what, Tori? This has been sitting around here. Just take it." And I took this letter, and I opened my bag two days later, and I read it. It was a picture of - he had drawn himself. It was a pencil drawing. Greg has kind of scrawny hair and glasses, and he's very skinny and he held this great big flower. Greg is 23, lives in the north of England, and his life is over, in his mind. I found this a reoccurrence in every country that I went. In that early 20 age, with so many of the guys - more than the girls, they were a bit more, 'Ah, things are just beginning to happen.' The guys, it was finished. The best parts of their life were done. The tragedy of that for me, just seeing that over and over again, got to me so much that I wrote Pretty Good Year. You don't really know what my role is. Am I Lucy, or am I that eight bars of grunge that comes out near the end where I express, and then nothing, everything else is Greg's story? I found that kind of really fun. The emotion is coming from somebody else's story. And yet it touched me so that I could sing it."

"...in New Mexico, where I went to write, and record, this album, was that at one point I was spraying Pledge polish in a cupboard and I inhaled it and I got a lung infection which meant I couldn't speak, or sing, for three weeks. And I really thought my voice was damaged forever and had to do voice lessons on the phone, with this voice teacher to try and get the natural corisone back on the cords. I was thinking 'what if I never sing again?' Then I'd say 'if I can't sing what's the point in being alive, is this person worth anything at all?' And there were moments where the only answer to that question was 'no'. Then i'd give in to the self-pity that comes out in the song PGY, and in the lyric 'They say you were something in those formative years'.
[Tori Amos, Hot Press, 02/32/94]

"mountain biking became a major event in my life for a week, the mud was so thick on the tires we got there just in time to feel the mountain thaw, the sound when these two merged was something like 'thclulpleekooh' i said on an intake of breath with no lips moving and no throat usage, i like this word and i liked the idea of the eternal footman saying 'asta' on a mountain bike"
[Tori Amos, Under The Pink Songbook]

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General Commentthat's true breakfast...you couldn't burn cds in 1994

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General CommentI once asked Tori after a concert what she meant by "Greggy writes letters and burns his CDs," and she told me, "Why don't you burn one and see what you get?"

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General CommentThis is a classic example of a song that has been changed by technology.

These days everyone burns CDs on their computer, when it was written the only way to burn a CD was to throw it on a fire.

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General Commentthis song gives me closure - i don't know how to describe it. tori is amazing.

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General Commentbeen watching the video lately .... what a fantastic song !

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My InterpretationThe interpretations written so far are pretty much my thoughts as well. I always thought Greg was someone who was perpetually alone, maybe the 'bullied' kid in school, and the letters were his way of reaching beyond and out of something that he is so stuck far inside. I originally wondered too if it was a fan letter that she had received as well.

'Greg he writes letters with his birthday pen, sometimes he's aware that they're drawing him in" - 'drawing him in' means a few things. Mostly, that other people are etching him into their minds in a place that is probably misunderstood and casts a shadow. It also means that he is aware maybe that they are affecting his spirit and pushing him farther into isolation. "Pretty good year", to me, is a way of probably downplaying a not-so-good year, but one that may have been better than other much worse ones. The choice of the word "pretty" is irony, and very on point as far as description goes.

And two perspectives are sung - "what's it going to take till my baby's alright" is sung from someone else who loves him - likely his mother, who wishes to protect him, but obviously can't or isn't capable of for probably a number of reasons.

I often wonder too if Greg had SAD? I can relate to most of this song because it seems to reflect of my own experiences as a teenager and into my early 20s. Every decade has its own soundtrack.

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General Commenthold onto nothing... wow what a sad thing to think about. having nothing to hold onto when falling

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