Bells For Her

I'm reading a little more into this song than most folks seem to be... to me, it's not just a friendship that's been destroyed, but a life that's about to be.

It seems to me that the singer has grown up with this friend all through childhood and adolescence, and now the friend has gotten involved with someone who is abusive, and it just keeps getting worse.

Abused folks are often dependent, and the phrase "I said you don't need my voice girl you have your own but you never thought it was enough of" strikes me as that... someone who can't speak for themselves and so other perople speak for them, controlling them.

"Sand under his shoes" is a pretty low thing to be, and naturally, when she confronts her friend about it, they fight, "go at each other like blank ettes."

The lively friend she had is gone, so far gone that she appears dead inside... "and now I speak to you are you in there you have her face and her eyes but you are not her"

And the singer is afraid that it's going to end in tragedy. That her friend is either going to suicide or be killed by the abuse. She's like to be able to turn away, I think, but she loves the friend too much.

It's a terrible position to be in: "can't stop loving, can't stop what is on its way, and I see it coming, and it's on its way."

I agree with everyone who's saying it's about two people who were once very close, but a void started to grow between them, something neither could stop. This is the process of losing someone who became a part of you, someone you once shared the same wavelength with. You could finish each other's thoughts, you could feel each other's pain... It's deeper than love. It's a unique connection. Then you are forced to watch as the thread you're connected with slowly tightens and you can't do anything, you're just waiting for it to snap... You make a reach for each other one last time, but the magic is already gone. This is not just losing a friend. A part of you dies with a relationship like that.

"...the main thing about Bells for Her is that there is no resolve, and that's what that whole song was saying. Can't stop what's coming, can't stop what is on its way. All I can do is respond truthfully, and the concept that we'll always be friends, or we can always work it out, I would have bet you that I could have worked anything out with this person. I would have bet my hand I could have worked anything out. I'd be missing a hand right now. It'd be the one-armed Tori tour. I couldn't have foreseen this. And I think, how many people, in marriages or families, and they're going, 'Wait a minute. I'm a rational being. This is a rational being, so we think.' Of course, I'm a little -- I'm partial, but I would have thought, yes, we could work it out. And when it got to in the end 'blankettes,' and the spelling changed, and when I was writing it down, I did it 'blankettes' as in -- well, what it means to me is just blank women, chicks. Yet they were making mudpies and creating and it's void now. And if you talk to people that know her, they think she's a together, great babe. And if you talk to people that know me, I'm a together, great babe. And yet we just couldn't do it. So there is a triangle on this record of the betrayal of women. It's not just that relationship. It's many other things in the other tunes. But Bells is the spirit speaking, not the ego speaking, but the part of me that still loves a friend that for whatever reason you can't make a resolve. You just can't do it. The big lesson in this whole year has been that there isn't a resolve for many things. Life isn't about, well, if I just get to this mountain peak, it's over. There are like 5,000 peaks in the distance." [Tori Amos, The Baltimore Sun, '94]

This song is so haunting. I love the deconstructed piano.

This song is CLEARLY about herself as two women...the strong woman, the weak woman...going at it LIKE SISTERS...BLANKETS (can't find their thread and their bare means one blanket made up of many threads which is one body made up of more than one self) both inner selves failing a man...this is why she wrote CAN'T STOP WHAT'S COMING-CAN'T STOP WHAT'S ON ITS WAY because even her stronger self can't seem to get this solider. Her stronger self is now "sand under his shoe" There is nothing that can be done. If you notice in her live recording, she mentions "Can't Stop Loving You." She sees it coming, that there is nothing she can do.

I've got your mind I said she said I've your voice I said you don't need my voice girl you have your own but you never thought it was enough of so they went years and years like sisters blanket girls always there through that and this there's nothing we cannot ever fix I said

I think all women can relate to this song: there's been a time in our lives where a really close friend suddenly only had time for her boy, and you can't understand how such a strong bond is suddenly weakened by the arrival of a man. It's heartbreaking, and you feel so hopeless because you wanted to be friends forever the way you planned as children, and yet there's this new guy in her life and he takes your place and all you can do is sit back and watch the inevitable.

The song is about friends and how they thought they'd be best friends forever, but now they hate each other because of some betrayal. At one point, the friend wanted to be just like her, hence the "I have your voice line", to which the narrator of the song responds that she is beautiful and individual, and doesn't need to be like her. It sounds like a relationship with a man tore the friends apart, but the narrator has accepted it. However, she's still worried, even though she says they act like "blankettes", I thought that was her way of saying they acted like a word she can't even bring herself to say.... But somehow, she can't stop loving her friend

@Pilla ~ I tried to post a reply directly, but it was a no-go. Anyway, I also thought it could be a song to herself. I read in another forum that Under the Pink is thought of as a 'girls' album in that it deals with the different ways women hurt one another through betrayl and jealousy. I had this idea at one time that the 'two friends' were actually two [or more] opposing sides of herself and the bells signified having to face losing one part of herself for another part. And that the different selves mean so many little intimacies to each other "Bells and footfalls and soldiers and dolls/brothers and lovers she and I were" but that time is changing them. In this way, there is an inner war between these selves. Like one part doesn't think she has a voice, so she wants to use a braver, cover voice, but that the part that is telling the story is saying 'you don't need my voice, girl/ you have your own/but you never thought it was enough of.' And there also seems to be this fear that with the introduction of men some part of her will dissolve, like 'sand under his shoes.' And she 'can't stop what's coming' so she just has to face it and be resigned to it.

to answer a previous question - a nishiki is a type of bike.

i always took this song as a reflection on a friendship. they were always very close friends, but somehow grew apart. because of people and circumstances and just life in general. it has that haunting reflective tone, thinking back to when they were such good friends and now there's a distance.

''you have her face you have her eyes but you are not her" --they've both changed and have gone from being close friends to being strangers.

''can't stop what's coming can't stop what is on its way" --as much as you hate what's happening, you can't stop it. things just sometimes work out this way.

I can't help shake the feeling of childhood friendship ruined by romance and/or sexual experimentation.

It's pretty explicit that they've grown apart but "brothers and lovers she and I were," and "like sisters blanket girls," seem to imply that they were more than just close friends at some point, maybe this lead to them drifting apart. "but you never thought it was enough of" seems to be a half finished thought, letting trail off what the other party didn't think there was enough of.