Winter

this is by far my favorite tori amos song. she starts out in the song as a young girl who adores her father, and he tells her that she needs to be her own person and follow her dreams. she tells him that she "always want him near" and he gently tells her that "things change." he predicts what happens in the second verse. she grows up and gets wrapped up in her life, trying to make her father proud of her. but she soon forgets about the dreams they shared and starts living for herself. she loses the vision of the "crystal palace" and only sees herself. this takes its toll and she then remembers the words of her father. "grey hair" symbolizes her father's age...and the dreams that they shared are still on the shelf, untouched and unlived. she talks to him and discovers that while he wanted her to be proud of him...it was what he wanted from him all these years. it is my belief that the father dies. the "white horses" symbolize heavenly angels, and in the first part of the song, they are still in bed, sleeping...waiting. then at the end, they've "gone ahead." this plainly means that they've taken him with them. this is a lamentation on the wasted years that occured. things did change, so fast...and they lost themselves in their search for the other's approval. in the first chorus, the father says "when you gonna love you as much as i do" and in the second chorus, the daughter says this. this leans toward the idea that they were both wrapped up in their own life at one point. and lastly, in her grief, tori states at the end "never change" in reflection of the wasted years. (i realize all of this information is jumbled up, however, i feel i have a few valid points).