you for a while

Music and Lyrics by: Tori Amos

Instrumentation: Vocals, Acoustic Piano (Bosendorfer), Bass, Guitar

Brief Summary: In addition to telling the tale of one of Tori’s drug trips, Father Lucifer can be distilled down to represent someone’s quest to explore the darker sides of themselves, the sides that they had been too afraid, too busy, or too ashamed to explorer before. But the person in the song realizes that looking at her darkness is important to finding out who she truly is.

Tori’s Comments: (transcribed from VH1’s “Storytellers”) “When I came home (I guess it was at Thanksgiving because I remember a bird and forks going down at the table) when my father said to me: ‘Tori Ellen, I can’t believe you wrote this song about me.’ I said, ‘I write everything about you! What are you surprised about?’ And he said, ‘No, but I’m really hurt by this one.’ And I said, ‘Well, which one is it?” And he said, “Well, you call me Satan.” And I said, “No! I was taking drugs with a South American shaman…and I really did visit the Devil… and I had a journey.’”

Fan Comments/Interpretations: A lot of fans tend to agree with the above conceptualization, although any are drawn to the “girls that eat pizza and never gain weight” line, as it may have something to do with bulimia and a girl’s fight with eating disorder. One person had heard that Father Lucifer is about Trent Reznor, but the jury is still out on that one.

China2Ny’s Comments: I had left the Boys for Pele songbook open on my mom’s piano when I lived at home. My grandmother (who is, on many levels, much like Tori’s grandmother…except mine is more lovable) saw it and asked the meaning of it…wanting to know why her Christian granddaughter was playing a song about Lucifer. I wish I would had known at the time that Father Lucifer was about a drug trip…that would have been a GREAT explanation. But, instead, I told her that, yeah, Tori wanted to go talk to Lucifer to make sure we had his story right, but that she decided to leave…so it was okay. She nodded her head in confusion and quietly turned away.