you for a while

Music and Lyrics by: Tori Amos

Instrumentation: Vocals, Acoustic Piano (Bosendorfer), Harmonium Organ, Electric Guitar, Mandolin

Brief Summary: Hey Jupiter marks a descent into sadness within the whole Boys for Pele context. Tori admits this song is about a personal relationship (or two) that ended when she wasn’t really ready, the desperation that comes with trying to get the person back,and, ultimately, the depressing realization that they life you had and the life you thought you were going to have are not going to happen. There is a devastating emptiness that accompanies this realization, of which Tori sings so beautifully and heart-wrenchingly in Hey Jupiter.

Tori’s Comments: “On Hey Jupiter, she knows the way she has looked at relationships with men and put them on a pedestal is over. There’s a sense of incredible loss because I knew that I would never be able to see the same way again. It’s freeing, and there’s a sense of grieving with that.”

Fan Comments/Interpretations: As one fan on a song interpretation forum points out, Jupiter (in Roman mythology) is the supreme God. The ruler of them all. Therefore, some have interpreted the “Jupiter” in Tori’s song to represent a man who had complete control over her,mentally and spiritually, and who is now gone…she must learn to pick up the pieces and start herself anew. All in all, most fans agree that Hey Jupiter is about the supreme loneliness you feel after the breakup of a relationship in which the other person comprised your entire life.

China2Ny’s Comments: My favorite song on the album…Hey Jupiter spoke to me in my rough-and-tumble high school days–played it over, and over, and over (the real one, not the Dakota mix, although I’ve got nothing against the Dakota mix).