you for a while

Music and Lyrics by: Tori Amos

Instrumentation: Vocals, Bose, Drums, Bass, Guitars, Mandolin, Mallet Piano, Background Vocals

Brief Summary: In Black Dove, Tori is describing a nightmare, or what it is like to be trapped inside of a nightmare. The music is dark, the lyrics are dark, and things make sense even though they shouldn’t. This song has everything a nightmare has and more. You get the sense that a woman is running away from the dark, scary house by the woods…but yet even more scary things happen to her when she leaves. Tori has said that she asked her musicians to think of a dark scene from Fargo as they played. She wanted to capture what it felt like to be trapped in one of her nightmares.

Tori’s Comments: “My nightmares are so bad that I mostly reject it when my friends want to take me to a cinema to watch a horror movie. Then I say, ‘No, thank you. I will dream in a few hours.’ Sometimes I feel like Hermann Hess’ Steppenwolf…The nightmares agonized me since my childhood.”

Fan Comments/Interpretations: Many fans believe that Black Dove not only describes nightmares, but nightmares had by people who have been abused (i.e. “how a lion becomes a mouse” — by being abused). Other lyrics that point to abuse include “They don’t know you’ve already lived.” In other words, a person can be so young but have been through so much pain that they’ve already lived a lifetime. Or, abuse going on “in that tiny kind of scary house.” Choirgirl being an album born out of Tori’s miscarriages, one astute fan made a connection between the “house” and the womb.

China2Ny’s Comments: Much like Purple People, I believe Black Dove describes what a psychotic person experiences. Oftentimes, people with mental illness live in their nightmares. Thanks to my forum friend Kelli for pointing this connection out to me.