Cloud on my Tongue
Music and Lyrics by: Tori Amos
Instrumentation: Vocals, Acoustic Piano, Strings
Brief Summary: Cloud on my Tongue is a pretty cryptic song…a lot of Tori songs are, but most on Under the Pink are pretty figure-out-able. In a long quote taken from The Baltimore Sun circa 1994, Tori explains that Cloud on my Tongue is about a man who wants to hang around and watch someone fall apart–someone who gets their jollies from ruining people’s lives and then watching it. It’s like she’s saying “Nuh-uh, you may have f**ked me up, but you do not get to stay and watch…Leave.”
Tori’s Comments: (from the Under the Pink songbook) “I crawled up in a flower when this one was being written. It was safe there and I wasn’t ready to let this one in too deep…it was already too close.”
Fan Comments/Interpretations: The cool thing about a cryptic Tori song is reading all the fan interpretations. Some think its about a girl who is being used again, and again, and again and is ready to stop the cycle. Others say that Cloud on my Tongue boils down to “feeling silenced.”
China2Ny’s Comments: There is one fan on a song interpretation forum that I completely agreed with…meaning she took what I took from the song before hearing anything Tori or another fan had said about it. I will quote it her…I hope this person (dedgrrlsdance) doesn’t mind:
“The first thing that came to mind was sex. I assumed it was about losing virginity. ‘Over the bridge’ and the sexual meaning of ‘You’re already in there.’ There’s ‘I’ll be wearing your tattoo’ which would be the most beautiful sensual metaphor, i.e. being one with someone–you’re in their skin, they’re inside you. ‘Cloud on my tongue’ seemed to capture some oral sex meaning. ‘Don’t need much to keep me warm’ is being close to someone, in their arms.”
Except I think there is more of a negative tone to this. Tori is recalling all of this stuff, but she’d done with it now (because this might not be the nicest guy in the world) and she wants him out.
I thought it was about the Jews and the holocaust - “cloud on my tongue” being reference to the the gas - the tatoo being their branded tattoo numbers - “circles and circles” being them in the gas chamber not being able to get out.
I’m not a morbid person. In fact I’m quite the opposite, but I know Ms Amos likes to create charaters and make significant messages, often political and historical, in her songs. Thus this is why I thought there was some reference to this.
makes total sense.