"Mother" interpretations

[Julie14]

edit: {pics removed by daturaangel812, they were linked to hereinmyhead.com}



MOTHER go go go go out of the nest it's
time to go go go now circus girl without a safety net
here here now don't cry you raised your hand for
the assignment tuck those ribbons under your
helmet be a good solider first my left food then
my right behind the OTHER pantyhose running
in the cold mother the car is here somebody leave
the light on green limousine for the redhead
DANCING dancing girl and when I dance for him
somebody leave the light on just incase I like the
dancing I can remember where I come from I
walked in to your dream and now I've forgotten
how to dream my own dream you are the CLEVER
one aren't you brides in veils for you we told you
all of our secrets all but one so don't you even try
the phone has been disconnected dripping with
blood and with time and with your advice poison
me against the MOON I escape into your escape
in to our very favorite fearscape it's across the sky
and across my heart and I cross my legs oh my
god first my left foot then my right behind the
other breadcrumbs lost under the snow . . .

Tori's description of "Mother":
"Mother was written at 6:30, 7:00 in the morning. We were on a futon in the little place I had at the time in Hollywood, and I got up really early and started meandering on the piano. I meandered for about 25 minutes and I started to get this ... [hums the intro to Mother] ... and I hear this voice from the futon, 'What's that!' And I said, 'Oh, it's shit. Forget about it.' And he yells, 'Play it again!' What happens with each one is that there will be a word that comes with the melody. Then a bridge section will start to work and I'll know it wants to be there. And then maybe I can't figure anything else out so I'll put it aside. Three months later, I'm walking down the street and I'll come up with four notes, and that's what I'm going to build the next section on. Do you write your ideas down on paper before putting them aside? Well, I'm not very good at writing things down sometimes. Maybe it'll be on the back of an envelope, a bill, a magazine, or I might record it on a ghetto blaster."
"Mother came on a bit like a dream sleep. It was early morning when I made the way to the piano. I knew that 'they' were trying to show me something. A memory of 'the fall.' Not the one we've been taught, but the other side of the story, which is the belief of certain ancient mythologies. Mother changed me because I began to remember, where I believe, we come from."
...Tori Amos

My interpretation of "Mother":
I guess in a way I feel like "Mother" is about not being the precious little angel girl that mother wants you to be. It's a bit confusing to me though.

[♥Mary♥]

my interpretation of Mother...

I look in the mirror.

lol

[marianastacia]

¢¾honeybeegoddess said:

my interpretation of Mother...

I look in the mirror.

lol

LOL I bet your two little angels must be quite a handful

[♥Mary♥]

marianastacia said:

LOL I bet your two little angels must be quite a handful

Ahh, yes, thanks....They are! ....and worth every minute of it.

But what I actually meant is I feel very much like the circus girl w/out a safety net.......not that i'm the mother....LOL

[marianastacia]

oooops my bad

[♥Mary♥]

marianastacia said:

oooops my bad

no prob! lol

[behindmyeyes658]

Wow...I don't know where to even begin with "Mother."
Back when I was first introduced to TOri, and I only owned the LE album, Mother was my favorite. From the day I first heard it and discovered Tori, it was really like a second birth--or rather, like breathing life into a dormant part of my soul. After struggling Silent for "all these years" it was the greatest epiophany of my life.

Mother is--for me--about not just leaving "the nest" of the world I'd been socialized into, but in actually GOING somewhere with it. I'd known for, well my whole life, that I didn't belong to "their world"--but without a direction or a specific world to belong to, I was the Epitemy(spelling?!) of a "Circus girl without a safety net"
However, I couldn't hepl but feel as if I was somehow on assignment--like I had no excuse for cryin, because I had chosen this life--and the feeling of "tuck[ing] those ribbons under [my] helmet" and being a "good soldier" described exactly the pressure I'd been under for years.

The parallel I found in this song was really the feeling of being in a concentration camp, ya know? like Nazi Germany. "First my LEft foot, then my right behind the other, Pantyhose running in the cold" Forced to march, captive of a cruel society because of what I was--and even then I wasn't SURE of what or who I was exactly. THe green limosine brought to mind only the image of a long green railroad box car--come to take me away, where later a "black chariot"--an oven meant ot burn away my existance, or maybe the hearse which would cary me to a mass grave of other slaughtered artists--all of this culminated in an outburst of finally recognizing what I was--
Tori's metaphors--more like Metaphysical conciets--as always so simple, yet so drastic in their implications . . .
The red-head dancing girl.--begging for someone to leave the light--"He's gonna change my name"--as so many have tried. I've borne a lot of names in my lifetime, but I'd never chosen one for myself.
Walking in and out of others' dreams, my own dreams, some strange dream, very confused...that was me...."dripping with blood and with time and with you advice . . ." Poisoned against the moon, and I could see a shadow of myself crucified, arms outstretched --only a silhouette against a bloodred harvest moon.

And then the Escape: always searching for another escape. ANd in my typical sense of emotional masochism, I always ran to that which I was most afraid of. The fearscape I saw stretched acroos the sky, and embossed on my heart--
And I cross my legs...And there's the secret--that I wouldn't be just another bride behind just another veil for this society which would marry us all to its sickening idea of altruism...where we give ourselves and everything we are to the gaping mouth of a bottomless beast that would have us all sacrifice ourselves for the purpose of feeding the unsatisfied demands of a world that has no direction and no integrity.
First my left foot, then my right behind the other...bread crumbs lost under the snow...not that I'll ever need them, I'm not going back--not ever--for I escaped that world. I found Truth, Integrity, Love. They are all one in the same. ANd my " "Mother" " has taught me that I'm OK, when everything's not OK; that sometimes you're nothing but meat, and you're just an empty cage if you kill the bird, and that even Fire thought SHe'd really rather be water instead.
ANd I won't crucify myself against any moon--my heart was sick of being in chains. So I throw away this suffering, and I throw away this cross, and I was reborn in that instant, and I Thank God for Tori Amos

[Mariannedelirium]

behindmyeyes658 said:

ANd I won't crucify myself against any moon--my heart was sick of being in chains. So I throw away this suffering, and I throw away this cross, and I was reborn in that instant, and I Thank God for Tori Amos

Yay! i really liked that, it came right out from your heart.

[Julie]

MOTHER go go go go out of the nest it's
time to go go go now circus girl without a safety net
here here now don't cry you raised your hand for
the assignment tuck those ribbons under your
helmet be a good solider first my left food then
my right behind the OTHER pantyhose running
in the cold mother the car is here somebody leave
the light on green limousine for the redhead
DANCING dancing girl and when I dance for him
somebody leave the light on just incase I like the
dancing I can remember where I come from I
walked in to your dream and now I've forgotten
how to dream my own dream you are the CLEVER
one aren't you brides in veils for you we told you
all of our secrets all but one so don't you even try
the phone has been disconnected dripping with
blood and with time and with your advice poison
me against the MOON I escape into your escape
in to our very favorite fearscape it's across the sky
and across my heart and I cross my legs oh my
god first my left foot then my right behind the
other breadcrumbs lost under the snow . . .

In Tori's description of it I see that she is realizing where she comes from as in roots and whatnot so I can't really interpret this without actually being in her family it's some kind of historic thing in her heritage.

Here's Tori's description of it:
"Mother was written at 6:30, 7:00 in the morning. We were on a futon in the little place I had at the time in Hollywood, and I got up really early and started meandering on the piano. I meandered for about 25 minutes and I started to get this ... [hums the intro to Mother] ... and I hear this voice from the futon, 'What's that!' And I said, 'Oh, it's shit. Forget about it.' And he yells, 'Play it again!' What happens with each one is that there will be a word that comes with the melody. Then a bridge section will start to work and I'll know it wants to be there. And then maybe I can't figure anything else out so I'll put it aside. Three months later, I'm walking down the street and I'll come up with four notes, and that's what I'm going to build the next section on. Do you write your ideas down on paper before putting them aside? Well, I'm not very good at writing things down sometimes. Maybe it'll be on the back of an envelope, a bill, a magazine, or I might record it on a ghetto blaster."
-- Tori; interview by Greg Rule

"Mother came on a bit like a dream sleep. It was early morning when I made the way to the piano. I knew that 'they' were trying to show me something. A memory of 'the fall.' Not the one we've been taught, but the other side of the story, which is the belief of certain ancient mythologies. Mother changed me because I began to remember, where I believe, we come from."
-- Tori; Little Earthquakes Songbook

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: The Heat - Toni Braxton

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[pinelopi]

MOTHER


Go go go go out of the nest it's time to
go go go now circus girl without a safety net
here here now don't cry you raised your hand for
the assignment
tuck those ribbons under your helmet
be a good solider
first my left food then my right behind the OTHER
pantyhose running in the cold
I think Mother is about a girl who s about to get married and is scared shitless for what is about to happen to her. And her mother is pushing her to go on with it…. There is no safety net to catch her, no one can guarantee how her marriage will be and when that scares her her mother tells her that she was the one who asked for this…. So just march like a soldier and go for it without thinking. Too late for doubts now.

mother the car is here, somebody leave the light on
green limousine for the redhead
DANCING dancing girl and when I dance for him
somebody leave the light on just incase I like the
dancing I can remember where I come from

Her wedding car is here to take her, but she is still scared of the dark.. She is still a crazy eccentric young girl… full of life and colors (green limousine for the red haired)… but now she is not so sure and she is even scared that she might like this new life and forget who she was before it.
I walked in to your dream and now I've forgotten
how to dream my own dream
He is taking over her life and inner world

you are the CLEVER one aren't you
brides in veils for you

we told you all of our secrets all but one so don't you even try
the phone has been disconnected
He gets everything… he representing the power of men in this world… veiled young girls coming to serve and please, but there is one thing that will still be only of the women… and he should not even think of trying to figure that one out…

dripping with blood and with time and with your advice
poison me against the MOON
The moon being the symbol of womanhood… the moon being what governs our menstruation, our tides, our natural cycles

I escape into your escape in to our very favorite fearscape it's across the sky
and across my heart and I cross my legs oh my
god
The fear is incredible in this verse

first my left foot then my right behind the
other breadcrumbs lost under the snow . . .