Doghnut Song Interp

[Mary]

Doughnut Song

had me a trick and a kick and your message
well you'll never gain weight from a doughnut hole
then thought that i could decipher your message
there's no one here dear
no one at all

and if i'm wasting all your time
this time
maybe you never learned to take
and if i'm hanging on to your shade
i guess i'm way beyond the pale

and southern men can grow gold
can grow pertty
blood can be pertty
like a delicate man
copper to steel to a hinge that is faltered
that let's you in let's you in let's you in
something's just keeping you numb

you told me last night
you were a sun now with your very own

devoted satellite
happy for you
and i am sure that i hate you
too sons too many too many able fires

and if i'm wasting all your time
this time
i think you never learned to take
and if i'm hanging on to your shade
i guess i'm way beyond the pale

-------------------INTERP

This song reminds me often that Tori does have a personal life and it's carved in stone. The song strikes me as saying "goodbye" finally in some form or another to someone you love. It's saying, duh it's not the sunny weather that's making me hurt it's you! And look this is what it's doing to me, but you never bother to notice, well let me tell you something, I notice more. That's the feeling I get when I hear this song. It's almost predicting the future of something never to work out.

Haullie

[Julie]

Doughnut Song

had me a trick and a kick and your message
well you'll never gain weight from a doughnut hole
I think the symbolism with the 'doughnut hole' is that you can have something that is not there. If there is no depth or sensitivity in a relationship then it basically does not exist.

then thought that I could decipher your message
there's no one here dear
no one at all
She cannot understand what his motives are for being insensitive to her

and if I'm wasting all your time
this time
maybe you never learned to take
and if I'm hanging on to your shade
I guess I'm way beyond the pale
This is where you realize that you have only wasted your time when nothing has been achieved in the relationship. 'shade' is a metaphor for this man's shadow that she now walks behind trying to yet again, 'decipher his message'.

and southern men can grow gold
can grow pertty
blood can be pertty
like a delicate man
copper to steel to a hinge that is faltered
that let's you in let's you in let's you in
something's just keeping you numb
This person is not heartless but something must have hurt them hard enough to keep this man from sensitivity.

you told me last night
you were a sun now with your very own

devoted satelite
happy for you
and I am sure that I hate you
two sons too many too many able fires
The able fires are the opportunities for this relationship to have actually happened.

and if I'm wasting all your time
this time
I think you never learned to take
and if I'm hanging on to your shade
I guess I'm way beyond the pale

Here's Tori's description of it:
"Doughnut, that's so much to me the ache of... I think one of the most important lines in the entire record for me was you told me last night you were a sun now with your very own devoted satellite, happy for you and I am sure that I hate you, too sons too many too many able fires... there's the Cain and Abel reference, there's the idea that you can't have two whole beings together. And I couldn't live like that, and it made me really sad, that whether it's a female relationship or a male relationship, we're not supporting each other to make a whole. When I am not happy when you are taking you as far as you can. I can't support that or I withhold from you because the truth is I am afraid you aren't going to need me anymore."
-- Tori; B Side, 05/96

"With Caton, we talked about Doughnut Song and the swirling, the idea of girls on hands of men and underneath them on the backs of cattle and above the girls that are on top of the hands of men there's something pouring into their water jugs. Those are the pictures I get when we're trying to find a sounds, and it's funny because the guys go, 'here we go again - Tori-speak.'"
-- Tori; SPIN magazine, Mar 1996

I: How did you get the effect referred to in Boys for Pele’s liner notes as “HA HA guitar” on Doughnut Song?
Steve Caton: I used an Ernie Ball volume pedal and some delay. The song was originally a B-side. Tori wanted me to start with Beyond the Pale, the original Doughnut Song title, to ease my way into the Pele project. She was happy enough with the end result that she put the song on the record. I tend to use a volume pedal quite a lot in my playing to achieve different things. I have been using one for so long, I cannot imagine playing without one. It is central to so many things that I do. Anyway, I coined the name “HA HA guitar” because I thought it sounded a bit like laughing, but it is really a throw back to Eno records. He has all kinds of funny names for his sounds, “Insect Menace” from the song “African Nights” on Bowie’s Lodger recording being my favorite Eno sound label.
-- Steve Caton; Virtual Guitar, Oct 1999

"There were so many things that I didn’t allow myself to do when I was in this relationship, and I think Eric would tell you the same. All sorts of things you see which you can be finally honest about. Like Doughnut Song, the last I worked on. There’s a bittersweet quality about it... there’s a sweetness to becoming a woman that the virgins don’t have. They have a physical sweetness, but once you claim the woman... Yes, I want to wring their [men’s] necks sometimes - those I fall in love with - yet there’s much more of an understanding.”<br>-- Tori; Making Music, Jan 1996

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: Hoochie Woman - Tori Amos

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