[Loxaeed]

I think the main point, here, is her understanding she has to get rid of her anger. Doughnut song is quite ambivalent in that sense: she says "had me a trick and a kick", but who were they coming from? Him or herself? In the end of the song she whispers "happy for you and I'm sure that I hate you" and it's not clear whether she's saying it out of hatred or out of love. With PTDO she finally comes to term with the fact that, yes, she's been hurt, she suffered and it all went wrong, but she can't fake it seeing him worse than he actually was. You know, the old sour grapes story. Maybe it's easier to convince yourself you don't find him beautiful anymore, but if you dig deeper you realise that love lives for itself, regardless it is convenient or not for you to have feelings for that particular person. She is finally able to say: ok, you are beautiful, I still see your beauty and I will still be loving you, it doesn't matter if we are together or not.

The line "I'm trying not to move, it's just your ghost passing through", to me, means that she is accepting to suffer. She knows she has to sit there and watch what she's going through as if she were an outside observer. She is experiencing a hard loss and she has to learn from it, she can't just close her eyes and let it pass. It's like when you're approached by a dangerous animal and you can't faint, you have to be alert and try to keep your calm until it's all over.

[jobsfancy]

^ I always heard that change as being about being taken off-guard by the "ghost passing through" more so than anything else. That change in the music is quite intentional and one of the most perfect moments in her music.

Some people make whole albums, great albums even, and never achieve what is achieved with that short span of music. I mean, the ghost is literally passing through; you can feel it in the music.

[singleGirl]

I think the main point, here, is her understanding she has to get rid of her anger. Doughnut song is quite ambivalent in that sense: she says "had me a trick and a kick", but who were they coming from? Him or herself? In the end of the song she whispers "happy for you and I'm sure that I hate you" and it's not clear whether she's saying it out of hatred or out of love. With PTDO she finally comes to term with the fact that, yes, she's been hurt, she suffered and it all went wrong, but she can't fake it seeing him worse than he actually was. You know, the old sour grapes story. Maybe it's easier to convince yourself you don't find him beautiful anymore, but if you dig deeper you realise that love lives for itself, regardless it is convenient or not for you to have feelings for that particular person. She is finally able to say: ok, you are beautiful, I still see your beauty and I will still be loving you, it doesn't matter if we are together or not.

The line "I'm trying not to move, it's just your ghost passing through", to me, means that she is accepting to suffer. She knows she has to sit there and watch what she's going through as if she were an outside observer. She is experiencing a hard loss and she has to learn from it, she can't just close her eyes and let it pass. It's like when you're approached by a dangerous animal and you can't faint, you have to be alert and try to keep your calm until it's all over.

Yes, I agree with this!

From my own perspective, being pretty wasn't necessarily about looks. It was about love. Someone is hurting you but when you look at them you still love them. When you love someone they are pretty inside and out,even if physically they are not what is considered attractive you don't see that. You just see all the things you love. This is how my first love and break up from that first love was. I was hurting and looking at him was heart breaking because all I saw was the things I loved about him, but I couldn't deny the things about him that were wrong for me. Ending the relationship was the only healthy thing to do. That is the only thing different about this song, I ended the relationship because I saw all the co-dependency and overbearing things going on and I couldn't ignore it anymore. He couldn't change. It was hard to break it off because I was so inlove with all the wonderful things about him, because he wasn't all bad.

[wpFWNoIt]

yes!! Indy '99. best.damage.ever.

i do want to add the PTDO is one of my favorite songs ever. it's a shame that there really hasn't been any great live versions of it within the past 10 years.

Is there anywhere I can still hear the Indy version? It was up on yessaid but is no longer available sadness ensues.

[Reafnartefs]

Songspeak

glue
stuck to my shoes
does anyone know why you play with an orange rind
you say you packed my things
and divided what was mine
you’re off to the mountain top
i say her skinny legs could use sun
but now i’m wishing
for my best impression
of my best angie dickinson
but now i’ve got to worry
cause boy you still look pretty
when you’re putting the damage on

don’t make me scratch on your door
i never left you
for a banjo
i only just turned around for a poodle
and a corvette
and my impression
of my best angie dickinson
but now i’ve got to worry
’cause boy you still look pretty
when you’re putting the damage on

i’m trying not to move
it’s just your ghost
passing through
i said
i’m trying not to move
it’s just your ghost passing through
it’s just your ghost
passing through
and now
i’m quite sure
there’s a light in your platoon
i never seen a light move
like yours
can do to me
so now i’m wishing
for my best impression
of my best angie dickinson
but now i’ve got to worry
’cause boy you still look pretty
to me
but i’ve got a place to go
i’ve got a ticket to your late show
and i’m worrying cause even still
you sure are pretty
when you’re putting the damage on
yes
when you’re putting the damage on
you’re just so pretty
when you’re putting the damage on
Torispeak

“Um, this I started writing in Australia. Um, during the end of the tour. And I couldn't finish it. This is one of those ones that, she just came and I had to like, keep getting to know her, every day, a little bit more. She would come and visit me every day, but sometimes no music would come. I mean, I'd just take a walk with her, I would sit around with her, I'd see movies with her, and she forced me to see things from a different perspective. And that's how I finally understood, "oh my god, that's the only way that I can write this, if I start seeing him as beautiful. That he's beautiful after all that happened. He's still beautiful, even after no matter what he does." Now that can say a lot about me, or that can say a lot about him.” [WHFS Just Passin' Through - February 12, 1996]

“And of course Damage speaks for itself. The song, being herself damaged, it’s trying to teach myself about graciousness, and I have such a hard time with that. I have a very hard time. Damage was so essential for me to sing, it’s one of the most difficult ones for me. I can look and have love and feelings for some of these people but...” [B-Side – May/June 1996]
Neilspeak

Neil Gaiman has said things to Tori which, unknown to him at the time, would later appear in her songs. The example he gave was when he once told her a story about how Groucho Marx had told his daughter to go out shopping. She blatantly refused but, he insisted that she should go shopping. Eventually, under protest, she conceded and headed for the stores. Some hours later Groucho's daughter returned with a poodle and a Corvette and he vowed never to send her shopping again. This story stayed with Tori as it later appeared in the lyrics to Putting the Damage On from Boys for Pele. This seems to prove that while Tori's lyrics may appear baffling to some, they all have meaning and reason. Some just need a little more research. [Take to the Sky – November 1996]

Ever wanted to be a foot-dragging, shade-hanging Southern belle? Here’s T’s essential guide. What you need:

1. Your best impression of Angie Dickinson
2. A poodle
3. A corvette (go for a toy model if you’re tight)
4. His ghosts (gotta catch 'em all!)
5. A ticket to his late show
6. An orange rind (optional)

The tragic thing is, there's no redemption in the end — not until Twinkle that is, but that’s another SOTW.

From the start BFP is marked by movement: riding on horses, running away, tumbling down, following every road, but we all know she’s still stuck as if by glue to the same situation, in the Barthesian fatal identity of the lover who waits. She doesn’t want to face it, focuses on something else instead (orange rind), but the Other has not time to waste —blunt and straight-to-the-point, he says: pack up and divide the things. He has clearly moved on. She resorts to sarcasm (skinny legs needing sun), but what she really wants is to have the relationship restored, be given another chance. First she tries pleading, don’t abandon her, she’d be like a pet disowned; then she tries explaining she ain’t never left for no banjo.

At the ghost part, far from hanging on to his shade, she has the shade returning to haunt her, but at least here we have some healthy development: she still doesn’t move, but not from not wanting to, not from not being able to, but because, faced suddenly, unexpectedly with whatever that’s reminding her of him (ghost: my ten-pound bet on his image on poster, TV, or magazine, since he’s a public figure of sort with his own shows, more of this later), she has no choice but to let it wash over and get a grip on herself that it won’t trigger her to launch right back into foot-dragging mode. As all of us who have been through broken hearts by those whom we have made so much of will attest, it’s bloody hard to be confronted with the Other’s image, which one has tried one’s darnednest to avoid as best one could, and not (a) have the embers of a not-quite-dead affection stirred in one’s heart; (b) replay all the what-could-have-beens in one’s head; and (c) feel the pangs of a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain in one’s mind. (You know what, forget suddenly and unexpectedly — in the wake of the throes of break-up some of us willingly suffer ourselves by taking out the mementos and masochistically indulging in the Past and lachrymosity. It's like a badge of honour, Duke of Orsino-like.)

Just when you think you can say, “You go, girl, high time you ditch him!” (“but i’ve got a place to go”) she throws you a curveball and sings, “I’ve got a ticket to your late show.” While it’s left unresolved whether she would go, I think she does; but the good news is she no longer carries any expectation of, maybe, when she sees him, trying to make the relationship work. Whether she still wants him, is beside the point. Just the acknowledgement that, yes, he still looks pretty.

I wonder if she doesn’t, at this point, sing “You still look pretty” laced with a generous dose of sardony — putting on is a phrasal verb most commonly used in the cosmetic sense: i.e. putting on make-up, which I think applies here since he has a late show to be on and he’s bound to have make-up on ("prettified") for the show, so if he’s putting the damage on, he isn’t only doing it on the relationship or on her, but also on himself: meaning to say, it’s as much his loss as hers.

The brass is grand. It makes PTDO sound like some epic soundtrack closer, and BFP being generally acknowledged as autobiographical, that is, perhaps, fitting. Now, questions:

Why Angie Dickinson?
What’s with the military allusion?
Should she have gone for the banjo? (If it’s Sufjan, chrissakes T, you’ve got yourself a bad deal…)

[capeAngedlelp]

I love this song

[anfuckinggs]

I had never thought of the You Still Look Pretty in the sardonic-sense, and that really could make sense there. This is why I love these analysis posts.

[Suvaxal]

I had never thought of the You Still Look Pretty in the sardonic-sense, and that really could make sense there. This is why I love these analysis posts.

See, I always got the impression with southern belle types that they hide their bitchiness behind kind words and are utter queens at it. Stuff like "oh she has no sense of style, does she? Bless her heart." And a fixed grin and smiling and being all "thanks y'all, come again. Those fritters were delicious," and not actually mean it. I'm sure you proper sourthern types can come up with more slang appropriate phrases to get what I mean, but my god does bitch come with a gentle smile and serving you iced tea down south...

[jobsfancy]

Has Tori ever mentioned composing this song with the brass in mind? I think the song needs the brass. Piano only renditions always seem lacking to me (maybe I'm thinking of band versions), but maybe that’s because nothing could live up to the drama of the studio version. Writing this, I’m surprised she didn’t reinvent Damage with the quartet.

[anfuckinggs]

See, I always got the impression with southern belle types that they hide their bitchiness behind kind words and are utter queens at it. Stuff like "oh she has no sense of style, does she? Bless her heart." And a fixed grin and smiling and being all "thanks y'all, come again. Those fritters were delicious," and not actually mean it. I'm sure you proper sourthern types can come up with more slang appropriate phrases to get what I mean, but my god does bitch come with a gentle smile and serving you iced tea down south...

Killing them with kindness. Point taken, but I just never thought that was her intention with that lyric, since the song sounds so sentimental/nostalgic of what the two used to have, and how much she misses/missed him looking back.

[wrewsTear]

Has Tori ever mentioned composing this song with the brass in mind? I think the song needs the brass. Piano only renditions always seem lacking to me (maybe I'm thinking of band versions), but maybe that’s because nothing could live up to the drama of the studio version. Writing this, I’m surprised she didn’t reinvent Damage with the quartet.

I feel that way too. It's a lovely song, but the drama never quite gets there for me when I hear it played solo live, and I definitely hoped for a SQ performance of it.

I'm a southern girl and definitely familiar with the brand of "kindness" you guys are describing, but I still think she's being sincere about how pretty he looks.

[elalmhicabalp]

Has Tori ever mentioned composing this song with the brass in mind? I think the song needs the brass. Piano only renditions always seem lacking to me (maybe I'm thinking of band versions), but maybe that’s because nothing could live up to the drama of the studio version. Writing this, I’m surprised she didn’t reinvent Damage with the quartet.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was on the Greatest Hits w/ Strings thing.

The live versions from 2002 onward are so unbelievably bad - lifeless, monotonous etc.

[connandoilee]

The live versions from 2002 onward are so unbelievably bad - lifeless, monotonous etc.

Totally agree. Especially with b(l)and!

[iH1wMOhE]

I totally forgot about this performance.
It's one of my favorite performances of hers
Jools Holland - Putting the Damage On + Mr. Zebra

[dfuzioniag]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was on the Greatest Hits w/ Strings thing.

The live versions from 2002 onward are so unbelievably bad - lifeless, monotonous etc.

I think Tori just doesn't feel the song any more. There's a few songs she still plays because of requests, but she's clearly going through the motions. And Damage is such an emotionally raw song, you can't fake it.

I loved the version she did in 99 on the 5.5 weeks tour when she sings about Phoebe. That was so beautiful.

[panholio]

Just out of interest - when she says the song itself is damaged, is she talking about that really awkward key change before "I'm trying not to move..."? I always presumed she was. Music nerds please, can you tell me what's going on there?

“And of course Damage speaks for itself. The song, being herself damaged, it’s trying to teach myself about graciousness, and I have such a hard time with that. I have a very hard time. Damage was so essential for me to sing, it’s one of the most difficult ones for me. I can look and have love and feelings for some of these people but… ”
– Tori; B Side, 05/96

[socialkiiii]

^ I always heard that change as being about being taken off-guard by the "ghost passing through" more so than anything else. That change in the music is quite intentional and one of the most perfect moments in her music.

I think she's talking more from the point of view she has about her songs being living things and that this "girl" that she sees the song as is someone who has been damaged herself. She's the personification of that damage, let's say.

[aburva.org]

I loved the version she did in 99 on the 5.5 weeks tour when she sings about Phoebe. That was so beautiful.

yes!! Indy '99. best.damage.ever.

i do want to add the PTDO is one of my favorite songs ever. it's a shame that there really hasn't been any great live versions of it within the past 10 years.

[Suvaxal]

I always think Doughnut Hole is the flipside to this song, and the pair of them tell the whole mess of the relationship perfectly. Unlike Scarlet's Walk with the many characters, BFP has one strong male lead, and a good half of the songs seem to pivot around him. Even if there's the FUCK YOU I HAVE MY OWN FIRE, I DON'T HAVE TO TAKE FROM YOURS theme which Tori touts as the main theme of the album, he's there somewhere, in the shadows.

God I love this album so much... I just sat here and thought about how it all comes together, and how everything fits.

[tpJKhY8Z]

Is there anywhere I can still hear the Indy version? It was up on yessaid but is no longer available sadness ensues.

Also sad-- I was at that show, but have no recollection of anything but Crucify being played. This makes me feel epically old.