Lyrical Literature 1.0
Hello..
Today let's look at a line from 'Girl' by Tori Amos:
"as winter takes one more cherry tree"
First we have 'winter' which is of itself symbolically rich:
it symbolizes age and, by extension, death
it symoblizes cold (the search for warmth)
and contemporarily, it equates to boredom.. which, being a pop-contemporay song..
Next, we have the cherry tree.
Cherries are obviously virginal symbols... but there's more at play here.
It's not just cherries.. its a cherry tree...
which gives it a direct relationship to winter seasonally..
spring brings the blossoms (purity/innocence)
summer into fall brings the fruit...
winter strips away everything leaving the tree naked and barren..
and being a tree there's also a connotation of multitudes of cherries..
But that's not all there is yet no.
Winter TAKES the tree...
Amos has personified winter
Which ties into it being 'one more'..
not the first.. not the last..
Giving the impression of an act barren of emotion...
That gives a lot of space for each person to visualize for
themselves how 'winter takes one more cherry tree'.. be it
the image of someone dying unloved or people having sex to
fill an indefinable void or even (a little less depressingly)
someone slowly losing the beauty of their youth...
....
How's that for word economy?
Today let's look at a line from 'Girl' by Tori Amos:
"as winter takes one more cherry tree"
First we have 'winter' which is of itself symbolically rich:
it symbolizes age and, by extension, death
it symoblizes cold (the search for warmth)
and contemporarily, it equates to boredom.. which, being a pop-contemporay song..
Next, we have the cherry tree.
Cherries are obviously virginal symbols... but there's more at play here.
It's not just cherries.. its a cherry tree...
which gives it a direct relationship to winter seasonally..
spring brings the blossoms (purity/innocence)
summer into fall brings the fruit...
winter strips away everything leaving the tree naked and barren..
and being a tree there's also a connotation of multitudes of cherries..
But that's not all there is yet no.
Winter TAKES the tree...
Amos has personified winter
Which ties into it being 'one more'..
not the first.. not the last..
Giving the impression of an act barren of emotion...
That gives a lot of space for each person to visualize for
themselves how 'winter takes one more cherry tree'.. be it
the image of someone dying unloved or people having sex to
fill an indefinable void or even (a little less depressingly)
someone slowly losing the beauty of their youth...
....
How's that for word economy?