[toyboy]

Apologies if my thoughts are scattered:

• God spelled backwards is dog. I think it's T's intention that God is the second song and Space Dog the penultimate.
• This regard for structure and cohesion may or may not be reflected in the first and last lines: "Way to go"/"And now those girls are gone"
• The beginning sounds like muffled boots marching through a snow-covered ground.
• In the second verse, there's a string-like sound that's positively eerie (there's no strings listed in the instruments credit, so maybe it's the Something by Rantz and Zane).
• I found out the Russian connection of this song from Jim (thanks Jim!) — hope he'll share his thoughts here; in fact, words like rain, snow, commander, colonel, engines, lines secure do evoke Russia and the militaristic for me. Which makes Space Dog's preceding Yes, Anastasia somewhat fitting.
• The songs have two parts that alternate with each other: one part, comprising the verses, have a lot of instruments, while the other very distinctively features only Tori and piano.
• The "So sure those girls now are in the Navy" lines sound like they're sung by a Greek chorus. There's definitely more than one Tori voice, I think.
• "Our minds make stories, and stories make our minds. Each culture's Make-a-Human kit is built from stories, and maintained by stories. A story can be a rule for living according to one's culture, a useful survival trick, a clue to the grandeur of the universe, or a mental hypothesis about what might happen if we pursue a particular course. Stories map out the phase space of existence." — Terry Pratchett
  
  Two things about stories: they are well-ordered, with a beginning, a middle, and an end; and they can help us make sense of the world. And if it's a story about a turtle race, there's a clear start with a win at the finishing line. If only our lives were that straightforward. In Space Dog, life clearly isn't, and the girl doesn't seem to know what to do with it other than escaping/coping through stories of militaristic adventures, where she assumes these multiple girls going on exciting missions in a world full of secret societies, colonels, and commanders.
  
  I like how the bridge comes in and breaks the fiction by introducing Christmas ("Deck the halls"), a time when families tend to gather together and catch up with one another, when stories of one's life, recent achievements, disappointments, can be shared, when things tend to get compared, and here we find she still hasn't gotten her life in order from what appears like overheard whispered gossip ("Is she still pissing in the river, now/Heard she’d gone moved into a trailer park"). Maybe successive failures, maybe just not having found what she wants, but she's definitely not the grapefruit winning.
  
  In the end, only when she gives up her multiples selves in all the stories ("And now those girls are gone"), does she really, finally confront the stark reality of her life, what's really happening, and while the first chorus most likely refers to one of her story girls, just touching down from a flight mission that proved futile ("So sure we were on something"), the last implies that she is finally grounded to her situation ("Your feet are just on the ground").

All her talks about primitive cave drawings, lemon pie boy, Patti Smith, are likely relevant, but I thought of this without realizing they're all collected in yessaid and now it's too late to do research. If my interpretation doesn't seem valid, well, IT'S MINE!!! And it's late into midnight and still not yet dawn so I may've typed this out in sentences that may've been less unclear had I an eternity for the thread. And then, maybe not. I wish I had spent more time on this. Thanks!

Lyrics
Liner notes
Tori talks

[toyboy]

I think if one extends the meaning of stories a bit, stories in Space Dog may not just refer to fictional accounts of what has happened, but also what might have been, what could have been. We have all these dreams, to be this, to achieve that; maybe we're not working hard enough, or maybe we've toiled for so long and life still gives us lemons without a blender to make lemonade with, the point is, we still haven't gotten what we want, to where we want to be, and we continue deluding ourselves with imagined scenarios, like in Requiem for a Dream, for solace, until one day we realize we are still nowhere near where we had aspired to be. I think that's what happens at the end of Space Dog.

[aburva.org]

isn't this mark's favorite song? am i remembering that right?

anyways, i love space dog - but it took a long time to click with me. i think i like the TVAB version the most.

[Teomaderm]

Love this song completely. I love the TVAB version too but it had to have her worst pronunciation ever up to that point. Still awesome though.

Interesting OP.

[Effofqueeno]

I love that she references Patti Smith twice- "pissing in a river" and the fact that Patti has a song called "Space Monkey". Musically I love the piano break that happens in this song before the "so sure we were onto something..." part.

[zCLadw3R]

isn't this mark's favorite song? am i remembering that right?

You are indeed correct. I think that's the reason it made the TVAB cut, too. He pushed for it.

[*Playergirl*]

I love that she references Patti Smith twice- "pissing in a river" and the fact that Patti has a song called "Space Monkey". Musically I love the piano break that happens in this song before the "so sure we were onto something..." part.

Fuck YES. From my very first listen of this song, that part referencing Patti gave me chills and still does. Tori expressed a question that just about everyone in the music business was wondering about her: why did she leave and where did she go? She'd been living quietly in Grosse Pointe, MI about 15 years when Tori wrote SD. Anyway, love, love, love this song and I would still love it passionately even if it didn't nod to Patti.

[xyupi]

To me, this song is always about the "truth" of Christianity, but I have never been aware of the "God spelled backwards is dog" part. Mr. Microphone could be the preachers, secret society being those who believe in Mary Magdalene (or to some truth of similar effect), then space dog being the "true" god, or Jesus. That is why "so sure we are on something". I am not going to share my thoughts on every line, but lyrically, Spacedog is really very tori-style. It looks like a bunch of bullshit, but it surely has very deep meaning.

[welihiedginly]

i think that's caton on guitar in the second verse that you're referring to. or it's the "something." i always assumed it was a guitar.

i absolutely love this song, especially the 2001 performances. and i love how she hits the piano and inhales during the 3/4 measure before the chorus.

[panholio]

You are indeed correct. I think that's the reason it made the TVAB cut, too. He pushed for it.

His last great move in his career.

[anfuckinggs]

My favorite versions were in 2003 with the band, with the Andromeda solo intro's. Space Dog was my immediate favorite when I first bought Under the Pink. I'd play it incessantly. But I adapted it for personal meaning and I remember singing it wrong for years - " so sure we were ONTO something." I still love the song to death.

[toyboy]

My favorite versions were in 2003 with the band, with the Andromeda solo intro's. Space Dog was my immediate favorite when I first bought Under the Pink. I'd play it incessantly. But I adapted it for personal meaning and I remember singing it wrong for years - " so sure we were ONTO something." I still love the song to death.

We wants your adaptation — spill!

[JRixlcvF]

Space Dog is one of those songs that I love so much that I have a difficult time talking about it in any sort of coherent way. In a nutshell - I think the song is about the lies we tell ourselves to survive/thrive juxtaposed with the equally ridiculous truth of what is actually going on in our lives. Basically, if you lie to yourself enough, you'll start believing it ("she can't understand, she truly believes the lie"). This sort of thing comes up later in her work (the "if you love enough you'll lie a lot" line in JS, for example), but I truly believe this is a challenge to her own mythology. All of this from tripping balls off medication on an airplane and having a fake conversation with an imaginary friend. Amazing.

[anfuckinggs]

We wants your adaptation — spill!

That is pretty much it. For me, back then, I was going through one of my first break-up's, and the bit where I thought she was singing "so sure we were ONTO something", just made me want to cry. And it's the way she sings it, is so emotive, and really just hit the spot for me. Like she knew exactly how I was feeling - hopeless and alone. I always go back to what Tori said about how the music comes to her first, and then she has to hunt down the words. This song is all about the music for me.

[Avgustslim]

I love this song! I have no idea what it's about but it's really beautiful.

[texbrease]

When I first got UTP and was listening to this song over and over again, the background vocals in the end section kept making me cry for some reason I couldn't figure out back then. Now I think it's because the song is mainly about letting go of parts of your self and your life - whether it be illusions you had about yourself, as Kari says above - or beliefs you had or people you once felt were so important to you, or memories of childhood, etc. There seems to be a real sense of loss in this song, a grieving for things that are disappearing and you know won't come back.

In some of the promo interviews for the album Tori talked about female friends that she'd lost in the couple of years since Little Earthquakes, and I wonder if they are the 'girls who are gone'. Seems like the wider theme of conflict between women may have been sparked by some incident/s in her real life.

[JesikaFclq]

Does the section with multiple voices in the background remind anyone else of Father Lucifer?

[*Playergirl*]

Does the section with multiple voices in the background remind anyone else of Father Lucifer?

Yeah, it does for me, too. Tori layers vocals so beautifully. The layered vocals on "Heart of Gold" is another favorite.

[chuecfafresslds]

I remember listening to this ad nauseum on my way to school back in '96/'97. My best friend & I loved the way she said "racing turtles." Great song.

[kubekniekubek]

Love this song, even if it makes me sad sometimes. When I was in high school, a long time ago, I came up on a horrible car accident, a drunk driver in a truck crossed the median and hit a small car with four Navy girls on their way to the beach, all 4 girls were killed. The truck driver, well she walked away. So, when I hear this song, I think of those girls, how they did go 'Andromeda' and that bitch, is in a trailer park.
And the was deeply personal, wow