Digital Ghost

I think the first few lines are the most important, ('It started as a joke, just one of my larks to see if somehow I could reach you'). Whoever she is singing to is somone she knows and is obviously cut off from reality, so she attempts to reach him through the internet and realizes just how lonely he is ('I swam into your shores through an open window, only to find you all alone'). Despite her desire to bring him back into reality where she is, she continues using the internet to communicate with him ('Find me there in it, I won't go even if in your heart beats 1s and 0s') because she knows its, in a way, keeping him "alive".

It's almost ironic in a way. She's using this internet persona ('this digital ghost') to communicate with someone and keep him from being lonely, when it's his addiction to the lonely digital world, and Tori's internet persona, that's keeping him in that state ('just take a closer look at what it is that's really haunting you'). I think that despite this, she'd rather keep his heart beating by reaching out to him through the internet than let him slip away from her completely, and she hopes that he'll snap out of it on his own ('...pull you from that rip current but only you can fight this')

That's my take on the song, anyway. Amazing song either way.

Notice the resemblance with Year Zero by nine inch nails?

... I wonder if it's about Trent.

I am nearly positive this must be about Trent... the "started as a joke to see if I could find you" Sounds like someone from her past that she decided to try to contact... and the sound of the song, is a little like, tori infused with a hint of industrial sound.... also the "your heart only beats ones and o's" very resonant of his zero sum.... "all we ever were, just zeros and ones" and if you put the two together, you could almost think he might be thinking of Tori in that song a bit as well... It sounds very regretful.

I think it's simpler than that, if for no other reason than that there was a time when I felt like the person she was singing about. I was very depressed at one point and had kind of pulled into myself and disappeared in my own little world, and a few friends were making several attempts to reach me, to help me, to get in, but I wasn't letting anyone in, and I had to 'take a closer look at what it is that's really haunting you' in order to get out of it.

The 'digital ghost'--ghosts in the machine--is as close as she can get to the person, and she has to trust the part she has access to that this will turn around, only she's afraid they won't be the same the change doesn't start soon.

She probably wrapped it in computer terminology to set the stage, but at the core I think it's a song about trying to reach someone who is keeping themselves so untouchable that their personality is changing for the worse.

I still haven't figured out exactly what this song is about but in my head i have some weird idea. but its deff one of my favorite songs on the album. it just does something for me.

I thought of it as someone in intensive care and they are slowly dying. The digital ghost could perhaps be pictures. Anyway just love the line 'coz the you i knew is fading away'

I thought it was about the isolation of this digital age - "curled up with machines" meaning that he is obsessed with his computer/electronics rather than people. And maybe he's using the Internet to escape from harsh realities, choosing not to find out or deal with what's really wrong with him - "what's really haunting you." The "your heart only beats 1's and 0's" refers to the binary system, which is part of most computers. The 1's and 0's are often associated with the on/off function - "switch you on my friend." A very haunting song that reminds me of something else, though I can't quite think of it yet. Extremely sad.

I think it definitely has to do with computers: open window, machines, my keys, your net, ones and O's, switch you on.. Pretty much what Plath81 says. Maybe an internet relationship, or a relationship where one party uses it too much. Maybe it's about people who find new identities and lovers through an online things. It seems to address the way humans can be completely different people online than in real life. And, the person is slipping out of the land of the living and fading away..

When I first heard this song, I thought it was literally written to her piano. She does quirky things like that, and has been oft quoted as seeing her songs and her pianos as living beings. I think this could be about one of her old beloved Bosendorfer, curled up in a studio with new electronic instruments and keyboards and computers.

When I heard this song, I almost immediately thought of 'Deeper Understanding' by Kate Bush, and how this song is in a way the same story, but from the point of view of the 'intervener' (if you can call that a word :P)