Songfacts®:

• Amos was bought up in a strict religious family, (her father is a minister) and despite rejecting the Christian faith she retains an interest in spiritual topics. She told Rolling Stone: "I knew that 'Winter' needed to be written, which represented not just the father, but the grandfather - Papa, my mother's father. So the positive male energies in my life, and also moments with men, with their disappointment in themselves and how that plays out. I wanted - I needed - the polar opposite, so I felt like this needed to go beyond the human mother. This needed to go back to ideas of Creatrix and that God is not just male, but of the Creator being female and male. So this is the feminine story coming down to earth, leaving this soul space and saying goodbye to Mother Creator as I go to Mother Earth. And the last thing is somebody leaves the light on."
• Amos explored a similar theme in her 1994 single "God."