Regina Spektor: Spunky Lyricist

Have you ever heard Regina Spektor sing? The perfect mix of her chest and head voice leads me to love her music, and get caught up in her words, spinning in my own time zone. Her lyrics are written like poetry. The words pull you up out of your chair and dance with you, leaning in and out of windows, taking deep heaps of air into your crystallized lungs. She’s abstract, but not too abstract. She’s relatable, but not cliche. Due to the fact that she is indeed a songwriter, there is probably more repetition than you’d find in other non melodic poems, however I think it furthers the flow and makes for a great hoolahoop of a piece.

Her stanzas, or verses, are filled with regret, sorrow, anger, joy, and you feel it with her as she plays her keys. In her piece, “Chemo Limo,” she writes:

I had a dream

Crispy crispy Benjamin Franklin came over

Baby-sat all four of my kids

Like… amazing, I love that. I’d like to think that I write similarly. She uses a casual conversational tone that lures you in to be her friend. “Crispy crispy” stands out in this particular and the sounds grab attention, and the personification of the hundred dollar bill is wonderful, and even goes into greater imagery when mentioning the babysitting. Imagery. That is her greatest tool. Her witty tone and story like writing is easy to follow. The “kooky” songwriter has an idiosyncratic approach to her lyric writing. Her use of repetition introduces a steady rhythm through her work, and it feels like you are holding onto a preschool walking rope, forbidding you to let go. I also think she uses it so much because she sets it up as a reminder. You liked that line? Well, here it is again, kind of thing. I think most of her written work makes you feel like you’re reading a coming of age novel with the pages out of order. Everything is really recognisable, and almost nostalgic. Spektor uses a great deal of assonance in her words as well; it’s lethargic yet purposeful.

She speaks of time passing, and you almost reach out to grab the notes to tuck them in and tell them to settle down and stay a while. When I read her lyrics, it feels like I am aging at a rapid speed. Her words have a sense of prolonged disappointment. She really likes working with structure and tries to be adventurous and use unconventional sounds. You can tell that she thinks that mainstream work has been cornered into a dead end, and she is trying to expand onto new avenues.

Spektor is an eccentric artist that allows her soul to take over her words, and works with arbitrary patterns. She loves the use of syllables and repeating them to convey a message. When interviewed, people describe talking to her as though they’re talking to a child prodigy. She uses valley girl language, and moves her body like a free spirit. She explained that she believes televisions are a mind trap and she encourages people to watch quirky musicals instead that make you think outside of the box. I think Spektor is an incredible artist and if you listen to her carefully you’ll find hidden gems every time. In “Eet” she writes:

It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song

You can't believe it

You were always singing along

It was so easy and the words so sweet

You can't remember

You try to feel the beat

You spent half of your life trying to fall behind

You're using your headphones to drown out your mind

It was so easy, and the words so sweet

You can't remember

You try to move your feet

Someone's deciding whether or not to steal

He opens the window just to feel the chill

He hears that outside a small boy just starting to cry

'Cause it's his turn but his brother won't let him try

I think the first part where Spektor is talking about something you used to hold so close to your heart, and you all of a sudden forget what it feels like to sing the song, could be a metaphor for love. You spent so much time wrapped up in this person, memorizing what their skin felt like next to yours or how they smelled when they got out of the shower-it was all a part of your own life- and now that they’re gone it’s like none of those things ever happened. She also uses the word “you” a whole bunch so it makes me think she was writing this with a certain person in mind. That entirety of a symbol makes her work one hundred percent more personal. It’s like you’re there with her, holding her hair back out of her face while she weeps. This next part about this person she is imagining, makes me think “he” is a bystander to life, and let’s opportunity pass him by. Maybe she was an opportunity, and she felt passed along like any other brief encounter in his life that he doesn’t want to make stronger. Deciding whether or not to steal part also spoke to me and made me think that this person doesn’t really know who they are either. Only small tidbits of information or feeling can be taken in at once, and that’s where the slight chill from outside comes from. Second hand emotion. Spektor also uses pronouns in doubles or triples, which creates a nice rhythm and maze of a piece. In “Samson” she writes:

Samson came to my bed

Told me that my hair was red

Told me I was beautiful

And came into my bed

Oh, I cut his hair myself one night

A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light

And he told me that I'd done alright

And kissed me 'til the mornin' light, the mornin' light

And he kissed me 'til the mornin' light

This beautiful piece reminds me of caring for someone who doesn’t know they should be cared for. Someone who doesn’t know up from down and finds fairy tales in everything dark. It’s like an ode. An ode to someone that Spektor lost a long time ago, and maybe it’s the same person that she talks about in “Eet.” She again uses the same kind of repetition and starts her lines with the same words. This is because she writes the way she thinks: in lists. And at the bottom of the list there’s a memory that she turns into a melody- sweet and easy to forget. There is also some rhyming going on here with bed and red and night and light. This makes this piece more jumpy than the other, like a ping pong match that she doesn’t want to see a winner from. In “The Calculation” she writes:

You went into the kitchen cupboard

Got yourself another hour

And you gave

Half of it to me

We sat there looking at the faces

Of these strangers in the pages

'Til we knew 'em mathematically

They were in our minds

Until forever

But we didn't mind

We didn't know better

So we made our own computer out of macaroni pieces

And it did our thinking while we lived our lives

It counted up our feelings

And divided them up even

And we called our calculation perfect art

This one really reminds of me societal pressure, fame, and memorializing the rich. She writes “we sat there looking at the faces of these strangers in the pages ‘til we knew them mathematically.” I am picturing a couple reading a magazine and clinging to every word that some Buzzfeed writer puts down on paper about another pop star that has their life exposed for the sole reason of getting the normals to praise and copy their choices, to beg for more, and make mountains out of molehills. Bleck. When they went to that kitchen cupboard, it must have been a magic one; I love the metaphor behind this and almost personifying the cupboard as an adult, asking for ten more minutes before bedtime. The last few lines as well, make me think of childhood and how nothing ever makes sense, but what kids create is much more efficient. Macaroni pieces, and making more friendly and pleasing creations that take Spektor far away from reality. I think all of her work takes us away from reality.

Regina Spektor taught me that I can’t be afraid to write about people. I write about weird objects and what people do with them, maybe a letter to someone important and telling them all they have done for me. But the last time I wrote about a person- how they looked, what they smelt like, their mannerisms, what they wore on December fifth, and what makes them smile- was so long ago. And all I remember about that piece was how much I hated reading it aloud, and how much I hated myself for being too observant and sounding in love with this person. We are all people, and most us know others better than we know ourselves. I should write about that. I learned to not fear the judged, and to face vulnerability head on. People sometimes don't understand my poetry because I pile hums and oo’s on top to hide the real shit. I should try writing about something I’m scared to share.