I can’t quite remember how I first found Regina Spektor, but it was sometime in the past two years during my concert-once-a-week phase. Her concert was amazing and she seems like such a sweet, gentle, funny, literary, and witty person. Also, amazingly talented on the piano and guitar. This site already has a couple of songs by her, and we’re adding another one. This song’s called ‘On the Radio’ and it’s just the right blend of fun and wise. Her line “this is how it works” always reminds me of T.S. Eliot’s Hollow Men or maybe something a bit less foreboding. My favorite part? It’s hopeful, it’s real, and it’s…sweet because that is how it works and if it’s passed before, then it will pass again. And it’s about you, your having something to stand on, your choosing to give parts of yourself and take of another’s self, share, and live.
btw, Spektor’s mother is a school teacher in an NYC public school, and that’s where the video is filmed.
Regina Spektor – On the Radio
This is how it works:
It feels a little worse
than when we drove our hearse
right through that screaming crowd
while laughing up a storm
until we were just bone,
until it got so warm,
that none of us could sleep.
And all the styrofoam
began to melt away,
we tried to find some worms
to aid in the decay.
But none of them were home —
inside their catacomb
a million ancient bees
began to sting our knees;
While we were on our knees
praying that disease
would leave the ones we love
and never come again.
On the radio
we heard ‘November Rain,’
that solo’s real long
but it’s a pretty song.
We listened to it twice
‘cause the DJ was asleep.
This is how it works:
You’re young until you’re not,
You love until you don’t,
You try until you can’t,
You laugh until you cry,
You cry until you laugh,
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath.
No, This is how it works:
You peer inside yourself,
You take the things you like,
And try to love the things you took,
And then you take that love you made,
And stick it into some—
someone else’s heart
pumping someone else’s blood.
And walking arm in arm
you hope it don’t get harmed,
but even if it does
you’ll just do it all again.
And on the radio
you’ll hear ‘November Rain,’
that solo’s awful long
but it’s a good refrain.
you’ll listen to it twice
‘cause the DJ is asleep
on the radio…