Aвторский Cеминар- Регина Спектор (Writer’s Seminar- Regina Spektor)
Interview
Could you tell us about your childhood and how that affected your writing career?
I was born in Moscow, USSR to a very musical, Jewish family. We immigrated to New York in the states when I was 9. Since we didn’t have a piano, I ended up using the one we had in our synagogue and practising on tabletops and windowsills. I studied classical piano until I was 17 and that’s when I was first introduced to song writing. It’s actually a funny story, I was exposed to Joni Mitchell, a Canadian songstress, and I realized that women were allowed to write songs. And so I wrote.
How does your identity as a Jewish woman influence your writing?
Antisemitism, she says, forced her to be better. It forced her make jokes, to bond with other Jews. “Non-Jewish friends would say: ‘You’re not like other Jews,’ or ‘You’re smart for a Jew.’ It was institutionalised.” When they moved to America her family absorbed themselves in the culture, celebrating Jewish festivals for the first time. It made her wise.
What advice can you give young writers?
I make my own hours. As a mother and musician, I find myself not writing for months due to the amount of work that I have. Even when I was pregnant I worried that I will only become a mother and lose the artist in me. However, I leaarnt that you can be both, it’s all about time management and acknowledging your ambitions. The role of an artist should be to explore, ask questions, but too often people want to be comforted. You can never be too curious when you’re writing. Stay outside the box. Be honest and stay true to your art and the meaning behind it. It’s okay to make mistakes, when I performed for the white house I made mistakes I never made before and I could quit after but always best to keep going. They are written in a moment of being tapped into yourself, or into life and so they’re living. And then you plummet down to the ground. I’m always scared I’ll never write another.”
hen you’re reading beautiful haikus, you never think this is too structured. But when I hear another song that is just like every other, then the structure is like a bad smell. It crushes you.”
What are some of your writing rituals?
Read other people’s art, go on walks, experience the world around her. Have to have a quiet place and a still moment to reflect.
Can you tell us about your accomplishments?
Six albums by 32. I have a family and I’m able to balance my passion and being a mom to a beautiful and kind son.
What inspires you to write?
Themes like love, death, religion (particularly Biblical and Jewish references), city life (particularly New York references), and literary illusions such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, Eza Pound, William Shakespeare, and Oedipus. As well as Russian writer, Boris Pasternov.
Presentation
Name: Regina Illyinichka Spektor
Age: 38
Nationality: Russian-American
Religion: Jewish
Political stance: Liberal
Occupation: Singer and songwriter
Style: Distinct
Typicality
- Political messages.
- Twisted Fairy Tales/Storytelling
- Comparison and metaphor
- Personification
- Originality
- Rhyme
- Pronunciation
- Lyrics often taking the form of abstract narratives or first-person character studies, similar to short stories or vignettes put to song.
Quotes
“The piano is not firewood — yet.”
“May I propose a little toast? For all the ones who hurt the most. For all the friends that we have lost. Let’s give them one more round of applause.”
“Today we’re younger than we’re ever gonna be”
“So you know, when you pan out? Being called a little quirky, a little kooky? That perception stuff doesn’t matter. I see what my parents’ life was like, I see the struggles of people, and so, with my music? I just want to drive this thing till the wheels come off.”
Study
We studied both “Ballad of a Politician” and “The Grand Hotel”. We focused on their fairy tale nature and underlying political message. For example, How Spektor uses metaphor to compare a politician to a stripper, or a morally bankrupt person.
Our primary analysis focused on “Consequence of Sounds”
Lyrics:
My brain and tongue just met,
And they ain’t friends, so far,
My words don’t travel far,
They tangle in my hair,
And tend to go nowhere,
They go right back inside,
Right past my brain and eyes
Into my stomach juice
Where they don’t serve me use,
All melted calories,
Nutrition values.
And I absorb back in
The words right through my skin
They sit there festering inside my bowels
The consequence of sounds
The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds
All the time. Kids-
Screamin’ from too much beat up
And they don’t even rhyme,
They just stand there, on a street corner,
Skin tucked in
And meat side out and shot,
And I’d like to turn them down
But there ain’t no knob.
Run into picket fences
Not into picket lines.
All this hippie-shit for the 60’s
And another cliche for our time. But,
But a one of these days your heart
Will just stop ticking,
And they sorta just don’t find you till your cubicle is reeking.
The consequence of sounds
The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds
Ahh ah ah ah ahh ah ah ah
Gettin’ stuck in the machine
Even tough it’s a whole other daydream.
It’s another town it’s another world,
Where the kids are asleep, where the loans are paid
And the lawns are mowed.
Whad’ya think’
All the gravediggers were gone’
Just cause one song is done
There’s always another one,
Waiting right around the bend,
Till this one ends,
Then it begins
Squeaky clean, then it starts all over again.
Tossing and turning,
Predicting and warning,
And warning and warning of,
Possibly it could be news publications and,
Possibly it could be news TV stations. That
Very same morning right next to her coffee
She noticed some bleeding and heard hollow coughing and
National Geographic was being too graphic,
When all she had wanted to know was the traffic
The worlds got a nosebleed it said
And we’re flooding but we keep on cutting
The trees and the forests!’
And we keep on paying those freaks on the TV,
Who claim they will save us but want to enslave us.
And sweating like demons they scream through our speakers
But we leave the sound on ’cause silence is harder.
And no one’s the killer and no one’s the martyr
The world that has made us can no longer contain us
And profits are silent then rotting away ’cause
The consequence of sounds.
The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds.
Ah ah ah’
My brain and tongue just met,
And they ain’t friends, so far,
My words don’t travel far,
They tangle in my hair,
And tend to go nowhere,
They grow right back inside,
Right past my brain and eyes
Into my stomach juice
Where they don’t serve my juice,
All melted calories,
Nutrition values.
And I absorb back in
The words right through my skin
They sit there festering inside my bowels
The consequence of sounds
The consonants and vowels
The consequence of sounds
- the way that people respond to the sounds around them—these sounds range from the literal noises we hear every day (which Regina even illustrates by her vocalizations in both songs) and on a larger scale, to the way we respond to society and the influential voices around us.
- Regina goes against the grain and does not want to noise of the world around her to numb her mind and cause her to conform.
- Picket fences symbolize the ideal middle-class suburban life, with a large house and peaceful living. That’s not the kind of people you’d see picketing, right?
- Typical middle class job is in a cubicle, working for some multinational business where probably nobody notices you…until you’re dead.
As well as…
- Cacophony
- Parallelism
- Personification
- Political message
- Anaphora
- Smilie
- Imagery
- Juxtaposition
- Symbolism
- Satire
- Internal rhyme
- Repetition
- Consonance/assonance
- Repetition
Emulation
black eyed boys
carrying black fried hearts
from black speckled spots on their
too young brains,
and with their black dyed toys
splattering young bright brains on
cold white floors as the
governments close their doors
to protect their stupid shooting
games
(((((((voting season))))))))
my body; an instrument
unlimited to one note,
a symphony of string
falling against my shoulders,
woodwind in my wind wipe
blowing low chords and
brass in my belly taking
place of my lungs and
percussion against my chest as
my heart thu thumps, and
keyboards for hands,
each finger representing a
different key.
not many know how to play
me right, in the right octave,
in the right tempo,
and sometimes their intonation
ain’t right,
so off I go swaying to the city,
being my own musician,
singing my own song.
it’s awfully nice, too,
not having to be tuned
all the damn time; and
I’m left to write my own
melody
(((((((masterpiece))))))
my tongue is not razor edged;
it is blunt like the steel used for
sharping knives, sparks flying
off my teeth,
burning everything to the
ground
Feature Image:
GIF made by: http://kenyanvibe.com/newsletter/regina-spektor-us