36 Songs, 36 Days, Day Twenty Six: Open by Regina Spektor

Remember...the Big Bad Wolf came out of
a forest as well....

Some time ago, before I decided to finally join the technologically savvy '00s by getting a primitive version of a smart phone (what I referred to as my 'mentally challenged phone' to my friends), I had a ringtone based on the Ben Folds song 'You Don't Know Me.' And the main reason I chose that ringtone was so I could hear Regina Spektor sorta half-sigh 'you don't know me/at all' to herald every phone call I got.

Spektor is another strange figure in my personal musical firmament. She, much like Fiona Apple, sits in my mind as a ghostly (dare I say 'spectral') figure besides Tori Amos, representing an alternate universe version of that artist I respect so much. Unlike Apple, who seems to be Amos if Amos decided to study jazz instead of classical music, Spektor is the Tori Amos who gave into her darker urges. I frequently find her music more gothic and nasty, as if she is using it to disturb the demons in her soul without dispelling them....

And boy, is this song indicative of that. It's one of the numbers from her most recent album, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats, and it actively frightens me. There's an overpowering sense of claustrophobia to this song. The lyrics are simple but unsettling, as the singer tells us of how she waits in a room she made herself, apparently restrained in some way, suspended but open. Now I know that I could take this literally, but I like to think what our POV character is saying is that she is suspended in time--she has become this thing in amber for others to examine, for others to 'open' and interpret as they wish.

Of course, the lyrics don't account for those gasps--shuddering struggles for breath that make this song seem all the more terrifying. If this is a metaphorical imprisonment, it is a horrifying and stifling one, one that's literally choking the life out of her. When I first heard this song, I jumped when she started making those noises.

In reading some of the interpretations of the song online, there is a tendency to claim it's about Anne Frank, a subject Spektor has mediatated on through her music before. I don't know if it was intended to be this specific, though; in my mind, there's something universal to her pleas. After all, don't we all at one point feel confined, feel as though wires are pulling us back from the life we can lead, suffocating in a malaise of the everyday?

Regardless of whether this is about one specific person or a certain kind of isolation, this is powerful stuff. And it's one of the reasons why I find Regina Spektor both so attractive and intimidating as an artist, even amongst all the beautiful piano playing.

 

Here is a live performance of the song....

36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Eighteen: Answering The Door by Rachel Yamagata

Coming soon to a CW series near you!

It's a song by television show soundbed perennial Rachel Yamagata!

For those of you thinking I'm joking, you should check out her Wiki page, which lists a seemingly endless stream of credits for her songs appearing on a number of prime-time soaps and comedies. Hell, I think her work has appeared on every single Pretty White Kids show the CW has ever produced at one time or another.

And it's not hard to figure out why. Yamagata has one of those lush, sexy voices that sounds perfect under Pretty White Kids angsting over their love lives. Add that she's this hot part Asian chickie (who doesn't look too Asian for marketing purposes) who plays piano like Tori Amos only, you know, not so confrontational or scary....and you have the perfect voice for your soap opera designed to sell twenty-somethings iPads and sneakers and other essentials for their shallow lives.

Now granted, this list I referenced stopped at 2010, so I don't know if this song got picked up to soundbed an episode of Gossip Girl or something, but if it hasn't, I'm surprised it never did...because this is tailor made to be one of those songs. It's about not wanting to be the fall-back girl for an ex in an abusive relationship, and having the courage to say, 'No, I'm not going to heal these wounds, you have to find that comfort on your own.' Yamagata literalizes this viewpoint by making it a scenario where that ex is right outside her door, asking for help....and she refuses him. She is able to verbalize the ambiguous feelings going through her head--there's still a deep desire to help him, to be with him, stated right at the beginning--but she knows this simple act of refusing to let him back in is for the best. But even that is done with slight selfishness, because 'she's leaving inside even more.'

I'm pretty sure Ms. Yamagata doesn't write songs like this to get wide media play; she seems to have a very rare joy in performing that has led her to play on tracks for a wide array of artists...and it's not like she's capitalizing on it. I think it might just be a case of the music she wanted to play lining up with a particular aspect of the pop culture zeitgeist that has given her this odd position right now.

But hey...the song's pretty, even if the singer's background makes it hard for me to get the Caucasian Wankery Network house style out of my mind.

To my surprise, I can find no related video for this.  Hopefully I will find something fun for the next song.