new regina spektor album

I think the thing that I love about art the most is its ability to express things for me that I feel so strongly, but haven't ever found a way to adequately express.

On the flip side, there are times when art reaches out and says something so eerily close to what you've thought that it frightens you.
Especially when your inner monologue adopted a certain stanza or two of poetry that wasn't likely to ever be repeated or illustrated or-- worse yet-- explained better... by someone else.

Tonight my heart froze when I realized what Regina Spektor was singing about in "The Sword & The Pen" from her new album "Far". I felt sick for a second when I got halfway through the lyrics and realized that the chilling similarities in her song weren't a coincidental line or two-- it felt like lines and lines of lyrics that have been milling around in my subconscious for years. Lines that I don't want to think about or admit to myself that I think.

And then, overwhelmingly, I felt confused-- how could a phrase like "well then it's death from above, and death from above is still a death" seem so close to what I've often thought that it feels like it came from my insides, and here it was in an album? In Regina's words, which are so much more blunt and beautiful and scary than my words ever are?

This is like a secret, secret page from a diary I could've written before... years and years before.
But more beautiful and perverse and courageous than I'd be able to say it.

A song that feels like it's part of me; a song that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I don't want to admit feeling a deep connection to it, but I do.

don't let me out of this kiss
don't let me say what I say
the things that scare us today
what if they happen someday?

don't let me out of your arms
for now

what if the sword kills the pen?
what if the god kills the man?
and if he does it with love
well, then it's death from above...
and death from above is still a death

I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without
you

for those who still can recall
the desperate colors of fall
the sweet caresses of May
only on poems remain
no one recites them these days
for the shame

so what if nothing is safe
so what if no one is saved
no matter how sweet
no matter how brave
what if each to his own lonely grave

I don't want to live without you
I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without
you


I think if I'd heard this at a different time, I would've been surprised, but kind of shrugged it off. It's probably too easy to get thrown off-kilter by sad songs when it's been an uncomfortable 9-5:30 work day...a 5:30-7:30 music rehearsal that made my throat raw and my fingers ache, leaving rosin and inky black oil from the fingerboard all over my fingers and my dress... a crashing halt to the day when the guitarist left, and I realized that it was just me and my toaster and some turkey and tomato and sourdough and a completely silent apartment complex...

A guaranteed combination to end up tired and melancholy on the couch, needing conversation or stimulation, but instead getting mustard on my post-its while I wrote long to-do lists that included way too many responsible and nerve-wrackingly adult things that I'm not good at.

I tried a phone call, but the words spilled out of my mouth faster than I could formulate them, and they created a traffic jam on an otherwise poor connection.

I tried reminding myself that life is not always on my terms, but it just reinforced the feeling that when you want to be swept into arms and laughter and sunshine and discussions about super novas while the sun sets over the tea factory, it stings a little when everyone else wants to be in a shell doing the things that need to be done, being responsible and appropriate.

Outside, the sprinkler heads are whining like tea kettles, and my apartment's orientation to the parking lot masks the scent of cranberry zinger and cool air wafting in from the foothills to the west, and hides the view of coyotes lurking around the fields looking for prairie dog meals.

These are not Regina Spektor moments.
These are New Argentinian Guitarist that I Just Imported Into iTunes moments.

I'm still learning.