A Soviet born Regina Spektor, in her Apres Moi song, sings a couple of lines from the Boris Pasternak's poem Black Spring (I wrote about it yesterday). I liked the song, but kept hearing "I'm from Wisconsin" in the first stanza, and I knew she wasn't, so I googled for the lyrics. They are infiinitely better than the lyrics of the song the kids like to listen to in the car.We got that CD on a yard sale and I keep forgetting to remove it from the van. There's a song on it, with one single line, repeated over and over again. And even though I'm pretty certain the singer sings something like I gotta feel, all we hear is I gotta pee. Not a good song on long drives, let me tell you. And how can one sing a song with a single line repeated for 3 minutes?
Compared to the peeing song, Apres Mois seems to be deep, dramatic, and almost spiritual. After all, there are lines from a Pasternak's poem in it. Yet I can't figure out why the lines are there, and what the song is about, after all. If anyone can explain this to me, I'd be most happy, because I do like the song.
The lyrics, with my comments, below:
I must go on standing
You can't break that which isn't yours
I must go on standing
I'm not my own, it's not my choice
(She must go on standing, but it is not her choice???)
Be afraid of the lame, they'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old, they'll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold, they'll inherit your blood
Après moi, le deluge, after me comes the flood
(So this is something to inspire me to live my life this way, or am I missing the point?)
Fevrale dostat chernil i plakat
Pisat O Fevrale navsnryd
Poka grohochushaya slyakot
Vesnoyu charnoyu gorit
(I can't figure out how this stanza fits at all, other than youtube commenters declared it sexy, because it is Russian. In Russian this means: Black spring! Pick up your pen, and weeping, Of February, in sobs and ink,
Write poems, while the slush in thunder, Is burning in the black of spring. Can someone explain this to me?)
Meanwhile, I listened to this song about one hundered times by now, and it is seriously growing on me. She is not from Wisconsin, nope, she isn't.
I think you're reading the very inspirational feeling you got from the poem into the rest of the song. I think the song is supposed to be negative. I don't really know what it's about - despite writing poetry, I don't often understand it. But she's being forced to continue standing for some reason. Standing could be metaphorical. The "You can't break what isn't yours" makes me think that she has no control over standing - like her legs are not her own, which is sort of delved into with "Be afraid of the lame, they'll inherit your legs."
ReplyDeleteIt could be something like February is stealing all of one's energy. It's a fear of losing one's power, so to speak, rather than actually doing it, and yet having to carry on regardless. I certainly feel that way in February.
Who knows what she really meant, but there's one reading into it.
Oh, I love your reading, and it does make sense. Thank you for sharing! (prying my eyes open!)
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