We're going to kill two birds with one stone and get back to you on that new Regina Spektor single. We have to go out on a limb and say we like it. We like it a lot. We like it against our better judgement.
The thing about this song is, it don't have much to recommend it. Unlike "Fidelity" with its unique heart-tugging violin pluck riffs, "Samson" with its uniquely gorgeous melody and stoic piano, "Laughing With" is fairly mundane, musically. There are some pretty little strings that pop out at you the more you listen to it, but other than that it's fairly ordinary.
The beauty in this little gem, are the lyrics. At first we sort of balked at them. They seemed contrived, and is if they were working too hard. But the more you listen, the more you realise that no one else could write these lyrics. And no one else could carry them off. Despite the constant repitition of the word 'God', you don't get the feeling that Regina, or this song, are trying to hammer a Christian point home, or that this song even has anything to do with organised religion. Regina manages to capture, with her sparse and evocative lyrics, a thousand little snapshots into what we generally refer to as 'life'.
When she sings "Nobody laughs at God in a hospital" you immediately gain entry to a wash of related emotion. Pain, grief, sadness, melancholy. When she sings "No one´s laughing at God when they see the one they love/Hand in hand with someone else and they hope they´re mistaken" it tugs at your heart as if you've just seen your lover holding hands with someone else. The following lyrics show just how deep the initially simple-sounding song is:
Of course Regina, like her forebearers Kate Bush and Tori Amos is totally a marmite artist. To some she's a genius, weaving heartbreaking stories with the most simple and evocative of words, and to others she's a contrived, overrated and saccharine harpy.
To us she's the former.
The thing about this song is, it don't have much to recommend it. Unlike "Fidelity" with its unique heart-tugging violin pluck riffs, "Samson" with its uniquely gorgeous melody and stoic piano, "Laughing With" is fairly mundane, musically. There are some pretty little strings that pop out at you the more you listen to it, but other than that it's fairly ordinary.
The beauty in this little gem, are the lyrics. At first we sort of balked at them. They seemed contrived, and is if they were working too hard. But the more you listen, the more you realise that no one else could write these lyrics. And no one else could carry them off. Despite the constant repitition of the word 'God', you don't get the feeling that Regina, or this song, are trying to hammer a Christian point home, or that this song even has anything to do with organised religion. Regina manages to capture, with her sparse and evocative lyrics, a thousand little snapshots into what we generally refer to as 'life'.
When she sings "Nobody laughs at God in a hospital" you immediately gain entry to a wash of related emotion. Pain, grief, sadness, melancholy. When she sings "No one´s laughing at God when they see the one they love/Hand in hand with someone else and they hope they´re mistaken" it tugs at your heart as if you've just seen your lover holding hands with someone else. The following lyrics show just how deep the initially simple-sounding song is:
"God can be funny
When told he´ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious"
Of course Regina, like her forebearers Kate Bush and Tori Amos is totally a marmite artist. To some she's a genius, weaving heartbreaking stories with the most simple and evocative of words, and to others she's a contrived, overrated and saccharine harpy.
To us she's the former.
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