Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor
Regina Ilyinichna Spektor is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She was born in the Soviet Union where she began classical training on the piano at the age of 6. When she was 9 years old, her family emigrated to the United States where she continued her classical training into her teenage years; she began to write original songs shortly thereafter...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth18 February 1980
CityMoscow, Russia
CountryRussian Federation
I figured, 'If I ever get offered a chance to sign a deal, I'll only do it if I got to do it how I want.' So my contract is structured in such a way that I'm really protected.
You are my sweetest downfall.
I feel different. You know this many times over, because you are a parent, but it transforms you. It's this incredible experience where, in one way, you are still very much yourself, and in some ways you become even more connected to the rest of yourself. All of a sudden, you just get more connected to your child self, and your teenage self, and all these selves that you've maybe been abandoning at every date post that you pass.
I used to be such a militant city-ist, but more and more I've seen forests and nature and oceans, and I don't know any more if this is the awesomest way to live.
Even if you're an observer of a story that you yourself made up, you're still very much connected to it. You love it and feel it, no less than somebody's who's writing from their direct 'I' or 'me.' I'm just so much more interesting in stories than confessions.
I've been thinking a lot about space. It was one of those slow-motion realisations how little we are, how far we are from everything else in our solar system. This idea of distance started kind of haunting me. How do you go forth and accomplish things but not end up leaving everything you started out with in the dust?
Most of the time I don't even talk about any direct lineage of songs, because I feel like it just chains them down into my own consciousness, and the whole fun of them is being able to live in others' consciousness.
When you're playing such brilliant music every day, then the last thing you ever want to do is try to write something of your own that's crude and not as good.
I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh lord please don't let me be misunderstood.
I always have kind of a few books going at the same time.
We don't have a lot of power in the world, right? We can only control so many things. It allows you to curate your own emotional and artistic intake of life.
So break me to small parts, let go in small doses, but spare some for spare parts.
Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light.
This is how it works You're young until you're not You love until you don't You try until you can't You laugh until you cry You cry until you laugh And everyone must breathe Until their dying breath No, this is how it works You peer inside yourself You take the things you like And try to love the things you took And then you take that love you made And stick it into some Someone else's heart Pumping someone else's blood And walking arm in arm You hope it don't get harmed But even if it does You'll just do it all again