David Remnick: 20 years ago, Regina Spektor, who was born in Moscow, was just another aspiring musician in New York. She was lugging around a backpack full of self-produced CDs and playing at little clubs in the East Village, anywhere that had a piano really. Anonymity in Spektor's case, it didn't last long. She toured with the Strokes in 2003, and once she had a record deal of her own, her ambitions grew well beyond the borders of indie music.

[MUSIC - Regina Spektor: Fidelity]

I never loved nobody fully

Always one foot on the ground

David Remnick: Her album Begin to Hope went gold, and Spektor began moving into more of a pop vein writing anthems about love and heartbreak, loneliness and death, and God. She even wrote the theme song to Orange Is The New Black.

[music- You've Got Time by Regina Spektor]

The sun is out, the day is new

And everyone is waiting, waiting on you

And you've got time

David Remnick: Spektor's music is powered by years of classical training on the piano and a voice that goes from a whisper to a roar. She's about to launch a tour of the US in support of the record called Home Before And After. It came out last summer, and the New Yorkers music critic, Amanda Petrusich, joined Regina Spektor in a living room with a grand piano to talk about the album and to listen to some of the songs.

Amanda Petrusich: Regina, it's been quite a while since we've had a record from you who's counting, but 2016 was the last time, and it feels like, since that moment, the world has turned itself inside out a few times. I'm curious how the last six years have been for you and I know there's been some performances and a residency and some one-off recordings, but how have you been spending that time?

Regina Spektor: It's one of those things where as I've been doing some interviews with this record coming out, that's how I found out how much time has passed. I'm not really aware of time in a useful way. I think I have a serious time management problem, and I think that a lot of the time when the world is normal and when there's structure, I rely on that to push me along like that famous line of like, there's nothing more inspiring than a deadline. For me, that's very, very true. What I do is I end up writing songs just as I live life. They're like a byproduct of me in the world, but also I guess every dream has its shadow side and my shadow side is that I will stretch time unless somebody tells me that I have to do something.

Amanda Petrusich: Is that isolation typically an essential part of your process? That old jazz idea of woodshedding of I just have to go away for a while and live with this work and be in it and be free of distractions for a moment to focus and make art that speaks to me?

Regina Spektor: Well, it's funny, I never get to go away and do that thing for writing. I always hear about people. They're like, "I went to a cabin and I wrote a record." I'm like, "How did you?"

[laughter]

To me, it's like a lot of the time I have friends, they actually know how to, every day at this time they will go and they'll work. I'm not like that, I have to feel inspired. When I talk about it in an interview, I could almost hear eyes rolling. I could almost feel it. It's like this horrible thing where, I don't know, I must have put this idea into my head.

I remember reading some interviews and some music magazine on an airplane years ago, and it just somehow it wounded me, like a little paper cut. It was some, I don't even remember who the musician was, but I remember it was a man and he was a legendary. He was saying that, "I'm just so sick and tired of people talking about inspiration, like music writing is craft and it's hard work."

I was like, "I don't know, just tell me. I have never experienced that." It's just like, I know hard work in the studio. I know long hours, I know throwing yourself into deadlines. I know how work of practicing for hours and relearning all these songs that I basically forget fully from time to time. I only can write when I'm inspired and I only if I sit down to the instrument and I start to play and it just feels like nothing. It almost disgusts me on a physical level to continue it just, I step away, I do something else. I'll cook, I'll take a walk, I'll do all those things on my endless to-do list, but I can't force myself to try and write a song.

Amanda Petrusich: I am not a famous old man, but I thought the way that you were describing songwriting was so beautiful and lovely and it's organic and it's a part of your life and you haven't compartmentalized it or professionalized it in a way that makes it an island in the stream of your existence. It's really like breathing. I think in some ways, I would imagine that leaves you really open to the whims of the day. It's anything can blow through the window in that moment.

Regina Spektor: Yes. That's exactly it. Oh, that's beautiful. Yes, I love that image. I do feel like there's some part of me that's like, "Well, this is just how you make art and everybody's got these different systems." There's almost 8 billion of us on this planet, and we really vary. It's like maybe my type of system is just needed for this kind of music. Then there's all this other music in the world that-- I mean that's the blessing, like how diverse we are. We pay so many terrible prices for being humans. One of the good things is, [laughs] let's enjoy the good stuff.

Amanda Petrusich: Yes. No, I love that idea. Regina, could we hear a bit of Loveology?

Regina Spektor: Oh, yes, sure.

[MUSIC - Regina Spektor: Loveology]

[instrumentals]

Oh, an incurable humanist you are

Oh, an incurable humanist you are

You are, you are, are

You are, you

Oh, an incurable humanist you are

Oh, an incurable humanist

You, ooh, ooh, ooh

Are, are, are, are

You, ooh, ooh, ooh

Are, are, are, are

Let's go to the movies

I will hum you a song about nothing at all

Let's go to the movies

I will hum you a song about nothing at all

Let's go to the movies

Let's go to the movies

Nothing at all, nothing at all

Nothing at all, nothing at all

Oh, an incurable humanist you are

Oh, an incurable humanist

You, ooh, ooh, ooh

Are, are, are, are

You, ooh, ooh, ooh

Are, are, are, are

Let's go to the movies

I will sing you a song about nothing at all

Let's go to the movies

I will sing you a song about nothing at all

Let's go to the movies

Let's go to the movies

Nothing at all, nothing at all

Nothing at all, nothing at all

Sit down, class!

Open up your textbooks to page 42

Amanda Petrusich: Speaking of time Regina, there's a line in Up the Mountain, a new song, or two lines actually that I think about a lot of in my own life. You ask us to hurry, hurry, but also slow down, slow down. I feel like, God, is there anything else that better encapsulates the tension of life in the 21st century? I was hoping you could talk a little bit about that song, about the mountain in that song, and maybe play us a tiny bit.

Regina Spektor: Well, when I started writing this song, I didn't even realize that I was writing it at first. I just got the little [plays a rhythm]. This little rhythm in me. I would just walk and I was always hearing, it was like a tiny haunting. I would like to be at a stoplight. It would just be like, [plays a rhythm] like this little, and I would just be like wiggling like a crazy person to that little rhythm.

Amanda Petrusich: It's a little sinister. I like that just tiny bit of eeriness to that bit.

Regina Spektor: Yes. It was just always tapping me on the shoulder, and I would just be at home, and it would be doing it. It was just around me, whenever it would get quiet, it would just sneak in and just be there. Then one day I started pulling on this thread of it, and then that little-

[MUSIC - Regina Spektor: Up the Mountain]

In the ocean, there's a mountain

On the mountain, there's a forest

In the forest

In the forest, there's a garden

In the forest, there's a garden

In the forest, there's a garden

In the forest, there's a garden

Gotta get in there, gotta get in there

Gotta get in there, gotta get in there

It was just this kind of fairy tale started to emerge, almost like those old fairy tales that have like, I know that some of the Russian ones would have this, but where you would have this ball of yarn, and it would just roll, and you would just follow the thread, and you would pull on the thread. It was kind of this very mysterious little fairy tale emerged.

Amanda Petrusich: Yes. Your music is so sophisticated, it's so gorgeous, but there is this sense of wonder that's almost childlike. There's a imagination that's clearly fueling this work in a way that seems extraordinary to me and so singular to you and your work. There's almost a fairy tale quality to some of the narratives. It's interesting to hear you talk about how those things are linked.

Regina Spektor: I am very, very happy when I'm not necessarily in the mucky muck of the logistics of the world. I'm very happy to be in the world of the unconscious and the symbolic and the archetypal, and all that, or I'm really, really happy just being like, [makes sounds] and they're whimsical and surreal.

I think that life pushes you, especially as an adult, and especially when you're responsible for other little humans, to be a present in this kind of logistics way. I try as much as possible to just integrate fun because I love fun, and I love beauty, and I love magic, and this world is really full of that. I will not have anybody take that away. I fight for certain things, and that's one of the things I fight for. I protect the borders of my land from the invasion of the unfun and the dreary and the dull and the boring.

Amanda Petrusich: It's such an important idea because I think the culture of the world you're saying as adults, it tries to teach us that playfulness and seriousness are somehow at odds. That that's a binary, those things can't exist at the same time. Certainly, I think your music proves otherwise, but it is a practice to say like, "No, this can be joyful and light and buoyant and silly and also be a serious composition. It can also be a real piece of music.

Regina Spektor: You know what? One of the things that I truly, truly, I guess I'm holding a torch for is the idea that fiction can be really, really true and emotionally true. I think at least at the moment it seems that for the most part in our culture, in our society, the consensus is that things that are autobiographical or biographical are true, and it's all interchangeable. And I'm just out there holding a torch for like-- Gregor Samsa and Anna Karenina, they're as real to me as real people, and they're as personal, they're as authentic.

I think in the world of art, I pledge allegiance to the imagination and in writing songs that oftentimes end up in the realm of stories or fairy tales or maybe have the eye or the me be something other than Regina. I strive for that, but I truly believe in that, why can't you be very serious about being playful? Why can't you be really personal about fiction?

Amanda Petrusich: There's also a song on the record called Becoming All Alone. For me, I think the most stark and intense quality of these last couple of years, is the isolation and alienation. I'd love for you to play us a little bit.

Regina Spektor: Sure.

[MUSIC- Regina Spektor: Becoming All Alone]

I went walking home alone

Past all the bars and corner delis

When I heard God call out my name

And he said, "Hey

Let's grab a beer

It's awful late

We both right here"

And we didn't even have to pay

'Cause God is God

And he's revered

And I said:

"Why doesn't it get better with time?"

I'm becoming all alone again

Stay, stay, stay

Let the ones who want it bad

Get all the things that make them better

Let the ones who don't care feel a thrill

And I just want to ride

But this whole world

It makes me carsick

Stop the meter, sir

You have a heart

Why don't you use it?

Why doesn't it get better with time?

I'm becoming all alone again

Stay, stay, stay

I went walking home alone

Past all the bars and corner delis

When I asked God

Please call

Call my name

And I said, "Hey

Let's grab a beer

It's awful late

I know you're here

And we wouldn't even have to pay

'Cause You are God and You're revered"

Why doesn't it get better with time?

I'm becoming all alone again

Stay, stay, stay

I'm becoming all alone again

Stay, stay, stay

Stay, stay, stay

Stay, stay, stay

Stay, stay, stay

David Remnick: Regina Spektor at the piano playing Becoming All Alone.

Regina Spektor: Why is music so [beep] hard to play?

David Remnick: She's talking with staff writer, Amanda Petrusich. We'll continue in just a moment. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick. Our music writer Amanda Petrusich spoke last year with Regina Spektor, the singer and pianist and songwriter. We'll return now to that conversation. Spektor came to this country as a child from Russia. Amanda asked her about the war in Ukraine in this moment of tension between the US and Russia.

Amanda Petrusich: Regina, you were born in Moscow and lived there until you were nine years old. Curious, lately Russia, obviously has been occupying the national imagination as we look on as this conflict with Ukraine continues. I just wanted to ask you about your perspective on that war from afar.

Regina Spektor: Well, I think, in some ways, my view into it's just colored by all of these different layers of everything I've experienced. In some ways, I'm just like every other single sane person on the planet, looking at a war that's begun in this day and age with these weapons on civilians, like an unnecessary war.

In another way, just having come from the Soviet Union, where really all of those republics and all of those countries were united. Granted, they were united through absolute repression and oppression, but when I was little, we had all-- Half of my family are from Ukraine, and half are from Russia. They're all over the place. My grandparents they're from Zhytomyr, my dad's parents. My other grandparents are from Belarus. My great uncle is from Siberia, from Novosibirsk and I have all these relatives from Siberia. Then I have all these relatives from Odesa, and then I have all these friends from Kharkiv, and now it's St. Petersburg, but Leningrad and all these other places.

So to me, it was just like, we all had the same music. We all had the same films. We all had the same food. Everybody fought the Nazis. To me, I guess, little bit of without speaking out of both sides of my mouth and with complete acknowledgment of the horror and the nightmare of it. That there's obviously a wrong party and a right party. The only thing that rises up in me is this vilification of the humans, the Russian people. I do not believe that this is people. I do not believe that.

I don't believe in cultural bans, but I think if you have it in you, if you have the soul strength to not dehumanize the Russian people and to not start creating another boogeyman and saying, well, the Russians this and the Russians that, then you will be part of the solution to this because the more we vilify and isolate and sort of bad dog, when you start to take away a nation's dignity, when you start to make them feel like they don't have a seat at the table as people, you are literally working in partnership with those leaders because propaganda works. That's why they all do it. I think that you're basically helping. You're helping the people just be corralled, be walked right into the prison of, well, they don't respect you. They don't understand you. They hate you. I love you. I will help you. I'll take care of you.

I think that the more we can connect culture, the more we can keep people realizing that it's the same feelings, the same songs, the same films, that same art, that we value these things together. It's not like somebody in St. Petersburg is sitting there not worrying about their child or wanting to hurt somebody. That's the thing. It's like, I don't want to carpet bomb any city, but somebody could be doing that in my name right now.

Amanda Petrusich: Of course. I think you're right, too, that music and art can be such a clarifying and powerful force in terms of reminding us of our own humanity and our shared experience of this earth. I'm curious if that has been an experience for you touring and performing globally. These stories you're telling feel very singular and unique to you, but here they are resonating so broadly.

Regina Spektor: Yes. I think I have gotten just the privilege of it hasn't worn off at all. I definitely remember just when I first began touring the world, just being shocked, even just that people would know the songs that they would connect with them, and even just with the idea that these weren't English-first-language countries.

Also, I really would feel it. I have this one song called Après Moi, and it has a stanza from Boris Pasternak in it of a poem. I sing it in Russian, and it's the way that the audiences all over the world would connect to me speaking Russian to them or singing Russian rather. It was just so beautiful because it almost felt like with them not being English as their first language audiences and with me not being an English as my first language, a performer that we would meet in this whole other place that was beyond national boundaries and that we could all just be really together. It's really like there are no boundaries, no language barriers. We're all just here together. We're all blown about. One day you can be in another country than your own and you will connect with people and bring something of your culture there.

Amanda Petrusich: It's such an important and comforting idea. Could you play a bit of that song, or you are not ready for that at all? [laughs] It's okay if you can't.

Regina Spektor: Let me see.

Amanda Petrusich: Figured I'd ask.

[MUSIC - Regina Spektor: Après Moi]

[instrumentals]

I (uh) must go on standing

You can't break that which isn't yours

I (uh) must go on standing

I'm not my own, it's not my 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

Apres moi le deluge, after me comes the flood

I (uh) must go on standing

You can't break that which isn't yours

I (uh) must go on standing

I'm not my own, it's not my 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

Apres moi le deluge, after me comes the flood

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

Apres moi le deluge, after me comes the flood

Fevrale dostat chernil I plakat

Pisat O Fevrale navsnryd

Poka grohochushaya slyakot

Vesnoyu charnoyu gorit

Fevrale dostat chernil I plakat

Pisat O Fevrale navsnryd

Poka grohochushaya slyakot

Vesnoyu charnoyu gorit

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

Apres moi le deluge, after me comes the flood

I (uh) must go on standing

You can't break that which isn't yours

I (are) must go

on standing

I'm not my own, it's not my choice.

I (uh) must go on standing

You can't break that which isn't yours

I (uh) must go on standing

I'm not my own, it's not my choice

[instrumentals]

Amanda Petrusich: We were talking a bit earlier, you were saying time has always had a funny place in your mind, and I think that emerges frequently in your work. Time is a rubbery, kind of non-linear concept. That's something I love about your songs, because it feels like there's room to disappear in them. Since I know it's, I don't know, they're propulsive and they push me in a certain direction, but it also feels really free. I was hoping you could play a bit of Spacetime from the new record and maybe talk a little bit more about that idea.

Regina Spektor: Yes, I'd love to. This song actually, it got born of this idea, I got invited to speak at an event at Pioneer Works, and it was called Universe in Verse, and it's something Maria Popova puts on where she combines science and poetry and she was saying, "Yes, you could play a song," and I got ambitious because she said, "Well, some people were writing a new poem or a new thing," and so, I was like, "Oh, I could do a new thing."

Of course, I started thinking a lot about it and I was talking to a friend of mine in Paris actually, who'd done a lot of reading on the science of it, and he said, "I keep getting these very deep, very complicated technical books, and every time the scientists run out of the math, they go to philosophers," and they're all quoting poets and philosophers. So, at the end, I think that at its most, it goes all around, it goes all through science and math and physics and quantum physics, and then it just comes out at philosophy.

[laughter]

It just pops out, and it's like, actually, the best way we still have to describe this absolutely bizarre, surreal experience on this planet is with these abstracted human ideas.

Amanda Petrusich: Of course, yes.

Regina Spektor: I think that I started working on this song for then, and of course, it turned into this massive, big song, and then it became in a strange way, the heart of this record to me.

[MUSIC: Regina Spektor: Spacetime Fairytale]

[instrumentals]

I woke up with you in my head

Like a melody to sing in bed

I should get up, but I instead

Make a face you used to make

I know there's no such thing as time

I know there's no such thing as mine

I know there's no such thing as turning back

The fairy tale's begun

So, listen up, my son

The pages may have burned

But words can just return

All of time spans

All of space spans

All of light spans

All our life spans

My mind is full of melodies

They search for homes inside of me

Like begging, pleading refugees

But I can't find the time

I know there's no such thing as time

I know there's no such thing as mine

I try to calm and still the rising tide

Keep listening, my son

'Cause the story just goes on

Each time a theory proves

The mystery just moves

Time moves slower

Round your feet

Find slow time

Breathe and feel the beat of

Time moves slower

Round your feet

Find slow time

Breathe and feel the beat of time

[instrumentals]

[vocal percussion]

This world began outside of time

Some days it's yours, some days it's mine

Some days it's cruel, some days it's kind

It just can't stay the same

I know there's no such thing as time

I know there's no such thing as mine

I try to sing a melody your way

The story must go on

So, keep listening, my son

And if you get too tired

Just build a little fire

The pages they may burn

But words can just return

Pages burn but words return

Just watch the flames and you will learn

Pages burn but

words return

Just watch the flames and you will learn

You will learn

You will learn

You will learn

You will learn

You will learn

You will learn

[instrumentals]

David Remnick: Regina Spektor. That was Spacetime Fairytale. Spektor's latest album is Home, Before and After, and she spoke with The New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich.

 

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