Lyrical Loveliness : Regina Spektor

It's certainly no revelation that Regina Spektor rocks. Sometimes this time of year is tinged with a bit of sadness - holiday hangover meets deflation of anticipation. This young virtuoso's sprightly wordplay on her new album "Far" goes a long way toward being an antidote to January doldrums. Nothing like giving your love a half an hour or realizing we're laughing with God to brighten a dreary day.

Favorite excerpts below.

You went into the kitchen cupboard
Got yourself another hour
And you gave half of it to me
We sat there looking at the faces
Of these strangers in the pages
'Til we knew them mathematically


They were in our minds
Until forever
But we didn't mind
We didn't know better


So we made our own computer
Out of macaroni pieces
And it did our thinking while we lived our lives
It counted up our feelings
And divided them up even
And it called that calculation perfect love


Didn't even know
That love was bigger
Didn't even know
That love was so, so
Hey hey hey


Hey this fire it's burnin'
Burnin' us up


Hey this fire it's burnin'
Burnin' us up


So we made the hard decision
And we each made an incision
Past our muscles and our bones
Saw our hearts were little stones


Pulled them out they weren't beating
And we weren't even bleeding
And we lay them on the granite counter top


We beat 'em up
Against each other
We struck 'em hard
Against each other


We struck 'em so hard
Until they sparked
- The Calculation from Far

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one's laughing at God when they're starving or freezing or so very poor


No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one's laughing at God when it's gotten real late and their kid's not back from that party yet


No one laughs at God when their airplane starts to uncontrollably shake
No one's laughing at God when they see the one they love hand in hand with someone else and they hope that they're mistaken
No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door and they say "we've got some bad news, sir,"
No one's laughing at God when there's a famine, fire or flood


But God can be funny
At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke
Or when the crazies say he hates us and they get so red in the head you think that they're about to choke


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 or Santa Claus


God can be so hilarious
Ha ha...


No one's laughing at God
No one's laughing at God
No one's laughing at God
We're all laughing with God
- Laughing With from Far

Lyrical Loveliness : Ray LaMontagne

Image via Flickr

Music is my first love. I was a tickler of ivories before I was a reader of words. It seems increasingly rare these days, but when you find those musicians who are also true lyricists - who set the poetry of language to the mastery of their instrument - that is a treat to be savored. Raymond Charles LaMontagne is just such a treat.

She lifts her skirt up to her knees,
walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing.
I never learned to count my blessings,
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters.
I walk on down the hill,
through grass, grown tall and brown and still
It's hard somehow to let go of my pain.
On past the busted back of that old and rusted Cadillac
that sinks into this field, collecting rain.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

And of these cutthroat busted sunsets,
these cold and damp white mornings
I have grown weary.
If through my cracked and dusted dime-store lips
I spoke these words out loud would no one hear me?
Lay your blouse across the chair,
let fall the flowers from from your hair
and kiss me with that country mouth, so plain.
Outside, the rain is tapping on the leaves,
to me it sounds like they're applauding us the the quiet love we made.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

Well I looked my demons in the eyes,
laid bare my chest, said "Do your best, destroy me.
You see, I've been to hell and back so many times,
I must admit you kind of bore me."
There's a lot of things that can kill a man,
there's a lot of ways to die,
listen, some already did that walked beside me.
There's a lot of things I don't understand,
why so many people lie.
It's the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged
- Empty (Til the Sun Turns Black - 2006)