Regina Spektor – Reading Time with Pickle

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  My Interpretation:I can easily see the pickle thing being a metaphor for masturbation like some people are saying. However, I feel that because the pickle is a symbol, it definitely doesn't have to be just masturbating. Perhaps it is more of a general term for any guilty pleasure.
  
  When she can't find another pickle she likes at the end, yes she's probably yearning for a person, another physical person to share the feeling with. But maybe it's also that the "pickle" has grown stale. The feeling just isn't the same as it was the first time.

  Flagged Spiralleon April 03, 2013   Link

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  General Comment:For me, this song just brings back an odd memory of my childhood. :/
  
  I must have been about three or four. It was dinner time, and I was sitting at my little plastic table, about to eat some pasta. I started thinking about how my pasta may have once been something else. I might have thought it had once been a living thing, or maybe just a thing with feelings that did not want to die.
  
  I started crying into my bowl and asking the spaghetti to forgive me for the pain I had surely inflicted upon it...I tried to reason that I was very hungry, so that it should forgive me. :)
  
  Pasta doesn't taste as good when it is drenched in the sorrow of a four year old girl.
  
  So, that is my story of a time when I gave human quality to an unanimate object...kind of like the character in the song!

  Flag morikahjoon May 26, 2012   Link

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  My Interpretation:I feel like that Regina is singing in a perspective of a man, and I guess that the jar of pickles in the store would represent pornography because she sings "bought the jar, took it home." She doesn't sing buy the pickles cause I guess the jar is a pornographic magazine, and the pickles are the different naked women he sees on the magazine, especially when she sings, "made eye contact with a solitary pickle" (or with a solitary woman) and there are many women in a magazine like many pickles in a jar. But "solitary" also represents him, since he is a lonely guy who doesn't know what love is. As a guy, I can totally understand why its a man's perspective, and the lyrics, "then sleeping time, not sleepy so reading time with pickle," is kind of a guy's mind because I don't think most women think that way about masterbation.

  Flag CauseSilenceIsHarderon August 18, 2011   Link

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  My Opinion:Only Regina could make a song about a jar or pickles sounds so beautiful!

  Flag ashwriteslyricson May 08, 2011   Link

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  My Opinion:Only Regina could make a song about a jar or pickles sounds so beautiful!

  Flag ashwriteslyricson May 08, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:I've always viewed the pickle as a metaphor for a dildo. All her "rage" (sexual tension) is gone afterwards, and she realizes how love can heal her. But the next day, when she goes to use it again, she realizes she wants a human, cause *cough* USING just the "pickle" isn't really love.

  Flag maysensmynameon December 30, 2010   Link

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  My Interpretation:now that i think about it the masturbating/meaningless sex-theories make perfect sense. but like some other person here i just can't bring myself to really believing that the song is about masturbating. ^^
  
  that's why i'm just gonna post what i thought the song was about up until now. what i actually still think it is about.
  
  so, when i listen to the song i always think it's about falling in and out of love. i think some other people here said this before as well.
  the pickles and pickle jars are a metaphor for guys. you get to know one, invite him into your life and everything. he starts to metaphorically tint your life with his colours - "eminating soft soft green"
  you are happy and everything feels magical and you start to think that maybe *this* is it, this is how it's supposed to be and supposed to stay.
  but suddenly the magic vanishes and before you really understand what's happening you've fallen out of love. and you look at him and think "well, what was so special about him, really. he's just like any other guy."
  
  but the thing that this song tells me is that love is the one thing that can transform a perfectly normal boy into prince charming. and that's a great thing, in my opinion.
  and secondly, that love is a thing that can't be nailed down to one meaning. it's the answer to all the questions we have forgotten, to all the questions we will never ask. it's always changing and always moving. that's what's so wonderful about it. sure, it also means people can fall out of love, but that's ok because in the end love is still the red line in life. the thing that keeps it all together.

  Flag thekindofgirlon June 30, 2010   Link

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  General Comment:okay, geez. i'm not reg, so i can't say for certain, but i never thought this song had a sexual undertone at all. at all. i think this song is so beautiful and really, is one of the major songs that showcases her genius as a writer and a great example of why i love her so much. carried under the guise of a silly song about pickles is this beatiful, weighty, honest message. this song brings me to tears all the time. lemme preface...
  
  several years ago...like over half a decade now...i had a terrible breakup with my then-new boyfriend (now fiancee, so it's okay:D). we were only apart for about 2 1/2 wks, but it was truly 2 1/2 of the worst weeks of my life. i dropped 25 pounds, started spending all my time pulling doubles and overtime (at a job i hated btw) and stopped taking phone calls from almost everyone--like literally kept my phone turned off because my heart would break every time it rang and i realized it wasn't him. the point is, i spent my time doing anything i could to keep my mind off him and made many fruitless attempts to find happiness in small, trivial pleasures ("pickles") like a sitcom or a funny book or a kid's movie etc. and it would appease me for all of five minutes before i'd be back to my old sad self.
  
  so, to me, this song is talking about how when you're depressed, you'll find anything to latch onto that will give you some sense of comfort and happiness, no matter how empty and meaningless it really is. and how, if you find that thing, it completely consumes you. and then how, at some point, you look up and realize it's silly and you have to tell yourself that whatever that distraction or "pickle" is, it's not going to save you; you have to face the problem so you can move on. i won't go into the specifics of the lyrics, because in this context, they're all pretty straight forward.
  
  but i love the line about the bathroom being the truest room in the whole damn house because it's true. of all the rooms in the house, you spend most of the time you're naked in the bathroom. just being you and not putting on any airs or hiding yourself away, but just simply being. and doing things like using the bathroom and showering in your own specific way that other people don't know about etc. and when you're in that kind of depression, the last thing you want is to be around other ppl, like your family, who you can't totally be yourself around and it makes you wanna run to a place you can be yourself.
  
  anywho, sorry for this rant. i know no one cares about my silly break-up story, but i thought i needed to give an explanation...i probly didn't...oh well.

  Flag expectedperfectionon February 04, 2010   Link

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    @expected perfection:
    
    I liked your "rant"! It illustrates how a well-written song can mean something very personal to the listener. And I like your take on the bathroom; I hadn't thought of it

    Flag Phonophobeon May 23, 2010  

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    Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's exactly what I was trying to express. When someone is depressed, it's those little things, those "pickles" that seem to brighten the world just a little bit. This song can't be about sex, it just ruins the innocence of it.
    
    And I also really like the bathroom illustration. I always knew that I liked that line, but I never knew why until now. I've always been tempted to use that line in everyday speech.... "I'm going to use the bathroom.... The truest room and the whole damn house!"

    Flag LyssaGirl66on August 12, 2010  
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  General Comment:I'm sorry, but I can't ruin this song by thinking it represents sex. I mean, this song is so *innocent* and simple. She is unhappy, she goes to the store and randomly becomes happy because she's eating pickles. Really, that's the way *I* am. I'll be unhappy but I'll just randomly become happy over a silly thing, like a flower or a cloud or a pretty sunset. I just can't let the simple happiness of this song be ruined by thinking it's about sex.

  Flag LyssaGirl66on November 20, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:feeding time with tv...
  
  makes me wants a freaking tv dinner! (:
  
  why is she so brilliant?? :D

  Flag morganic22on September 03, 2009   Link

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