He never, ever saw it
Coming at all
He never, ever saw it
Coming at all

He never, ever saw it
Coming at all
It's alright, it's al-

Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right

Hey, open wide, here comes
Original sin
Hey, open wide, here comes
Original sin

(Vrrr)
Hey, open wide, here comes
Original sin
It's alright, it's al-

Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right

No one's got it all
No one's got it all
No one's got it a-a-all

Power to the people
We don't want it
We want pleasure
And the TVs try to rape us
And I guess that they're succeeding

And we're going to these meetings
But we're not doing any meeting
And we're trying to be faithful, but we're
Cheating, cheating, cheating

Hey, open wide, here comes
Original sin
Hey, open wide, here comes
Original sin

(Vrrr)
Hey, open wide, here comes
Original sin
It's alright, it's al-

Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-

Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-

Right, it's al-
Right

No one's got it all
No one's got it all
No one's got it a-a-all

Power to the people
We don't want it
We want pleasure
And the TVs try to rape us
And I guess that they're succeeding

And we're going to these meetings
But we're not doing any meeting
And we're trying to be faithful, but we're
Cheating, cheating, cheating

I'm the hero of the story
Don't need to be saved
I'm the hero of the story
Don't need to be saved

I'm the hero of the story
Don't need to be saved
I'm the hero of the story
Don't need to be saved
It's alright, it's al-

Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-

Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-

Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right, it's al-
Right

No one's got it all
No one's got it all
No one's got it a-a-all

All
All
All
All

All, all, all, all, all
All, all, all, all, all
All, all, all, all, all
All, all, all, all, all
All, all, all, all, all
All, all, all, all


Lyrics submitted by Airyca

Hero [Non-Album Track] Lyrics as written by Regina Spektor

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

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Hero song meanings
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72 Comments

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  • +10
    General Comment

    suuuuuuuuuuuuuch good placement in 500 days at the climax of the film. great song.

    IncredibleBlahson August 09, 2009   Link
  • +7
    General Comment

    Wow, lots of different opinions on this one- here's my take. [I have no reason to believe that it is Regina's intention, but it makes sense when I hear the words, so take it for what it's worth.]:

    I see this song is a critical statement about our Christian society. I think the first couple lines are spoken as if to a child "Open wide here comes original sin." The idea that we are born into sin is a Christian idea that one would expect Regina to object to (the idea that a baby could be guilty of sin, simply by being born). Her lyric makes it sound as if the baby is being spoon-fed this idea of original sin (the sounds she makes, to me, are like the airplane noises you might make when feeding a child from a spoon- 'open wide, here it comes- bbbbrrrrrrr'). The repeated line "It's alright, it's alright, it's alright" also sounds like someone comforting a child.

    "No one's got it all" means no one can claim to have all the answers or all the authority to pass judgment or offer salvation.

    From here she moves to a wider criticism of a society that espouses Christian values but has trouble living by them. "We don't want power, We want pleasure" (ie. we willfully trade away our autonomy and submit to authoritative institutions) "The TVs try to rape us and I guess that they succeed." (we are violated, spiritually, by the culture that surrounds us and, since we do little to prevent it, they succeed.)

    The line "we're going to these meetings but no one's doing any meeting" could be, in my mind, a reference to church services and the disconnection from meaning that many people experience, just going out of habit. "And we try to be faithful but we're cheating..." might not refer to faithfulness in a relationship, but rather to religious faith.

    And finally, the closing assertion that "I'm the hero of this story/ don't need to be saved" is a statement of empowerment that rejects the notion that we are born sinners and that we need to be "saved." It's her life, she is the hero of her story.

    I don't think that the song is necessarily anti-religion or anti-Christian, I just think that it is critical of one way religion can operate in society. It is a humanist critique of Christianity, and particularly the ideas of original sin and that submission is required before salvation can be granted.

    And it is likely all in my head, but I thought I'd share in case someone found it interesting.

    jlawren3on August 23, 2007   Link
  • +4
    General Comment

    I think this song is saying that we are all the heroes of our own lives, of our own stories, and although we are the heroes, we are not perfect. However, we feel the need to maintain control of our lives and refuse help because we think we can "save" ourselves. But, as she says, no one's got it all, and we aren't invincible...

    WinonaCorinneon September 19, 2007   Link
  • +4
    General Comment

    I know it's just me projecting my own situation onto the song, but when I first heard this song I thought it was so...sad, and hopeless.

    About a loss of innocence, sort of. Like a person trying to psych themselves up with gentle language and babytalk and airplane noises, tell themselves they're tough, but knowing it's pointless. The line "Hey, Open Wide - here comes original sin" actually made me think of a girl losing her virginity to someone who she wasn't sure about, or didn't even care about - being faced with the messy act of sex for the first time, willing herself to keep going, saying "It's all right", as though if they say it enough it will be true. The Bridge seems to portray a sense of hopelessness, too - though we strive for the best, humans seem to eventually give in to their more primitive urges, we end up alone.

    The end, too - a person saying to themselves again and again, "I'm in control, I don't need help", but knowing it's not true. It explains why Regina says "it's all right" more than any other point, following that line, too - like the desperation and denial are increasing, as the narrator's control lessens.

    I don't know. It breaks my heart, though.

    braille16on May 27, 2009   Link
  • +3
    General Comment

    I think that the line "No ones got it all" means that no one is ever completely immune to feeling emotions like pain, heart-ache, depression that heroes are not supposed to feel.

    bwonka23on August 20, 2007   Link
  • +3
    My Interpretation

    Spektor uses the original sin as the symbol that it is in modern life, wich is a symbol of the moral judgement every human is capable of. In judaism (Spektor was born jewish), the first sin of man was eating a fruit wich allowed him to know right from wrong; that is what got man out of the simple life of pleasure it had in paradise. This moral knoledge is also kind of the "power to the people", it is the reason behind humans way of thinking and superiority.

    So this song is about the universal internal conflict between looking for the right thing and looking for pleasure. We kind of want pleasure above all, but we always have to confront our moral before enyoing.

    I think one key to understand this song is that some words repeat over and over, while others elaborate a little more about moral judgement and pleasure. So the elaborating words where she says "we don't want it, we want pleasure" resumes and explains the meaning of the song beautifuly, the following words about television and "meetings" talk about a concrete representation of that conflict, and words about faitful are more about internal moral faith as in religion than just some sexual relationship.

    The words that repeat a lot make for concrete symbols of the meaning of this song while they double as some kind of internal dialogue. Particularly "it's all right" and "No one's got it all" is like saying "It (life) is okay, even if we don't have this(desire or the capacity of doing right)"

    Maybe it's an optimistic song, as they tend to be. But the important part is that it is a song about the conflict between the pleasure in ignorance of right and wrong, and moral conscience. The song is called hero because it plays with the religious metaphore: it is said that Yawe made alliances with human to save them from that original sin, but the hero of the story may be protagonist over the alliance and doesnt need to be saved. So the final words about hero maybe talking about some kind of peace between the conflict I say; I don't know. Maybe there is the optimistic part one may see in this song.

    The orgininal sin is "where problems started" in many religions, as if knowing right and wrong and thus being capable of both is the center of human suffering. So, at the end, I get this as a song about how complicate human life is and resolutions about it.

    oscarabrahamon March 24, 2011   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    I see this song as making a statement about Christianity from the viewpoint of wither a Jew (which Spektor is) or an atheist (which I am). Though the speaker in the song believes in the myth of original sin (Adam didn't see what was coming but Eve gave him the fruit and he ate it), she does not believe that we need to be saved from it or that Christ was a redeemer of humankind. The "hero" of the myth is not Christ (as argued in the New Testament), but Eve, who first ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. When she gives the fruit to Adam, she soothes him by saying "it's alright-its alright-its alright," that he should give into pleasure. "Power to the people" suggests that Adam and his descendants (hence "we" and "I") have the power to redeem ourselves by seeing the true distinction between "good" and "evil" (good = pleasure / evil = pain) "We don't want "it" (salvation) because "we want pleasure" (the pleasure which Adam and Eve discovered once they had eaten the fruit). We have been confused by the Christian myth of redemption and now believe that pleasure is bad but we want it anyway ("we're tryin' to be faithful but we're cheatin' cheatin' cheatin'). The speaker claims that sins should be forgiven by each one of us ("let he who is free from sin cast the first stone"). Jesus spoke truth, but was not the son of God. He was a prophet only, but his prophecy should be honoured.

    If you're a Christian, then you might see the speaker of the song as a dangerous temptress.

    If you're a Jew, you might see the speaker as someone exploring the New Testament in relation to the Old Testament.

    If you're an atheist, then you might see the speaker of the song as speaking a profound truth.

    annetteabmaon September 23, 2008   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    "He never ever saw it coming at all.../It's all right.../No one's got it all" It means to me that the hero (which is just your everyday person) failed--he never saw this evil particularly attacking him. But Regina, or the outsider looking in, says no one has it all perfect, all figured out. We are all fallible to temptations and evils.

    "Power to the people/We don't want it/We want pleasure/And the TVs try to rape us/And I guess that they're succeeding/Now we're going to these meetings/But we're not doing any meeting/And we're trying to be faithful/But we're cheating, cheating, cheating. " These are merely examples of evils. TV's and gossip, the loss of community in our world, the loss of faith. "Now open wide, here comes original sin." It's all being 'forcefed' to us, with no way to escape it.

    Saying "It's all right." So many times over: it seems like she's trying to convince herself that it's all ok/the norm/the status quo.

    "I'm the hero of the story/Don't need to be saved" very independent view of things. It sounds less like she doesn't want to be saved, but more it will look like she's lost if she is saved from all these evils that she never thought would affect her.

    sad, but beautiful...

    kamixoxon January 18, 2011   Link
  • +2
    My Interpretation

    im the hero of the story, i dont need to be saved. the story is my life. once im dead, there is no more story. all the people around me are merely characters. because everything i see is from my point of view, that must make me the hero. therefore whatever i do will lead to the end of the story. the conclusion may be a peaceful death in an old age home. or hanging yourself as a teenager. either ending, is the end of the story, and is therefore intended. people assume that the kid that overdosed is in the wrong and needed help. but that is from our stories point of view, his story ended with an overdose, he was the hero in it because it was from his point of view. therefore, the events prior to it were what the hero was meant to do, and as such he does not need to be saved. because this is the conclusion. at the end of a third-person story it goes 'and paul died. and jane was terribly distraught' at the conclusion of a first person story (our lives) it goes 'i died.' there is nothing after, so who's to say it was the wrong thing.

    i feel like im not explaining myself properly. its generally along the lines of what other people said i guess.

    the trouble comes in when you see the other people in your life as merely characters in your story, and therefore have no compassion for them after your story has ended.

    yeah, definitely does not make a whole heap of sense to me, but this is what you get a 1.30am.

    timmyjon January 19, 2011   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    I don't think that's what this song is meant to convey at all. I also don't think that this is supposed to really be a happy sort of song.

    From my interpretation, this song is more talking about the fallibility of the world's heroes, and how even though they are heroes to us and may say that they don't need saving, they are just as effected by the evils and temptations of this world as we are.

    Also, contrary to what you have already stated, I think she is, in fact, trying to tackle something large, or least of all painting a rather grim picture of our world. “And the TVs try to rape us and I guess that they’re succeeding” and “We’re trying to be faithful but we’re cheating, cheating, cheating” do not sound to me like happy-go-lucky opinions of the world.

    The line that I’m not entirely sure what to make of is “No one’s got it all.” I think that with this she’s trying to say that this is how we try to justify our wrongdoings, our sins, and our inadequacies to ourselves.

    GirlDisassembledon December 16, 2006   Link

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