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Some said the local lake had been enchanted
Others said it must have been the weather
The neighbors were trying to keep it quiet
But I swear that I could hear the laughter
So they jokingly nicknamed it the porridge
Cause overnight that lake had turned as thick as butter
But the local kids would still go swimming, drinking
Saying that to them it doesn't matter
If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full
Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you fool
The genius next door was busing tables
Wiping clean the ketchup bottle labels
Getting high and mumbling German fables
Didn't care as long as he was able
To strip his clothes off by the dumpsters
At night while everyone was sleeping
And to wade midway into that porridge
Just him and the secret he was keeping
If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full
Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you foolish child
In the morning the film crews start arriving
With donuts, coffee and reporters
The kids were waking up hungover
The neighbors were starting up their cars
The garbageman were emptying the dumpsters
Atheists were praying full of sarcasm
And the genius next door was sleeping
Dreaming that the antidote is orgasm
If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full
Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you foolish child!
Others said it must have been the weather
The neighbors were trying to keep it quiet
But I swear that I could hear the laughter
So they jokingly nicknamed it the porridge
Cause overnight that lake had turned as thick as butter
But the local kids would still go swimming, drinking
Saying that to them it doesn't matter
If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full
Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you fool
The genius next door was busing tables
Wiping clean the ketchup bottle labels
Getting high and mumbling German fables
Didn't care as long as he was able
To strip his clothes off by the dumpsters
At night while everyone was sleeping
And to wade midway into that porridge
Just him and the secret he was keeping
If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full
Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you foolish child
In the morning the film crews start arriving
With donuts, coffee and reporters
The kids were waking up hungover
The neighbors were starting up their cars
The garbageman were emptying the dumpsters
Atheists were praying full of sarcasm
And the genius next door was sleeping
Dreaming that the antidote is orgasm
If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full
Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you foolish child!
Lyrics submitted by lemonjuice
Track duration: 05:05
"Genius Next Door" as written by Regina Spektor
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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maybe a kid who is brilliant and no one sees it:
Maybe his father is like "that's for what you've done you foolish boy" and drown him, and his secret is actually his geuineusity (sorry about my spelling P: Im lazy)
and maybe it's like what've been said before - a geniues who is alone and can't make the best of himself, maybe he's some kind of trying to be too perfect and the things he's doing in the night is to punish himself for not making something with himself or doing a little mistakes.
Yeah I know it's pointless to tell you all of these options but I have another tehory that actually connects but I yet connected everything completely:
I think it might have a connection to the holocost - as you know Regina is jew so it actually makes kind of sense + it connects to the German storys.
It's like I'm not quiet sure but I guess the kid is german and lives near the gettho or something and so he sees all the children die in the lake by the Germans, and he's like hiding and doing some jobs nearby and keeps the secret when the people come to see as hitler hidden the holocost form the wold. maybe the kid is jew that tricks the germans and like a guineus that work in some stupid jobs and everybody laugths at him when he tells everybody gonna get killed.
So it doesn't metter which theory we talk about there's one thing in common:
In the end he tries to kill himself with a secret .
I think people are reading too much into the line, "dreaming that the antidote was orgasm."
The way I see it, the "genius" is someone of higher intelligence, who under different circumstances could have changed the world, but instead he is stuck "busing tables," leading an unfulfilled and meaningless life, which perhaps causes him depression. The first time he is mentioned we learn that he gets high and wades naked into the lake in the middle of the night, which makes me think that he is seeking some kind of epiphany or rush that will elevate him to a higher standard of living. Everyone's favorite line, "dreaming that the antidote was orgasm," also reinforces that idea - that the he has convinced himself that the cure to his depression and aimlessness is a short moment of bliss, aka A CLIMAX!
I do agree with the idea that the genius drowned himself in the lake in his pursuit of a climax (not a literal orgasm). I also believe that the lake is a symbol for all the messy, everyday problems in the world that the neighbors try to keep quiet. The genius wading into it naked and eventually drowning in his desire for something greater is an incredibly powerful and tragic metaphor.
"If you just hold in your breath, till you come back up in full/ Hold in your breath till you thought it through, you foolish child." The chorus I think is advising him to wait it out and settle for what he has in life - basically GET THROUGH life until he breathes again in death. In this part of the song he is referred to as a foolish child for giving up and abandoning his life even though the alternative (holding in your breath) does not sound too good either.
This leaves open two possible theories: Either the subject of this song is a foolish child who could not handle mediocrity and over-intellectualized his life, or he really was a genius who found an escape from his trapped existence. After all, Regina swears she could hear laughter coming from the "haunted" lake. It could be in triumph.
Sorry if this is a more depressing take on it than diddling ghosts.
The lake in this town has something wrong with it - maybe it's heavily polluted or something, I don't know. But nobody's really sure what happened to it, but they assume it's dangerous and tell the kids not to mess with it. Well, as kids do, they don't listen and go swimming in it anyway. Turns out, the stuff in the lake gets you high if you stay in it long enough.
The 'Genius Next Door' I pictured as your typical cynical teen. He works his minimum-wage job as a waiter and tries his best to appear dignified and intelligent to those around him by doing things like reading German tales (seems rather posh and pretentious, which is the thing he's going for in being known as the 'Genius'). But, like everyone else, he craves that high he's heard that you can get from the lake. So he strips down by the dumpster behind the restaurant he works at and goes swimming in the polluted lake. He knows it's not very dignified or intelligent, but he likes the 'high' he gets, so he keeps doing it but keeps it a secret because he knows people wouldn't see him as this brilliant person anymore if they found out.
The bit about the reporters, well, I just thought they were reporting on the weirdness with the lake. It kind of makes sense, right? If something weird like that happened, there'd be reporters and news crews trying to figure it out. The neighbors continue on because, to them, it's no big deal any more. The kids who went swimming during the day, their high has worn off and now they're just waking up hungover. The genius, having gone swimming later than they had, is still asleep. I assumed the 'antidote' they reference is maybe something he'd been pondering, like the antidote to some kind of poison, and because he's having weird dreams from the lake, he comes up with something nonsensical like the way to ward off the poison is to orgasm.
I know it's probably not right, since the suicide story seems to be confirmed, but it was my interpretation and I thought I'd share it.
This song is about masturbation as an accepted antidote for youthful boredom. The adults (neighbours, others and locals) don’t want to talk about “the porridge” and the kids are also dismissive “saying to them it doesn’t matter”. The genius next door verse expands on this; his dismally drab job didn’t matter “as long as he was able to strip his clothes off… at night… just him and the secret he was keeping”.
I think the genius is one of the local kids, not an older man as some here have suggested. He busses tables and gets high, he’s probably just come back from a gap year around Europe (mumbling German fables whilst high).
The suicide/death concept which many people on here seem to have commented on doesn’t fit in here, for me. I recognise the suffocation theme but I don’t get the notion of a literal death. Note the French phrase “La petite mort” or “the little death”, an idiom for orgasm, pertaining to a breathless post-climatic exhaustion (sounds fun, eh?).
Perhaps the little town where these kids live is suffocating them; bussing tables is very boring. The stagnant atmosphere could be responsible for suicide, but more likely for a littler death. The song suggests that swimming in a lake of “porridge” is a foolish pursuit and the young people are wasting their lives. Think of the way genius is used sarcastically; these young people should be pursuing wisdom.
Whatever reason the cameras and reporters turn up (perhaps a metaphor for “the morning after” questioning that the kids will face as they wake up), it seems the situation is unlikely to change. Talking about it won’t stop it from happening.
There seems to be no effort to clear up the mess; garbagemen clean the dumpsters, but this is a cycle of dirty and clean. The prayers (think of a “God help us!” sort of parental exclamation) are both cynical and sarcastic. The neighbours (representing parents) start up their cars – they’re running away from the town and it’s issues.
The genius is still sleeping and therefore not becoming any wiser. His dreams (not just night time images but also his aspirations for the future) are for more orgasms.
The cycle continues, but it’s not as bleak as it sounds. Kids wont make porridge of their lives forever; they will eventually realise the dangers of living for pleasure and the stifling result. Porridge is a fairly fast perishing food, it wont be left to stagnate in a skanky lake forever.
Then again, this is Regina Spektor. This song might be about something really weird like ... nope, got nothing"
1. Notice how Regina talks about all these different people, local people, the "genius next door", the athiest, and the reporters.
2. In the bible, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river. In Christianity, christians are baptized in Holy Water, or at least in the Catholic church, this just may be the local lake.
3. At first I thought the "genius next door" committed suicide, but after reading someone elses who thought the same thing. Regina says:
Didn't care as long as he was able
To strip his clothes off by the dumpsters
At night while every one was sleeping
And wade midway into that porridge
Just him and the secret he was keeping
The genius wading in the waters, with his secrets, his darkest sins. Stripping his clothes off is leaving his past behind.
when she says:
If you just hold in your breath
'Til you come back up in full
Hold in your breath
'Til you thought it through
You foolish child
she's not saying he's foolish after he comes up, but that "he or she,I say he" is foolish, because of his actions at that time. In baptism, you are considered dead when you go under the water, like drowning (If you just hold in your breath, 'til you come back up in full."
Thinking it through, are you ready to change. The next day, everything is the same.
Last and not least...
Basically, no matter how we want to change, we always do the wrong things. Kids get drunk and swim, get a hangover. They didn't care about the lake (I think it was poluted, that's why it was thick, full of garbage and stuff.) athiest were the one keeping the secret, again witht the baptism again, and the 'genius next door' still relize on their sexuality for joy in your life. So she is saying...
"If you baptize yourself for a new life, no not just come up, but take time to truely cleans. If not you are a foolish person, becaue you are still doing the same thing.
and the genius may have commitied suicide, but he was still alive, unless he was on the other side.
if "the film crews start arriving".... is just to see the lake... and why is "thick as butter"!!?? (off course because the kids "things"...
and if the genius next door think that the "antidote is orgasm".... is the antidote to the depression that he is suffering, for living in a place where being a "genius" it doesn´t matter... :)
I believe it is first, talking about our world. The opening lines:
Some said the local lake had been enchanted
Others said it must have been the weather
is a reference to the view religion vs. science has of the bible.
The next parts are euphemisms (sp?) for our world today and how people laugh and talk about the things that happen in it, but no one really knows what to do, and so 'the local kids would still go swimming, drinking, saying that to them it doesn't matter ...'; and the part of: "If you just hold in your breath", is that we can, and often do, blind ourselves to everything but what is happening in our own lives. WE (each of us) are 'the genius next door' who goes around doing our own thing, as long as no one bothers us and we don't have to really DO anything for anyone else or because we don't know how. And that's our secret - and if we just hold our breaths ... but we are foolsih.
The next morning (every day really), television crews 'arrive' as if it is just another day of reporting, and everyone else goes around on their daily routine while people who don't really beleive anything can change, pray for change. While the genius next door [we] sleep, dreaming that the antidote for everything is love (as it well should be), but erroneously because we dream of it in a more physical, me, me, me sense.