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I am
Down the road and up the hill
I wait for you still
Wires 'round my fingers
Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Suspended and open
Open
Open
I am
Through the woods and past the trains
I wait here in vain
Scrubbing out the stains again
Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Suspended and open
Open
Open
In a night, the snow starts falling
And everybody stares
Through their windows at the streetlights
Too beautiful to see
I am
In a room I've built myself
Four straight walls
One floor
One ceiling
And day after day, I wake up feeling
Day after way feeling, feeling
Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Suspended and open
Open
Open
Open
Open up
Your eyes
And then
Down the road and up the hill
I wait for you still
Wires 'round my fingers
Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Suspended and open
Open
Open
I am
Through the woods and past the trains
I wait here in vain
Scrubbing out the stains again
Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Suspended and open
Open
Open
In a night, the snow starts falling
And everybody stares
Through their windows at the streetlights
Too beautiful to see
I am
In a room I've built myself
Four straight walls
One floor
One ceiling
And day after day, I wake up feeling
Day after way feeling, feeling
Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Suspended and open
Open
Open
Open
Open up
Your eyes
And then
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I didn't know what this song was about until I came here and read the remarks of csl5141 and fairy28 and made the connection: "Open" is about a prisoner. We can sense this prison in the fence she stands behind ("Wires round my fingers"), in her forced labor ("Scrubbing out the stains again"), and in her claustrophobic cell with its "four straight walls, one floor, one ceiling." This may be a prison of the mind, but it's also a physical prison, and its location "down the road and up the hill," "through those woods and past the trains," certainly suggests a Nazi concentration camp. Whether the singer is Anne Frank or an unnamed Holocaust victim isn't that important, although the reference to snow might point to Frank—she died of typhus in the winter of 1945, along with 30,000 others in Bergen-Belsen. Historical images of their bodies piled high in the snow are not uncommon.
What's amazing about this song is how RS uses it to celebrate the human spirit. Even in the face of such cruel atrocities, the singer remains hopeful. Though she is physically confined, in the room she's created within her own mind she is "suspended and open," always aware that no matter how inhumanly she is treated, she is "perpetually human" and "potentially lovely." She may feel dirtied and degraded by the abuse, but she keeps "scrubbing out the stains again." As she waits, "suspended," for her freedom, the refrain "open" becomes her fondest wish, her command to the gates to part and let her out.
Tragically, this is not to be: "In a night the snow starts falling, / And everybody stares / Through the windows at the streetlights / Too beautiful to see." What's going on here? Well, in a literal sense, one can imagine the prisoners staring out of the barracks as the snow falls. But what does this mean metaphorically? My thought is that the streetlights are a beacon in the night. They represent hope, guidance, maybe even divine intervention. But anyone who's seen streetlights at night knows they're so bright, it's hard to look at them. And in a blizzard, they quickly become covered in snow. Either way, the prisoners can't see them, and RS implies that the beautiful things they symbolize—hope, guidance, a miracle—are out of their reach.
In the next verse, things get very desperate for the singer. She gasps for air as she refers to a room closing in on her, perhaps built by the forced labor of her own hands, and one immediately thinks of the gas chambers or maybe of the barracks, where so many died of disease. RS emphasizes the torturous slowness of this death when she repeats that every day, "day after day," she's compelled to "wake up feeling, feeling," suffering and suffering.
And yet, the human spirit still triumphs, this time by making the transition into the next life, into that beautiful light that was out of reach on earth. When the singer opens her eyes, with a little gasp (listen for the "Oh!" after "Open up your eyes, / And then…"), this time what opens is the door to another world, one where her lovely potential will finally be fulfilled. If you listen, you can hear her spirit sing as it floats off into paradise...So sad but so beautiful!
If it IS indeed about anne frank, she could be taking deep breaths so she can hold her breath longer while she hides.
If it's about anything else it could be a shocked and awed kind of gasp. because she's talking about how she built her room. She could be happy and surprised about how well it turned out.
Where she sings "Scrubbing out the stains again."
There's a similar part in "Man of a Thousand Faces"
She has referenced older songs before.
The Anne Frank idea is a pretty valid one too.
Most of the concentration camps could be found outside of the towns (usually in a forest or abandoned locations) "down the road and up the hill"
Also, many of the were right next to railroad tracks because that was the most common way Nazi Soldiers would transport the prisoners. "Through the woods and past the train"
There were wire fences surrounding every camp. "wires round my fingers"
I believe the rest of the song is talking about the mental struggles of waking up everyday surrounded by people telling you that your worth less than dirt and waiting for rescue. I also think the "room I built myself" is a metaphor for the mental state of the prisoners. How they felt totally alone, and trapped (many lost their faith in God during this time).
Interesting plague theory but I think Regina has a tendency to be a little less literal than that.
In this song, she reminds me a little of Belle from Beauty and the Beast, when she sings
'I want adventure in the great wide somewhere,
I want it more than I can tell
and for once it might be grand
to have someone understand
I want so much more than they've got planned'
She dreams of being something more. Something different. But she is bound by her humanity. She has to fit into the system like a cog in the machine.
Potentially lovely, but perpetually human. She is never rising to be something more.
She wait at home for someone, a man, perhaps, who will join her. Who will help her, show her the world. Show her adventure, a life outside of what is expected of her.
Down the road and up the hill. Four straight walls. It's cliche to the point of overwhelming mundanity. Too beautiful to see. The people she is surrounded by don't understand. They don't get it. They're so caught up in their petty lives that they miss all the beauty that the world has to offer.
I think she isn't gasping for air but retching, as if sick. This mundane, melancholy life is all she has. And it is terrible for her, killing her slowly. The need to be free is now all she knows. A songbird is not meant to be caged. Trapped by her own humanity. Dwarfed by her own mortality.
Although my first thoughts were that she's singing as if she was a homeless person.
I am
Down the road and up the hill
I wait for you still
Wires 'round my fingers
A homeless person waiting for her love "wires 'round her fingers" aka rings around her fingers? (sounds kinda silly, but perhaps?)
In a night, the snow starts falling
And everybody stares
Through their windows at the streetlights
Too beautiful to see
I am
In a room I've built myself
Four straight walls
One floor
One ceiling
And day after day, I wake up feeling
Day, way
Day after way feeling
This could say that everyone is living their normal lives, happy to finally see snow falling.. while the homeless person has to find a warm place.. for that being "a room that she built herself".
That's the first thing that came to my mind when listening to it.
it keeps me on the edge of my seat, as it starts out with that static/wind noise, and i find myself waiting for something, but i have no clue if it will be bad or good. the more regina sings, the louder the echo of her voice gets. the first time she sings "open" it sounds as if she's literally opening a door, but the second time she sings it, it sounds like she's THROWING open a door to a secluded house, letting in the sounds of the outside. when she mentions snow, you can actually hear the sparkle of snow in the background. and then those gasps for air! it's completely unreal. the first time i heard it, i got scared, as if I was the one who needed air, as if I was drowning. and then the song ends with echo regina humming along, as if regina's ghost has taken over or something. i don't think a song has made me feel as uneasy as this one has, and it's honestly the most amazing thing.
Wait, wait...tell me again the one about the winner by this Russian Jew and the one "Sex on Fire" from the other site. Those make me know for certain that the screen is true for the eyes see...and not hear!