I agree with commenters mentioning the oedipal complex theme. However, I feel like the mechanical/mathematical aspects of this song are often overlooked. She may have chosen "thirty-second" as the narrator's number because of the pun, but it's also an important number in binary -- you'd write it as 10000. For some reason, this always jumps to my mind when the song plays... but I don't have anything more concrete than just a vibe and a few loose straws.
Oedipus' comments make his birth sound almost artificial. He makes it sound like he wasn't just conceived, but also born in a single night, part of a batch. Is this poetic licence? Quite possibly... still, it adds to the sound. And his mother hardly sounds human; she could be, of course, but the way the song commodifies and objectifies her makes it sound as though she could just as easily be something else.
I don't think this is (or at least is just) some sci-fi story about a cloned vat-boy, but if I were making a music video, that would probably be the video I made to it. I think that's another layer of metaphor... under that, assuming that is even accurate to the intention with which the song was made, I could imagine a story about power and industry.
But I can't really say. I think of all Ms. Spektor's songs, this is the one I'd most like to ask what story she was telling when she wrote it.
I agree with commenters mentioning the oedipal complex theme. However, I feel like the mechanical/mathematical aspects of this song are often overlooked. She may have chosen "thirty-second" as the narrator's number because of the pun, but it's also an important number in binary -- you'd write it as 10000. For some reason, this always jumps to my mind when the song plays... but I don't have anything more concrete than just a vibe and a few loose straws.
Oedipus' comments make his birth sound almost artificial. He makes it sound like he wasn't just conceived, but also born in a single night, part of a batch. Is this poetic licence? Quite possibly... still, it adds to the sound. And his mother hardly sounds human; she could be, of course, but the way the song commodifies and objectifies her makes it sound as though she could just as easily be something else.
I don't think this is (or at least is just) some sci-fi story about a cloned vat-boy, but if I were making a music video, that would probably be the video I made to it. I think that's another layer of metaphor... under that, assuming that is even accurate to the intention with which the song was made, I could imagine a story about power and industry.
But I can't really say. I think of all Ms. Spektor's songs, this is the one I'd most like to ask what story she was telling when she wrote it.