| Regina Spektor – Us Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Interesting. You can certainly interpret the song however you want, but I really thing this song is more of a political commentary than a love song. I suppose if you view your relationship in that context: living in a den of thieves, blamed for wrongdoings, a rusting monument, then actually it could be a romantic song, if slightly melancholy song. Nothin wrong with a little melancholy! ;) And hey, lots of people think Flightless Bird, American Mouth is a romantic song! |
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| Regina Spektor – Us Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Interesting, the first time I've heard someone address the "mountaintop" reference specifically. | |
| Regina Spektor – Us Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I wondered about the "Us"/"US" relationship, I'm glad you mentioned it. "Den of thieves" is a argument that you could use to describe basically any government so I think it's probably feasible to interpret either way. I'd assume that it would be more likely that "Us" refers to a formerly prominent leader that is being heavily criticized by the rest of the world ("they"), a leader that has a statue and a city named in his honor. It may be even more likely that "Us" is a general term for the group of people associated with this leader-maybe those who supported a form of government no longer popular (communism/socialism/etc). "Our parts" refers to the instruments of government: people, institutions, ideologies, etc. They're slightly used but there are new ones to replace them which, ironically, are used for "slave labor." The "pages" could refer to the pages of history or the political writings of philosophers like Confucius, Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Marx, Jefferson, etc. They hold all the answers but still, goverments are corrupt and people are abused. I would guess that the point, in any case, is that political criticisms and ideologies are rarely as simple as "Your government is bad, let us fix it with this new form of government." People will always be abused regardless of the specific form that government takes because people in power are usually corrupt (a den of thieves). If this is correct, its an interesting perspective that I can appreciate (but don't totally agree with). |
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| Regina Spektor – Us Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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A "stretch," Jeffrey? Really? Regina Spector is a Russian-American and the title of the Album that "Us" is from is "Soviet Kitsch" a phrase taken from the book "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," which is set during the communist period of the Soviet Union. This is a perfectly legitimate interpretation. There are plenty of artifacts of art and literature that criticize capitalism (along with communism, monarchy, religion, democracy, war, peace, you see where I'm going...), so why not this song too? Personally I think you could interpret this about being many things (lovers being probably the least likely). That's the beauty of real art - and why the work of artists like Drake and Nikki Minaj are going to be forgotten in 10 years. If you don't care to analyze a song that's fine, but it's kind of ridiculous that you would take the time to criticize someone for having the audacity to actually think critically about art. |
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