I get my best music recommendations from artists. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I don’t actually have to know any hipster artists. An obscure cartoonist in Manchester, England, introduced me to this angel, and my last month or so has had its heavenly factor boosted by an order of magnitude. You can experience her alchemy for yourself by clicking around her site until music and images pour forth. Or you can watch these lower quality YouTube videos:
My favorite is Samson, which includes the following lyrics–made more poignant by Spektor’s ethereal voice:
You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin’ on our heads
But they’re just old light, they’re just old light
Your hair was long when we first met…
Samson came to my bed…
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I’d done alright
And kissed me ’til the mornin’ light…
At first I thought I had a CelebCrush on her, not unlike the my flings with Cate Blanchett (especially as Galadriel–*swoon*) and Audrey Tautou (of Amelie fame). But today I realized that when I hear Regina Spektor sing, I think about Jana. Her music makes me hyperaware of Jana’s presence in my heart, my mind, my soul.
People at Church seem to remember two of my pseudo-sermons across the pulpit. One was my apology-ridden ‘doubtamony,’ and the other was when I declared that Jana was my goddess.
Mormons take this god and goddess business serious–every one of us is a literal child of god and are therefore godlings, beings of Godly potential. And Jana has always been my goddess. In a life stripped of much of the divinity and meaning that it once had, Jana is my Ishtar, my Innana, my Isis. She is the one being left to me to invest all my irrational faith in, to spend my life in adoration.
I like to think that ours is a love of legends–that some day someone will write songs about it. When I listen to Regina Spektor, I feel like someone already has.
