- published: 26 Apr 2016
- views: 150
Regina Ilyinichna Spektor (Russian: Реги́нa Ильи́нична Спе́ктор, IPA: [rʲɪˈɡʲinə ˈspʲɛktər], English: /rɨˈdʒiːnə ˈspɛktər/; born February 18, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered in New York City's East Village.
Spektor was born in Moscow, Soviet Union in 1980 to a musical Russian Jewish family. Her father, Ilya Spektor, is a photographer and amateur violinist. Her mother, Bella Spektor, was a music professor in a Soviet college of music and now teaches at a public elementary school in Mount Vernon, New York. She has a brother Barry (Bear), who was featured in track 7, "* * *", or "Whisper", of her 2004 album, Soviet Kitsch.
She learned how to play piano by practising on a Petrof upright that was given to her mother by her grandfather. She was also exposed to the music of rock and roll bands such as The Beatles, Queen, and The Moody Blues by her father, who obtained such recordings in Eastern Europe and traded cassettes with friends in the Soviet Union. The family left the Soviet Union in 1989, when Regina was nine and a half, during the period of Perestroika, when Soviet citizens were permitted to emigrate. Regina had to leave her piano behind. The seriousness of her piano studies led her parents to consider not leaving the USSR, but they finally decided to emigrate, due to the ethnic and political discrimination that Jews faced. Spektor is fluent in Russian and reads Hebrew, and has since paid tribute to her Russian heritage, quoting the poem February by the Russian poet Boris Pasternak in her song Après Moi, and stating “I’m very connected to the language and the culture.”
If I were rain
You could watch the colours bleed
If I were time
We could go to where we're happy
If I were tease
Every evening we'd die laughing
I am love
I am love
Love is not not good enough (love is..)
Love is not not good enough (love is..)
Love is not not good enough (love is..)
Love never is
If I were words
I would turn a phrase of you
If I were star
The sky-like eye would open
If I were the sea
A wave from you might drown me
I am love
I am love
Love is not not good enough (love is..)
Love is not not good enough (love is..)
Love is not not good enough (love is..)
Love never is
Love, love is everywhere
Every day
Every way
She's got a mind of her own
Love is bigger than me
Bigger than you so
Just let in in and stop thinking to yourself that
I am love
I am love
Love is not not good enough (love is..)
Love is not not good enough (love is..)
Love is not not good enough (love is..)