The Secret Chord: Laughing With by Regina Spektor

Laughing With explores the role of humor in spirituality. It examines what the true nature of a "joke" is and applies it to life in general.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Secret Chord podcast, I'm your host, Adam Jacobs. The Secret Court explores spirituality through the lens of great music, and we're sponsored by super jeweler dot com, my favorite online fine jewelry destination. And without further ado, please enjoy this podcast.  

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Hello all and welcome to Episode 24 of the Secret Chord Podcast. This week we're here to discuss Regina Spektor. She's born February 18, 1980 and is a Russian born American singer, songwriter and pianist. After self releasing her 1st 3 records and getting popular in New York City's indie music scene, particularly the anti folk scene centered in New York City's East Village, Regina signed with Sire Records in 2004 and began achieving greater mainstream recognition. By the way, if you ever wondered what the anti folk scene is, it was a music that tends to sound raw or experimental with the intention to shock and protest. It generally mocks the perceived seriousness and pretension of the established music scene. Her fourth album Begin to Hope, received gold certification and her following two albums Far and what we saw from the cheap seats. Each debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. Another thing I think is really cool is that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio proclaimed June 11th 2019 Regina Spektor day in New York City.    

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The family left the Soviet Union for the Bronx in 1989, when Regina was nine - during the period of Perestroika, when Soviet citizens were permitted to emigrate. Regina was already a serious musician but sadly had to leave her piano behind. The seriousness of her piano studies led her parents to consider not leaving the Soviet Union, but they finally decided to emigrate - due to the racial, ethnic, and political discrimination that Jews faced. Though she was a classically trained pianist, it wasn’t until a friend sent her a tape of Joni Mitchell when she was 16 that it occurred to her that “women were allowed to write songs.” (Actually, there are some great women classical composers such as Clara Shuman and Fanny Mendelssohn but maybe she hadn’t heard of her yet).

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When she started writing she knocked it out of the park. Here's one of my favorite examples: That was one of my favorite songs of hers called Blue Lips. Some of the lyrics I love. He stumbled into faith and thoughts. God, this is all there is. The pictures in his mind arose and began to breathe, and no one saw and no one heard. They just followed lead. The pictures in his mind, awoke and began to breed. They started off beneath the knowledge tree. They then chopped it down to make white picket fences. They marched along the railroad tracks and smiled real wide for the camera lenses. They made it past the enemy lines just to become enslaved in the assembly lines.

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Now, whatever this song means, it's evocative. The knowledge tree is a reference to the Garden of Eden, and the verse ends in slavery. The archetypal biblical story of the garden to servitude under Pharaoh, Is that the way it has to go? Is that indeed "all there is?" well, as we know, the original promised land comes after the slavery, but also that the slavery proceeds the promised land.  When the biblical patriarch Abraham makes his covenant with the Almighty. The first thing that he's told is that your descendants will be slaves in a land not their own. Well, what's that? What's the deal? After all that Abraham did for God in promoting his awareness? What a joke. My descendants have to go into slavery. That's the first thing you're gonna tell me?

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Well, the song that we're going to consider today is called Laughing With, and it's a song about God. Her lyrics are obviously very profound, and her music is wonderful. Let's listen to the song and then talk about both afterwards. This is laughing with by the great Regina Spektor.

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Let's talk about the music on this track. I read online, a critic who said that Regina is a compelling performer, wry, funny, powerful and compulsively watchable. In my opinion, her voice is generally gentle and understated, like she's talking to us, punctuated by well chosen high notes that accentuate her storytelling. Her phrasing is extremely artful and well crafted, with great, quick, syncopated sections between slower and more emphatic material. Like Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos and others, her piano accompaniments is well played and richly enhances her singing. In terms of her lyricism, she's a brilliant, sardonic writer who simultaneously expresses hope and disappointment, humor and sad resignation. And like I said before, she has many biblical and theological references.

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Here's one lyric from her song. No one laughs at God in a hospital. No one laughs at God in a war. No one's laughing a god when they're starving or freezing or so very poor. That's the chorus, which she opens with. What a chorus. How unusual. No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests. No one's laughing at God when it's gotten really late in their kid's not back from the party yet. You know, this week we lost one of the great rock drummers, Neil Peart, from Rush, who was a hero of mine since seventh grade, and this line reminded me of him. If you read his book Ghost Writer, which is about the journey he took physically on the road and also to be able to overcome the loss of his daughter and his wife, he describes precisely what it's like when it's gotten relates and your kid hasn't called, and in his case, tragically his kid never called, and any parent knows that feeling. And believe me, God is not a funny topic when you're feeling that I feel sorry for my parents at this point, knowing exactly what that feels like. And no, there's no laughing going on. 

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She goes on to say but God can be funny, at a cocktail party when listening to a good God themed joke. Or when the crazies say he hates us and they get so red in the head you think they're about to choke. God can be funny, when told He'll give you money if you just pray the right way or when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus. God can be so hilarious. Ha, ha! Again, I just love these lyrics. She's funny and profound at the exact same moment in her phrasing is so clever. I love it, and many people do. So is God funny? Is life funny? Actually, I would say God is extremely funny first, as the creator of the concept of humor itself, But more than that, He's the consummate joke teller. I'll get back to that in a second.

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So Regina addresses an amazing number of important theological issues here, ones that we don't have the full amount of time to dedicate to but suggests that the cocktail party set hasn't formed a solid conception of who and what God is. No, He doesn't hate us. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. Regina says that crazies think that. The truth is that it's often hard to think otherwise when a sufficient number of things have gone wrong. But it doesn't change the fact that definitionally, God is not like that. I'll recommend once again, the book Why Bad Things Don't Happen to Good People. Check it out if you can. No, we won't get any money or anything else if we quote unquote pray in the right way. How cheap and transactional to think that way. Prayer is not about getting stuff or having things go your way. It's about creating an authentic connection with the Almighty, and that's it. And what she says about Houdini Santa again to the wrong idea. It's taking an infinite power and making it so small. God is much more than that.

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So going back to humor, what exactly is a joke? Why do people have a physiological response to hearing a piece of information? Why do their eyes tear up and they bounce up and down? When someone tells me a math problem I don't do that. When someone gives me directions I don't do that. What's this thing with the joke that you have a physical reaction to it? Well, at its roots, a joke is an indication that you've discovered the truth and a truth that was masked from you at the beginning. So the set up of the joke is setting the stage for what's called the punch line, and the punch line reveals retroactively the meaning of the setup. Regina said of the Antisemitism that she experienced in Russia that it forced her to be better. It forced her to make jokes and to bond with other Jewish people. Why make jokes? How did it force her to make jokes? And what does the oppression of Antisemitism have to do with humor?

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There's one figure in the Bible named Isaac. His name, literally translated, means he will laugh. But you see that Isaac as a pretty serious kind of existence, including having had his father tie him up in order to sacrifice him on an altar. That doesn't seem very funny, but nonetheless that's his name associated with laughter. So the joke is not necessarily a joke funny Ha ha! But reframes the pain and the difficulty that we've experienced. And we will eventually experience that realization that everything that we had to go through was for some higher, better purpose. We will find that funny in the best way. It's a future thing. That's why his name is He will laugh. We're not laughing now, but we will. And all of the negativity is pushing us towards outcomes that cannot be perceived until they finally unfold. 

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She concludes this song by saying No one's laughing at God. We're all laughing with God, classically, as people say, I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you. So, too, the Almighty is indeed laughing with us as we laugh with him. Someday it will all be revealed through the punch line, and we will all come to understand, individually and collectively why we had to go through every bit of what we did and how it all makes sense at the end that's a classically spiritual concepts in an overtly amazing spirituals song. I hope you've enjoyed considering these ideas today and enjoyed the song If you never checked out Regina Specter, check her out. She's an amazing person, an amazing writer, and we'll be back next week with more music and more thoughts. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for listening. 

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