Regina Spektor

Released: December 2, 2016

Featuring: Ben Folds

Songwriter: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Producer: Leo Abrahams Regina Spektor

[Verse 1: Regina Spektor]
Dear Theodosia, what to say to you?
You have my eyes, you have your mother’s name
When you came into the world, you cried
And it broke my heart
I’m dedicating every day to you
Domestic life was never quite my style
When you smile
You knock me out, I fall apart
And I thought I was so smart

[Pre-Chorus: Regina Spektor & Ben Folds]
You will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you

[Chorus: Regina Spektor]
And you’ll blow us all away…
Someday, someday
Yeah, you’ll blow us all away
Someday, someday

[Bridge: Ben Folds, Regina Spektor, together]
My father wasn’t around
My father wasn’t around
I swear that I’ll be around for you
I’ll do whatever it takes
I’ll make a million mistakes
I’ll make the world safe and sound for you…

[Pre-Chorus: Regina Spektor, Ben Folds]
...Will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you (on to you)
We’ll give the world to you (world to you)

[Outro: Regina Spektor]
And you’ll blow us all away...
Someday, someday
Yeah, you’ll blow us all away
Someday, someday

Regina Spektor is a Russian-born, Bronx-raised singer-songwriter who rose to prominence in New York’s anti-folk scene in the early 2000s. After 3 self-released albums, she signed with Sire Records in 2004 and released her first record produced with the resources of a major label. The result, 2006’s Begin to Hope, achieved Gold status with popular singles such as “Fidelity” and “Better.” Her following two albums, Far and What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, each debuted at number 3 on the Billboard charts. She is currently best known for creating the opening theme for Neflix’s Orange Is The New Black, “You’ve Got Time.” The song was nominated for a Grammy in 2014.

As a woman who grew up with Russian and Hebrew but claims to have learned how to express herself in English, Spektor has an instinctive grasp of the versatility of language and music. Spektor is best known for writing story-songs that connect back to her Russian-Jewish roots and her classical piano training, but like other anti-folk singers, Regina Spektor displays a freeness in her musicality that defies genre pretensions and formulas. This shines through in her lyrical obsession with the phonetics of her words, emphasizing clicks, glottal stops, and alliterations in a way that turns her voice into both a melodic and a percussive instrument.

For the majority of her childhood, Spektor studied classical piano and had no aspirations to compose music of her own. However, she gradually became aware that her tendency to improvise vocalizations and stories in her free time could be combined with her skills on the piano to create music that expressed her personality and gave an outlet to her rich imagination. The playful affection with which Spektor improvised melodies as a teenager has continued to influence her adult craft and has made her a beloved musician to fans all over the world.

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