One More Time With Feeling by Regina Spektor Lyrics Meaning – Dissecting the Depths of Emotional Resilience
Lyrics
But your scars are healing wrong
The helium balloon inside your room has come undone
And it’s pushing up at the ceiling
And the flickering lights it cannot get beyond
Everyone takes turns
Now it’s yours to play the part
And they’re sitting all around you
Holding copies of your chart
And the misery inside their eyes is
Synchronized and reflecting into yours
Hold on
One more time with feeling
Try it again, breathing’s just a rhythm
Say it in your mind until you know that the words are right
This is why we fight
You thought by now you’d be
So much better than you are
You thought by now they’d see
That you had come so far
And the pride inside their eyes
Would synchronized into a love you’ve never known
So much more than you’ve been shown
Hold on
One more time with feeling
Try it again, breathing’s just a rhythm
Say it in your mind, until you know that the
Words are right
This is why we fight
This is why we fight
At the intersection of poetic imagery and poignant melodies, Regina Spektor’s ‘One More Time With Feeling’ emerges as a stunning introspective anthem. Within the soft timbre of Spektor’s voice lies a well of emotional depth, inviting listeners to delve into the healing and hurting that colors the human experience.
In a landscape saturated with passing pop tunes and surface-level lyrics, Spektor’s song is a refreshing exploration beneath the veneer of day-to-day resilience. This track demands a deeper analysis, beckoning us to uncover the layered significances woven into each phrase and melody.
Stitched Scars and Helium Hearts: A Tale of Healing
Spektor’s opening lines paint a graphic tableau of a person’s convalescence – ‘your stitches are all out, but your scars are healing wrong.’ Immediate is the sensation that this healing is not only physical but also metaphorically aligned with emotional repair. The helium balloon, a symbol of childhood innocence and joy, feels out of place in its setting – in a room where convalescence is occurring, suggesting a contrast between expectation and reality.
We are offered a glimpse into the private struggles faced after the initial triage. Spektor dives into the aftermath where healing doesn’t conform to the neat lines we’ve hoped for or expected. This delicate juxtaposition between the physical and psychological serves as an overture for the song’s deeper commentary on human resilience.
Playing Parts on Life’s Stage: The Social Facade
Spektor continues the narrative with a keen observation of societal roles and expectations – ‘Everyone takes turns, now it’s yours to play the part.’ There’s an almost theater-like quality to her description of people holding ‘copies of your chart,’ which dramatically underscores the performative aspects we often adopt when faced with our personal tribulations.
The song examines the pressure to portray a character of strength and composure, even when our inner world is riven with ‘misery.’ The shared ‘synchronized’ emotions of an audience expectantly waiting for a show — possibly mirroring the expectations we perceive from others when we are vulnerable or healing.
Championing the Fight: Understanding Why We Endure
The resolute refrain ‘One more time with feeling’ encapsulates the crux of Spektor’s message. It’s a command, a plea, and encouragement all in one breath. To repeat an action ‘with feeling’ is to fully engage with the present and embrace the intensity of the moment, even when we feel depleted.
Breathing, characterized as ‘just a rhythm,’ is reduced to its mechanistic properties, yet it’s elevated as a metaphor for life’s cadence that we are implored to keep following. In laying bare these elements, Spektor doesn’t just ask us to endure but to infuse our actions with genuine sentiment and purpose.
Perceptions of Progress: The Dichotomy of Expectation and Reality
In an introspective turn, the songwriter reflects on the gulf between self-expectation and reality – ‘You thought by now you’d be so much better than you are.’ Such piercing self-awareness speaks to the common human inclination to measure one’s progress by an imaginary yardstick.
Spektor addresses the disillusionment that accompanies personal expectations unmet and unrecognized achievements. The coupling of imagined societal pride with actual anonymity is a stark reminder of the dissonance between how we think we should be perceived and how we are.
The Haunting Echo: On Repeat in Our Inner Monologue
‘Say it in your mind, until you know that the words are right,’ Spektor croons, an incantation against doubt and fear. This mantra-like repetition serves as a self-soothing technique, aligning thoughts until words and reality converge.
The song culminates in a battle cry of self-validation and determination, an assertion of the primordial need to face adversity head-on. It is within this context that Regina Spektor gifts her listeners a vocabulary for the struggle – providing words when we might find ourselves speechless, and imbuing the lyrics with a universality that resonates across individual stories.
