Song of The Week #6: Regina Spektor - "Apres Moi"

SONG OF THE WEEK:
Regina Spektor
"Apres Moi"

Regina Spektor

     I know I skipped doing the song of the week last week, but it was finals, I had a few papers to write, and it got moved to the back burner. This week, I'll do the song I said I was going to do last week, and I'll be honest it's a song I've been meaning to do for over a month now... but kept putting off.

     If you're a close friend of mine, you understand how deep my love for Regina Spektor is, so as to avoid sounding like the fanboy I am, I won't rant and rave about her talent and beauty... just know that I could.

     I've been playing final fantasy tactics and some of the common themes of the whole story is social revolution, the destruction of war, the manipulation of the upper class, religious manipulation of the masses, and all that. On top of that, living in America all of these issues are common topic among the people I encounter (due to the war we are in, and the behavior of our president).

     So many moons ago I'd been downloading bootlegged live recordings of Regina's and I'd stumbled across a song titled "afraid of" this was a mislabel, but I wouldn't find that out till much later. I became obsessed with finding out what languages she was speaking through out the song, she between a few, and it was hard for me to tell. Not until she recorded the song in studio and released it on her most recent album Begin to Hope, did the lyrics and translations show up. The studio version is completely epic, and the words really moved me... as I started to do some research on the lyrics, they only became even more inspiring, especially considering the stuff I'd been thinking about lately.

In my opinion, the song is a call to/warning of, revolution. The mob like chanting towards the end makes me want to grab my pitchfork and torch, and storm the castle walls.

Anyway, here's the lyrics:

Apres Moi

I (are) must go on standing,
You can't break that which isn't yours
I (are) must go on standing
I'm not my own, It's not my choice

Be afraid of the lame, they'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old, they'll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold, they'll inherit your blood
Apres moi le deluge, after me comes the flood

I (are) must go on standing,
You can't break that which isn't yours
I (are) must go on standing
I'm not my own, It's not my choice

Be afraid of the lame, they'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old, they'll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold, they'll inherit your blood
Apres moi le deluge, after me comes the flood (x2)

Fevrale dostat chernil i plakat,
Pisat O Fevrale navsnryd,
Poka grohochushaya slyakot
Vesnoyu charnoyu gorit. (x2)

Be afraid of the lame, they'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old, they'll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold, they'll inherit your blood
Apres moi le deluge, after me comes the flood

I (are) must go on standing,
You can't break that which isn't yours
I (are) must go on standing
I'm not my own, It's not my choice

I (are) must go on stan-stan-ding-dong
You can't, can't break that, that
Which isn't, isn't yours, yours (x2)
I'm not, not my own, own
It's not, not my choice, choice.

translation of the bridge:
(February. get ink, shed tears.
write of it, sob your heart out, sing.
while torrential slush that roars,
burns in the blackness of the spring.)
- From Boris Pasternak's poem entitled 'February. Take your pen and weep,'.

Also, if your interested in the etymology of words and phrases, I found an excellent article on the origin and meaning of "Apres moi le deluge" by Gabriel Laguna. I'll quote the premise , but if you like this kinda stuff, I suggest reading the whole article here

"As a first approach to the saying, note that one is dealing with a nominal phrase, that is, without an explicit verb. The phrase can have two distinct, though related, meanings, according to the verb which we implicitly supply:

a) On the one hand, if we understand After me the deluge will come, the saying seems to imply, as an assertive affirmation: "After my reign, the nation will be plunged into chaos and destruction."

b) The verb could also be understood as a subjunctive concession: "After me, let the deluge come" (it can come, but it makes no difference to me). In this second case, the speaker asserts that nothing that happens after his disappearance matters to him.

We will trace the classical antecedents of this famous expression, and I already anticipate that practically all of these antecedents will coincide more with notion b) than with a)."