Regina Spektor is an amazing lyricist and musician, and all of her songs need to be fully analyzed to find out what she is really saying. Genius next door is one of my favorite songs by her, and it definitely has a complexity to it’s lyrics and story that you can’t fully detect just listening through it once or twice. One interpretation of the song could be about a “genius next door” who commits suicide in the town’s lake. This genius was stuck doing mundane tasks in life by working a low-pay job at  a restaurant in town. He wasn’t happy and would comfort himself in dreaming of going to the lake to kill himself. The morning after he did this the whole town awakes like nothing has happened, going about their normal lives that the genius would have continued if he chose to save himself.

There are a few lines in this song that I had to really think about to understand what she was really trying to say. At the end of the song when she says that “And the genius next door was sleeping, dreaming that the antidote was orgasm”, I was surprised and wondered what she could’ve meant. Did she mean that since he wasn’t enjoying blissful pleasures in his life he chose to end it? I couldn’t imagine she meant that. I think what she really means is that when you’re about to drown, there is a feeling of euphoria that comes over you right before you’re about to die. I think she was comparing that feeling to an orgasm, so this genius thought that this feeling of euphoria would be the solution. And when you read into this meaning, you can get a whole other meaning of the song. So another interpretation of this song could be that the whole town was fascinated with this lake and fascinated with this feeling of euphoria you get when drowning. In the beginning of the song she says, “Some said the local lake had been enchanted”, so they associated this feeling with the lake. Then she goes onto say that “the neighbors were trying to keep it quiet” so you can say that they were trying to hide the fact that the whole town was fascinated with this idea, and maybe it has even killed some kids before because at the end of that stanza she says that “but the local kids would still go swimming, drinking, saying that to them it doesn’t matter”. So even though people have died in this lake, they still go swimming and continue to live their life like they are untouchable. And then this local “genius” boy finds himself comforted by this idea and wants to try it out. Maybe Regina Spektor is even sarcastically calling him a genius because he thinks that he can do what the others couldn’t. But obviously he couldn’t and loses his life to this idea.

Regina Spektor is more of a poet when it comes to how her songs are written. This is just one example of the way she tells intricate stories through her songs but all of her songs can be looked at and analyzed the same. She first studied to be a concert pianist, so all of her songs feature her playing beautiful melodies on the piano as well as her voice. This song is not autobiographical for her, but does provide a haunting story and message for all it’s listeners. Whether you want to see it as just a sad story of an unhappy boy giving up his life, or the more intricate story of ignorance and fascination with a fatal idea.

I recommend this song, and any of Regina’s songs to everyone. They are definitely all a bit eccentric because she is a very eccentric person, but if you can look past that and appreciate her weirdness, you will definitely fall in love with her music. I would listen to her when you can really listen to the songs, I wouldn’t really consider her work good background music.

Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/reginaspektor/geniusnextdoor.html