This mixtape will change your life (or at least it did mine).
Join me for a trip through the most eclectic music of the last epoch.
Everyone in the 90s had mixtapes. Or so I’m told. Being homeschooled, the only people I could share mixtapes with were my siblings and the sibling code demands that you can’t be friends with your siblings. My mother insisted we be best friends in direct violation of this code. She has siblings. She should know better.
I did, however, have a Creative Zen V Plus MP3 player. This might come as a shock to you. It did to me. I was only allowed to listen to Christian music sold by my church, Patch the Pirate, and the one Phillips Classics CD we randomly had, so the sole reason for the MP3 player’s existence (thousands of songs at your fingertips) was rendered moot by the limited catalog available to me. Until 2007.
In 2007, I got my first laptop (a Dell Inspiron) in preparation for college that fall. This was monumental. Computers were for Reader Rabbit, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and the occasional book report. But now? Now, I could access things I’d only ever heard whispered in the hallways after Sunday School. YouTube. Limewire. Google.
These were the halcyon days of YouTube where you could stream entire seasons of Hercule Poirot with abandon. And I did. Sex and the City reruns. Facebook. NPR. I planted myself in front of the limitless fire hydrant of pop culture and screamed IS THIS THE BEST YOU CAN DO?!
Somewhere in this expanse, I discovered Regina Spektor. Don't feel bad if you’ve never heard of her. I’ve barely heard of her, which is why I’m as surprised as you are that I’m such a major fan. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. My introduction to Regina (I like to imagine we’re on a first-name basis) was her song Samson.
Samson is a love song, maybe, sung from the perspective of Delilah, perhaps, to Samson, definitely. All I know is that the YouTube picture – we didn’t know to call them thumbnails then – was a flock of grayscale birds cut from a single piece of paper bursting from the screen. I clicked.
The next three minutes and twenty four seconds broke my brain. I didn’t know that songs could do whatever it was this song was doing. It was incredible. This despite the fact that I immediately identified this song had many, many problems.
First, the lyrics made no sense. Everyone knows that Delilah ruined Samson, so what was all of this about “You are my sweetest downfall.” She had no downfall. He did. I had been taught the story of Samson and Delilah from the nursery on, so I was an expert in its exegesis. So why was she saying “and the Bible didn’t mention us, not even once”? Of course the Bible mentioned them, I scoffed. What was this? Sacrilege? Blasphemy? The truth?
Second, I had no idea what she was doing to that piano. Regina’s music didn’t fit into any of the three universally-acknowledged music categories I knew: Christian Music, Secular Music, Contemporary Christian Music. There was a melody, sort of, but it wasn’t three verses and a chorus. There was no four-four rhythm. More confoundingly, she played without the regular accoutrement of pop music despite this clearly being a popular song.
I hit “replay” over and over trying to understand. Obsessively. Clandestinely. Each replay broke my heart in new ways and nudged me to view the world differently. It said, “Maybe we don’t have to take stories at face value." It whispered, “Maybe we can tell our own stories our own way.”
This song helped me see that the Bible wasn’t just a Rule Book for How to Live your Life. The Bible could be – was – art. I was taught the Bible had only one interpretation, the Right One. But here was someone who had a completely different take on a story I knew so well. Here was someone who brushed aside the traditional, patriarchal interpretation and asked us to put ourselves in Delilah’s shoes for once.
I didn't know you could do this. I didn’t know I could have a different opinion, turn it into a song, publish it on YouTube, and not spontaneously combust into a ball of hellfire. If Regina could, maybe I could as well.
My sister and I went to see Regina in concert this past year. It was a long delayed concert due to life and COVID restrictions. The concert was at The Tabernacle in Atlanta, an erstwhile mega church in the early 1900s. It was the perfect setting for revival.
Regina played all her hits, cried when we clapped for her, and made us all feel so loved. We had been to church. And yet, it was nearing the end of the night and she had not played “Samson.” Sure, I wanted her to play “On the Radio” and “Us,” but I wanted to hear “Samson” most of all. I had resigned myself to not hearing it, but then after the encore she lifted her hands and played those opening chords I knew so well. “You are my sweetest downfall.” I closed my eyes and let the tears flow. Revival, indeed.