Alef: The NEXT Conversation

I've Got a Crush on Regina Spektor

By Richard Skeen

Unlike most of my Jewish friends, I didn’t have a Bubbe who regaled me with stories of the “Old Country.” I loved my grandmothers, but they were modern and American (one was actually a part-time rancher!) and simply didn’t fulfill my longing for Jewish tales of sad, forbidding places that, in my mind, represented the soul of the Jewish people. I wanted a personal history full of daring escapes from menacing Cossacks, of warm borscht soup and klezmer tunes, wise old Rabbis and alien-sounding names. I wanted Russian roots to enhance my Jewishness and figured a Bubbe was the ticket.

Soon after arriving to New York City from Oregon, I found a Jewish girlfriend with Old Country Russian roots, at least on paper. While I imagined that her deep brown eyes carried generations of Lithuanian Shtetl wisdom, and her brooding moods were by-products of oppression and pogroms, the truth was  a little tamer. And her mother, the Bubbe I’d hoped to score in the match, was anything but: an Upper East Side contemporary art dealer, she had little interest in things Jewish or Perestroika.

With time, my Bubbe-longing faded. But it all came back in a flash when I discovered my perfect woman – Regina Spektor. In a faux KGB hat and a wicked smile – compelling if not quite beautiful on the cover of her Soviet Kitsch album – it was love at first sight. And her music – brilliant, quirky, funny, and wise – immediately struck me as, well, as something that could only come from a Russia-to-the Bronx (with a couple of years in a New Jersey Yeshiva) soul who had serious “Old Country” cred. Part of the anti-folk scene, Spektor’s songs are full of funny language and Jewish references. She uses a heavy New York accent on some words as an ode to the City, and her lyrics on songs like Samson and Laughing With are almost Dylan-esque in their biblical knowing. I was smitten, Spektor was part Russian-Jewish temptress and part Old Country Bubbe, always easily available on my iPhone. My desires were fulfilled.

Fortunately, Spektor’s talent justifies my crush, including the frequent Facebook uploads and disproportionate presence on my play lists. And truthfully, my wife may even understand, because listening to my former-Soviet crush while I prepare Shabbas cholent is almost as good as having my very own Bubbe.

Photo by jmtimages, licensed under Creative Commons.

Tags: Old Country

Posted by Ruvym, Monday, November 9th, 2009, 5:34 pm, Old Country.