Regina Spektor: Begin to Hope

"It was hard to escape her 2006 single 'Fidelity,' with its memorable chorus: 'It breaks my heart,' in which she repeats the first sound of that final word a dozen delirious times ('Har-harhar-Har-harhar-Har-harhar-Har-har-Heart'). Her last two albums went gold or platinum, her most recent, 'Far,' debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard charts. Her fans include Tom Waits and the violinist Joshua Bell, President Obama (who invited her to play at the White House) and Tom Petty. ... She played downtown clubs, composing 30 to 40 songs a year, recording two records on her own that she sold at gigs, until a showcase at the Knitting Factory led to an introduction to the Strokes’ producer, who offered to work with her. Spektor, then 22, was ready to expand beyond the bare-bones sonics of her records to date, into arrangements that reflected the sounds she heard in her head. As she sings in 'Fidelity,' a song that sounds like a pop song about heartbreak, which it is, but which is more truly a song about the heartbreak of hearing songs one can’t quite make others hear: 'I got lost in the sounds/I hear in my mind, all these voices/I hear in my mind, all these words/I hear in my mind, all this music/ And it breaks my heart/It breaks my heart'" (Wyatt Mason, "The Gift of Small Hands," New York Times Magazine, 5/20/12).

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