The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song
You can't believe it
You were always singing along
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember
You try to feel the beat
Eet, eet, eet, eet
Eet, eet, eet, eet
You spent half of your life trying to fall behind
You're using your headphones to drown out your mind
It was so easy, and the words so sweet
You can't remember
You try to move your feet
Eet, eet, eet, eet
Eet, eet, eet, eet
Someone's deciding whether or not to steal
He opens the window just to feel the chill
He hears that outside a small boy just starting to cry
'Cause it's his turn but his brother won't let him try
It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song
You can't believe it
You were always singing along
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember
You try to move your feet
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember, you try to feel the beat
You can't believe it
You were always singing along
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember
You try to feel the beat
Eet, eet, eet, eet
Eet, eet, eet, eet
You spent half of your life trying to fall behind
You're using your headphones to drown out your mind
It was so easy, and the words so sweet
You can't remember
You try to move your feet
Eet, eet, eet, eet
Eet, eet, eet, eet
Someone's deciding whether or not to steal
He opens the window just to feel the chill
He hears that outside a small boy just starting to cry
'Cause it's his turn but his brother won't let him try
It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song
You can't believe it
You were always singing along
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember
You try to move your feet
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember, you try to feel the beat
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Hi! Just a thought: "eet" is the backspace on a typewriter. Rather than erasing, it allowed a typist to go back to where the previous letter was, and type over it. Considering Regina is typing on a typewriter in the video, and pressing the "eet" key, maybe she's hoping for a backspace in life? To re-do parts of her life, or get back to the way she felt before?
For me, this is a song about sadness and depression, losing your happiness and your faith, your sense of being. Suddenly the world has changed, and you can't work out why - YOU have changed, you can't remember who you were, and you're trying as hard as you might to get it back: eet, eet, eet.
I don't think this song has any specific meaning. I think it's more about having something that's so familiar taken away from you. You feel lost without it, and it's just awkward. So, you try to get it back. For example, we can look at this lyric:
"Someone's deciding whether or not to steal."
Perhaps that man has a family, and they suddenly became broke. They're used to having a decent income, but now {let's assume} their jobs are failing.
This may seem silly, but I think the repetition of the ees/eets -- while reminiscent of Regina's style -- show the awkwardness of getting something familiar back. It's like asking, "Is this right? How about now?"
Also, this is a quick note. One could even say that this song reminisces on the time when the Spektor's moved to America and Regina was left without the family piano. She said she felt lost without it. It was so familiar to her, but it was suddenly "taken away."
Every time I hear this song it reminds me of a very close relative of mine who developed alzheimers disease. The progression of the illness was devastating and terribly heartbraking to our family. The repetitive use of "eet" during the chorus reminds me of my loved one trying to remember a word to finish a sentence during the early stages of the disease and after many years of being afflicted she eventually forgot who she was.<br /> A very sad song for me.
It's interesting you thought it had no specific meaning, Kopra. I didn't think about it that way and maybe that's the point. I used to have any eating disorder and to me the song says something about an addiction where we've almost forgotten, what used to be, the easiest parts of our lives now seem harder, difficult, and sometimes less worthy of attention. Like when i have to eat a meal, it used to be like second-nature--hungry?? eeeeeat--doesn't always work that way. But that's any addiction, anything we've been through....this used to be easier, right?!?! :)
No I don't think this is silly. I think if you watch the video it confirms this. Regina's playing on a typewriter that isn't a typewriter like it's a piano. Talk about having something consistent taken away from you. I think eet is just a word to describe that.
wow kelsska, it's a shame you feel that way. i love all the new songs i'm hearing from "far"!!
and i agree with kopra, i think this song is about something in your life changing and suddenly you are out of your comfort zones and just want everything back to 'normal'.
to me, the second verse is like not wanting to get caught up in the world and its expectations, but you can't help but get caught up in it anyway.
the third verse - feeling a bit desperate in your circumstances, considering going against your values, and then getting a reality check or something that puts it in perspective (the selfish brother is a lesser version of the man considering stealing). either that, or it's just talking about human selfishness. i like to think the former :)
"Eet" is actually a key of old typewriters that whenever you made a mistake didn't exactly erase it, but it just went back to the spot that the letter occupied and allowed you to type another letter over the "wrong" letter. Regina here wish there was an "eet" key for life
Um, there is actually not an "eet" key on actual typewriters. The typewriter on the video has some fanciful and imaginary characters, of which "eet" is one.<br /> <br /> upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Keyboard_on_a_typewriter.jpg
love is free-
I truly believe that if someone records a song that they love, put a piece of themselves in the song, then it's beautiful. Music is an extension of people and unfortunately, some people let others control their direction in life and so, by extension, their music. But I completely disagree with all those who say Regina is trying to make her music more mainstream, or trying to cater towards certain people, a certain fan base, etc. Someone who has created songs with such intelligence yet such depths of human emotion, as she has since her first album is not someone who would ever let others steer her or her music.
So I don't understand how you can say you miss Regina. All artists grow and change if they are any good, if they are really making the music to make music as they want and not just to make money. You can't possibly say the more obvious lyrics and the more mainstream beats make it shit. Neil Young for example. Every one of his albums was different. He lost fans because with one album he would become "more mainstream" and was called out for trying to be more listenable for the masses and with another he would be so out there that people thought he was losing his mind. The thing is, he did what he wanted whenever he wanted to. Not for others, for himself.
You say you miss the old Regina. Because her older music wasn't mainstream, not fit into any particular mold. If you don't like her because her music is different now, then I'm going to call you out on putting her in a mold, the mold of always creating music like that of 11:11 and Songs.
She's living life, growing, changing. Her music is too. This is obviously what she wants to record at this point in her life, you can't possibly judge her for that.
i completely agree with you GoodLuckJill !!!!!<br /> <br /> that's what i was trying to explain last week to one of my friends!<br /> <br /> keep on moving!! keep on changing!! keep on living the music!
That's so true. What people don't get is that even if her music is becoming more "mainstream" (although in reality it's not, atleast not to the extent that much music has), it's simply because that's the musical direction SHE wants to take. It's not because she wants to make more money, or she think that she'll gain more fans. If her purpose was that, she'd get a studio band, a lyricist that would write more accessable lyrics (that don't require sites like this, haha), add a pop-y pre-mixed background to each song, and write all songs in the radio-playable style of Folding Chair, as opposed to The Sword & the Pen. <br /> <br /> Funny, I love Neil Young too. Both he and Regina know how to make music.
That's so true. What people don't get is that even if her music is becoming more "mainstream" (although in reality it's not, atleast not to the extent that much music has), it's simply because that's the musical direction SHE wants to take. It's not because she wants to make more money, or she think that she'll gain more fans. If her purpose was that, she'd get a studio band, a lyricist that would write more accessable lyrics (that don't require sites like this, haha), add a pop-y pre-mixed background to each song, and write all songs in the radio-playable style of Folding Chair, as opposed to The Sword & the Pen. <br /> <br /> Funny, I love Neil Young too. Both he and Regina know how to make music.
amen sister!
People have come up with some pretty complicated explinations here.
Personally I think its pretty simple. I think its about someone who has lost their way in life; likely from depression. And they are just trying to find a way back into it but they have forgotten how, even though it was once easy for them "You can't believe it, you were always singing along. It was so easy and the words so sweet."
I know I've felt lost in my own life before and look back at those times in my childhood for example when things just seemed so much easier. I think thats all the song is trying to say.
Agreed
Well, I don't want to judge an entire album based on the four songs we've heard so far... If someone had played me Fidelity, Better, On the Radio, and Hotel Song and said: "Behold, the new Regina album", I would have been very disappointed. But, Begin to Hope had some beautiful moments. I think the thing that scares me, is that although the lyrics are still excellent, the songs don't appear to be as creative musically and they seem overproduced.
I still love Regina though and would love to see her live again. That way, you get her and a piano (and a drumstick).
I think this song is about the lost childhood 'cause it's something we knew very well until we grow up....it's something that artist are always trying to recover but it's so difficult to do... we only have the echos (You can't remember; you try to feel the beat. Bee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-Eet eet eet.) of the sweet words and innocent thoughts we used to have. When she sings.." Someone's deciding whether or not to steal. He opens a window just to feel the chill. He hears that outside a small boy just started to cry 'Cause it's his turn, but his brother won't let him try." I think she's trying to show the incomprehensible brother who is older than the little boy ...he hs grown and can't understand the simplicity of the happyness of a child, his innocent mind even if his brother could be "protecting him" or just don't mind it.....
maybe..
sorry for my bad english :P
I think it's about life and how their are so many simplicities in it, but when you put it all together, it's very very complicated.
EET!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_element_theorem
This song struck me as I listened to it a few times. Regina seems to have a remarkable talent for creating or having created videos that express the song so well. What first struck me was the line, "You're using your headphones to drown out your mind," which described what I was doing without even realizing it to a T. Or Y, in this case, since there are no ts in that line.
It's curious, because she has this amazing symbolic gift that I've found can apply to so many things that is amplified by many of her videos. For example, when the locket breaks in Fidelity, my mind still reels back in both horror and hope.
Who hasn't forgotten the words to their favorite song? How many other things to life can that be applied to? Something so familiar vanishes from your accessible memory. It's still there, but there seems to be a wall blocking it from you. You grasp, you search, you know it's there, but you just can't find it. Someone above mentioned losing something familiar, but this can also apply to moving away from something familiar, or losing that passion you used to have for something familiar.
Even the lines about a small boy not being able to try because of his brother... We learn, we gain far more experience and wisdom from trying than we do being taught, but how many times has someone "wiser" than you stopped you from learning a critical life lesson? How many times have you stopped someone, remembering the pain of the lesson, from doing the same thinking it was for their good?
So much of the song speaks to so many aspects, and the symbolism is vague enough, yet profound enough, that I think you can identify with elements no matter where you are. This woman has a gift, and I look forward to hearing more of what she writes!