I think Regina does a really clever job of using metaphor - in this case, acting vernacular - throughout the song. The speaker makes numerous references to acting and audition "language" - "everyone takes turns / now it's yours to play the part," just as actors take turns with lines during an audition...then there is the entire chorus with the director saying, "Hold on / one more time with feeling / try it again," etc. While this is going on, I'm pretty sure that the speaker is thinking about something bigger - what it's like to fight disease or something of that magnitude in this case.
She just does it so masterfully, I feel like it's as if Regina has these stories running through her head, and when she wants to, she sits down to choose an image or idea to focus on in one of her songs. Sometimes the image is related to the plot in her head, but sometimes it isn't, and then she just proceeds to kick the hell out of infusing that object into the plot because she's awesome and felt like sharing some of her badass talent with us through song.
I think Regina does a really clever job of using metaphor - in this case, acting vernacular - throughout the song. The speaker makes numerous references to acting and audition "language" - "everyone takes turns / now it's yours to play the part," just as actors take turns with lines during an audition...then there is the entire chorus with the director saying, "Hold on / one more time with feeling / try it again," etc. While this is going on, I'm pretty sure that the speaker is thinking about something bigger - what it's like to fight disease or something of that magnitude in this case.
She just does it so masterfully, I feel like it's as if Regina has these stories running through her head, and when she wants to, she sits down to choose an image or idea to focus on in one of her songs. Sometimes the image is related to the plot in her head, but sometimes it isn't, and then she just proceeds to kick the hell out of infusing that object into the plot because she's awesome and felt like sharing some of her badass talent with us through song.