"The Call" by Regina Spektor => my interpretation

So, last Friday I managed to go out with a large group to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspien". I would give the movie an 8/10, partly because I'm bias about the movie, and mostly because of the ending. I have a history of filming, as I was lead editor of my High Schools News station my Senior Year, which pretty much meant I ran the thing. I walked in just wanting to mess around with some filming, and because no one was taking any authority I ended up pretty much having it and doing my best to make the show happen. I also love music, and the best show I ever made was a music video. The result made me notice the choreography between film and music in every film I've ever seen sense. Never have I heard a song(with words) that fit so well with the movie in relation to it's meaning and timing as did "the call" and Prince Caspien. Now, I might be bias because I love Regina Spektor, but it wasn't her that made me gasp, it was the words of the song, for the song sounds much different than her usual style, so to me, the only influence she had in my decision was how beautiful her voice is(which actually isn't much in my standards because there are a lot of beautiful voices singing a lot of crappy songs).

Now, if you ever have a chance to watch the movie again, listen to how the words and music fit in with the film. What made me gasp was the timing of the first chorus with aslan(which represents Jesus), and then the timing of the end credits, because it was as if the song was singing about 2 groups, the children with Narnia and Aslan, as well as the audience and their escape into the world, dealing with all things good and worth fighting verses the daily formulaic life. To me in the context of the movie, the song says that we can get so lost in both, but we should keep hope and know that the first will happen.

Now, I will continue on with my interpretation of the song, because it serves as a way to give me hope in my personal life. Here's the link to a youtube video made so you can hear the song. I'd recommend you listen to it twice, first to become acquainted with it before reading my interpretation, and second after reading my interpretation so you can hear what I hear. But if you're only going to listen to it once, I would recommend you do so at the end. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNsQewlFtEs

I'll start by giving you the lyrics:

"It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
'Til it was a battle cry
I'll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye

Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before
All you can do is try to know who your friends are
As you head off to the war

Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light
You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
'Til they're before your eyes
You'll cone back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye

You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye"

For me, the song talks about Jesus, His followers, the Word, and the listener of the song. This is all my interpretation, and I am not saying that is what Spektor or Disney meant by the song, only what it means to me. I believe that many things can mean many different things to many different people. This is why I don't really follow the whole idea of a song being specifically "secular". I believe that if you can interpret a song with biblical meaning, then to you it has biblical meaning, and that's all that matters. If the song contradicts with biblical meaning, then don't take it as a biblical song. Easy as that. By biblical I mean about God/Jesus. And a lot of songs tagged as "secular" either can have obvious biblical meaning, or the singer themselves are in fact Christians singing about Christ, many of these songs helped changed my life because music means so much to me, and because Christian music (more often than not) lacks variety, so I find it sad how often they are overlooked.

now I continue from my tangent.

The first verse is Jesus singing to the listener, about how Him/Truth/Love/Word worked in their life or consciousness/heart/soul.

"Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
'Til it was a battle cry"

The next few lines talk about how even though Jesus died (for us) and ascended into heaven he can still be with us if we "call him" be it accepting him in our hearts, devoting our lives to him (you know, the Lord blessing us with the kiss/we confess with our mouths sort of thing), he will be there for us when we ask him (and even when we don't) so there's no need to say goodbye and act like he's gone from us.

then the next verse:

Just because every thing's changing
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before
All you can do is try to know who your friends are
As you head off to the war

I take the first two lines as the Word singing to the listener(or the bible) saying that just because the way things are now are much different doesn't mean that I, the word, can't help you understand them, that the truth in the word no longer applies/isn't relevant, and so on and so forth.

The next two seem to talk about who you can trust, first of course God/Jesus/Word and the next of course the people you share fellowship with/your church. The war to me could either be your internal war with sin/life/yourself and so on, or an external war of spreading the word and living a Christian life among persecution.

Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light
You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

this verse really hits me hard, to me, its about a believer who's wandered from Christ, and wandered so far that the horizon seems "dark" as night and Christ seems as small as a "star" (not literally, but by appearance stars seem small, which of course helps the metaphor), but the verse tells the believer not to give up(or say goodbye) but if you follow the light(Christ) however small it may be, He'll lead you back.

Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget

This seems to be talking about after acceptance or repentance or whatever you want to call it, we're whipped clean like we're back to the beginning. At the moment your change isn't immediately apparent, or they don't know Christ or they don't know evidence of Christ in your life, but just because they don't agree with you (non-believers) or don't recognize the change yet doesn't mean you have to forget what Christ has done to you (or give up).

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
'Til they're before your eyes

this seems to be about remembering Christ, what he did, who he is, how much you need to be like him, and as you getting closer and hold on harder he'll be more obvious to you/before your eyes.

Finally we finish with a reminder that Christ/God will be with us if we ask him (the you now being Jesus and they being us), that we shouldn't give up on the Journey and to keep our eyes on Him(not say goodbye). Also that the singer trusts these things, so there's no need in goodbying just in case this isn't true (like people say goodbye and I love you just in case something happens and they never see each other again) because it is true. Hence why the song give me hope :D

You'll cone back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye

You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye

That's art?

Spring is here, and a fresh start seems right at the finger tips, and thus the result: A new blog! Welcome everyone, thank you for taking time out of your day to read my lonely first post. I hope all my fellow University peers did well on their exams, I was lucky enough to only have one, but a million final projects instead.

This semester has been busy for me, I edited my major a little bit. I'm going from majoring in International Studies, to majoring in International Studies and Art Education with, hopefully, a minor in Chinese. I want to teach Art, Geography and Chinese. It's not the most practical major, mostly because it requires more schooling, and less because of the occupations that should follow. I have a dream! And I plan to follow it :D

I managed to take an art class the last semester, which brought up a question "what is art?". At a lecture, a guest speaker listed of methods artists today are doing in order to make their art. Some are stamping love letters for people, others are taking pictures of pictures and renaming them. There are those who actually paint things, but what they choose to paint is quite odd, like 3 white canvases, or a science essay(seriously!). There are those who have sat in a box labeled "copy machine" and let people drop objects in the box which they would later toss out the original object and a copy they made from various objects in the box (one person went to the extent of putting their toddler in the box). There's who preserve dead animals as well as possible for their art, people who make machines that do normal body functions, such as a digestive system that will puke if it eats too much, get gas if it eats certain foods and, well, poos. There are also people who tie up dogs and let it die as their art. What is art, what isn't? In a lecture I attended, the woman described how in the past century art historians would attempt to clarify that question, and how so many forms of expression would be labeled "not art" and yet were very effective in portraying the artists idea. And so, they tossed everything out the window, and something being explored right now is the very question of "what is art?" So, skim through the pieces above, let me know what which ones, if any, or all, are art, and perhaps why you think that. I encourage those who think all these are art to question "how far is too far". Should we give artists complete freedom for their expression? Should we create a standard of what is art and what isn't? What is that standard?

For the canvases that were painted white (and smooth, which takes some skill) as well as the canvases that were a painted copy of a famous science essay (don't ask me which one), they were apart of the same show. Someone made an interesting comment on them (don't ask me who! it was over the internet). It's popular in our culture to see white as a state of "nothingness". And the science essay was so hard to read that for the average person it was a bunch of nonsense, or nothing at all. Perhaps the artists objective was to question the idea of importance and the idea of nothingness. The science essay, which helped define a theory, that really doesn't affect our lives, yet we hold those who make such discoveries with high regard, do you understand where this is going?

what do you think? there's no wrong answer, what do you get out of these pieces (the only 2 that are apart of the same show are the ones I already mentioned) if anything at all.