comment on Regina Spektor's "Buildings"

this was written to and appears in the context of the following page:
http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858504412/

Wow, almost everything has been said (including lacrimosa's description of the tall buildings, but almost all comments have amazing insight and speak for themselves).

I'm just going to add what's different in my impression: I think it is difficult to understand this song as a direct description of a husband-wife relation. People are together for many reasons but it is mainly because they want to (it gives them pleasure or because they think they should), or getting out makes them afraid (of being alone, loosing social or economic status, etc). When one of us is alcoholic or getting into trouble the relation gets a complex change that is not reflected in this song (for instance good memories mix with present deception, a will to fly away mixes with wanting to cuddle, etc).

So it seems to me that this is the view of a son or a daughter, that is anxious to get out and live is life, he looks at his parents lives and sees them as getting stuck in the sift of time. He sees them as always repeating the same mistakes, going over and over again the same states of mind, giving time to each other, but just repeating the same things all over again.

The son (or daughter), looking at their parents miserable (to him) life realizes: time cannot be given. You cannot ask for time. No one can. You are waiting for your life to happen, but time is going on anyway and you are the one not being sifted in the sift of time. You are stopped, in the inner walls of your house and life, you can't move on, and everything else is around you, happening, evolving, etc.

So, the child realizes, time is not given, time is not taken, it is just passing along, sifting from the ones who want to change with it, who go along, and those who got caught in the past. This child then breaks away from what he/she sees as their parents circular (or even vicious) relation, and gets out.

The final words, disconnected, is like the child getting away, understanding his parent's life, and, because he understands it so well, at the very core, he can let it go. He has lived it, he has been through it, done that, so he can move on.

Of course, he really does not understand what is going on. Spouse relations may seem very dull and dry from the outside but, most of the time, they are full of light and freedom and adventure in the inside.

Another thing I would like to add is that there is a slight ambiguity in the song. It is clear that the explicit meaning is of an alcoholic wife, but there are also some hidden suggestions or hints at a sexually abusing husband:

"in the car he would lean her head gently against the side door window"

may be a subtle reference to sex in the back seat, and the following line

"And in the bathroom he would hold her hair back and hope"

Seems so close to "hold her hair back and forth"

I'm not saying the Regina though about this, but, you know, it's really easy to imagine this, and when you do the lyrics is complemented: you understand *why* the wife get's drunk all the time. She is not loved, she is simply used. The husband saying "Oh, oh it's okay" would now also have a double interpretation: he seems to tolerate her, or even to apparently support her in her role, but not really to *be" with her, to love her to her most inner core, to see her as the most beautiful thing ever (and without this "love" is just an empty shell).

This actually opens an interesting perspective on the song's meaning. What does "love" means? What is the difference between making love and using the person for sexual gratification?

I think what "true" love provides is what Kant said: we should treat others as ends in themselves. That means, not as a means to an end, but as an end in himself or herself. When we put the other above everything else and treat him/her as an end in himself/herself we are loving them.

In this perspective we are all turned into instruments (not loved) when we put success, economical development, technology, gadgets, etc, above what we want and who we are. Instead of being an end, we become just a means to get something (money, glory, friends, food, etc). We disrespect our inner being to get something outside of us. So the "they build building so tall these days" could also refer to the mesmerizing beauty of today's technology and scientific achievements. Some of us are so mesmerized by this beauty, that we follow, hypnotized as if we had no free will, the trends and fashions and best paying jobs. We become slaves to the system. And, because we become instruments to get the best place in it, we start begging for time, asking for time, time to be ourselves...

In this sense this song would apply to all of us. We are all asking for time, giving ourselves more time: perhaps tomorrow I'll do what I like, perhaps tomorrow I'll follow my dreams, perhaps tomorrow I'll break free from all this non-sense that interests me no more... perhaps... more time, more time...

But time is not given, time is not taken,

Time just sifts through its sift

And either you're with it, flowing with it, or you sit in its sift.

In a breaking moment.