What do you think Chemo Limo means?

Regina Spektor: Chemo Limo Meaning

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Album cover for Chemo Limo album cover

Chemo Limo Lyrics

Had a dream
Crispy crispy Benjamin Franklin came over
Baby-sat all four of my kids

Then in my dream
I told the doctor off
He said if you don't want to do it
then you don't have to do it
He said the truth is
You'll be okay,...

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  1. anonymous
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     Aug 7th 2012 !⃝

    Another thing too is that Michael could have been praying to his deceased mother and telling her about his life.

  2. anonymous
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     Aug 7th 2012 !⃝

    I have very little to add, but I think that the direction that they're heading in the limo, West, is symbolic of the setting sun.
    She also mentions that the driver is the doctor, this also could be a symbolic representation of which direction she chose to take with the medical treatment: either get treated, or head West and burn out like the sun. She goes out in style.

  3. Squinff
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     Jul 4th 2012 !⃝

    I think this song is in two layers.
    The first layer is about a woman with terminal cancer, who has given up all hope of recovering, even though the doctor says she'll "be okay anyway".

    The woman knows chemotherapy is expensive and, thinking she'll die anyway, wants to make sure there'll be enough money to support her children after she dies (crispy, crispy Benjamin Franklin came over and babysat all four of my kids)

    So, she decides that she would rather be euthanised to get the same result with less pain and less cost, so there would be more money for her children. This is where the symbolism of the limo comes in.

    A limo could be interpreted as a vehicle to get to one place to another. She then asks her doctor to go 'west' - the west symbolises both death and freedom.

    The part about going out in style is also tied to the euthanasia. I have a feeling that the woman was already quite sickly, but it didn't show so much. By 'going out in style', the woman plans to die now instead of getting so ill she can't do anything due to the chemotherapy and dying anyway, probably again for the sake of her children.

    The second layer to this is what happens to her children after death. They are possibly fostered (crispy, crispy Benjamin Franklin came over and babysat all four of my kids - the government's money supporting the children) and then the descriptions of the children are how the children adapt to their new situations.

    Sophie is forced to become aware of the world (BBC radio, the world service at least, is all about what's going on in the world).
    Michael goes into denial about it and pretends that it didn't happen. He still pretends he can talk to his mother and perhaps sits on her grave to talk to her. He also hates foster care and hates the people who put him in there (sat on my knees and whispered to me all about the meanies).
    Jacqueline presented a façade of being mature (being such a big girl with her cup of tea), but pines for her mother and becomes reclusive (the window representing her looking back at something she's blocked from returning to).
    Barbara is described as looking "just like (the woman's) mom". This could mean that Barbara has been forced to age too quickly, whether to care for her siblings or something else entirely. It could also mean she's under threat of getting the cancer that killed her mother and, possibly, her grandmother, hinting the cancer is genetic.

    There's probably a ton of other things I haven't noticed, but that's what I got out of the song.

  4. anonymous
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     Nov 14th 2011 !⃝

    She has cancer and she is debating how/when she wants to die. (she wants to go out in style.) she can pay for the chemo or she can just die leaving her money to her kids (benjamin franklin) It's the story of her cancer and her kids and her choice.


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