Hear Regina Spektor’s Tender New Ballad ‘Black and White’

Songwriter and pianist Regina Spektor captures the stark, fraught moments after a breakup on her poignant new ballad, “Black and White.” The intricately composed track centers around Spektor’s lonesome piano and a steady drum beat with an array of synths and strings.

Spektor delivers a captivating vocal performance. Her voice nearly softens to whisper as she watches her lover leave, singing, “Heart beats fast, mine got slow/ This great love is all I know.” “Black and White” retains some sense of hope in its striving pop melody, which comes through even as Spektor closes the song with the refrain: “You will always start to cry.”

“Black and White” will appear on Spektor’s upcoming album, Remember Us to Life, which follows 2012’s What We Saw from the Cheap Seats and arrives September 30th. Spektor has a handful of North American live dates scheduled around the record’s release, though she’ll spend most of the fall touring Europe.