Music of the Day, 8 January 2024
synchronicity?
Last week, a comment by
set me to thinking about musicians who create great story songs, as we’re both big fans of them. It’s a wide and deep field to explore, and I was curious to see what might come from that prompt. Yesterday evening one particular band burbled up, and I immediately wondered why they haven’t made an appearance in MotD yet.After doing my usual research on them and today’s featured piece, I’m tentatively answering my question with “anti-synchronicity.” This band became big in the US just as I was matriculating at my undergraduate university; and being financed almost completely by Ohio and US taxpayers, I took my studies very seriously and had little time for other interests or pursuits.
Music became a background thing, as I didn’t even have a radio of my own in my first-year dorm room. I was at the musical mercy of the other denizens of my floor … which explains why I still cannot hear the opening notes of “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” without uttering a few choice imprecations. Two days after graduating, I got married and was immediately immersed in finding a job to support us, as my spouse was in medical school. The job I got—pharmacy technician administering most medications to patients on my assigned hospital unit—was often demanding and stressful, but since most units had radios at their main desk, I did hear a good variety of music. So I was well aware of this band’s hits, but none of them really connected with me. Musically, they were great, but lyrically meh for me back then.
My work in graduate school focused on music, as that was the easiest way to rigorously explore and test my advisor’s theories about attending to and perceiving events over time. The first years were mostly focused on coursework rather than research, so I did have time (and finally, some money!) to invest in listening to the radio and building my CD collection. Later, the dual burdens of grieving my mother’s illness and death and designing and carrying out my doctoral research (on how different types of musical accents may focus a listener’s attention) sapped my enthusiasm for listening to music. Best I can recall, I mostly had ears only for Rush.
When I started teaching in Cincinnati in the late ‘80s, my students helped me find my way back to the land of the living and to my love of music. (My beloved Z Rock affiliate helped too, starting a little later.) Even though they had broken up earlier, the Police were still very popular,1 and I started to pay more attention to their songs. I quickly discovered that I much preferred their later music.2 And they put out a lot of story songs! This is the one that surfaced last night.
I didn’t start writing this piece last night because when I started to research, I fell into a well of interesting synchronicities. Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung is often credited as Sting’s inspiration for much of this album; Jung’s ideas about personality development and the collective unconscious were the highlights of my otherwise tedious undergrad personality theory course.3 But author Arthur Koestler deserves at least equal credit: one of his book titles became the title of the Police’s 1981 album (Ghost in the Machine); another of his works (The Roots of Coincidence) was influenced by Jung’s ideas on synchronicity.4 I may wind up returning to this well to explore Koestler and Jung’s ideas in some depth.
The lyrics of “Synchronicity II” are powerful, both in the images they evoke5 and the urgent melody that delivers them. For the longest time, I thought primarily of the ecological message that underlies both story lines in the song; once I made the connection of two monsters approaching the door of a dwelling—in acausal synchronicity6—at the end of the song, that’s what I can’t get out of my mind.
The instrumental component is equally dark and driving, and I adore all of it. Many music critics discuss how the Police’s reggae and new wave sounds influenced Rush, but Andy Summers’ solo is absolutely, brilliantly Lifesonesque.
I discovered this morning that I somehow acquired Synchronicity; I thought the only Police album I had was the 1986 compilation Every Breath You Take: The Singles. One needn’t be synchronized with me to make a strong guess as to what I’ll be listening to as I make dinner tonight.
especially with some of my best students, who weren’t afraid to talk with me before and after class
“Don’t Stand So Close to Me“ and “Every Breath You Take” are still pretty creepy to me
Synchronicity was also an important concept in his work, but I don’t recall my professor focusing much on it
On one of the more common versions of the album’s cover art, Sting is reading Jung’s 1960 book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
with a moment of hilarity too: “we have to shout above the din of our Rice Krispies”?!
Or maybe not so unconnected (that ecological message again); that’s part of the genius of Sting’s lyrics
Excellent post. Seeing Sting up close in concert last summer gave me a new appreciation for his phenomenal body of work.
I destroyed the cassette of this album by playing this song over and over. I spent hours memorizing and singing the lyrics. I had vague ideas of using it for a SOTD but I can't top this post. Thanks for the context!