Song to the siren

Many years ago, I heard a song in a commercial and I immediately fell in love with it. I still remember it was a commercial about “Noa, the perfect perfume”, quite beautiful, actually. It made such an impression on me that I summoned the courage to write an email to Cacharel and ask for the author of the song (early internet days). Unexpectedly, a very nice person, who was clearly in love with the song as much as I was, informed me that the song was called Song to the Siren and it was a version by This Mortal Coil. “It is a masterpiece”, he said; he was right. Then I learnt that, of course, Elizabeth Fraser was the interpreter. Who else.

Of the different archetypes of the collective unconscious described by Jung, my favourite is the anima. Although it is difficult to define this archetype using words, as soon as I read Jung’s description I intuitively understood what he meant. Almost an independent character in the unconscious, primitive and yet sophisticated, full of life. I wonder if I could “see” my anima, my soul, so clearly if I weren’t an introvert. Well, I am and I am grateful for that.
I thought it was only fair that I would dedicate a post to the anima, my anima. Always together, never united… Rather than writing about it, I thought I’d let others describe her for me:

“Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
‘Til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang
Sail to me
Sail to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am
Here I am
Waiting to hold you”
Song to the siren, This Mortal Coil (originally by Tim Buckley)

“…My life
You electrify my life
Let’s conspire to ignite
All the souls that would die just to feel alive
Now I’ll never let you go
If you promised not to fade away
Never fade away…”
Starlight, Muse

“Everything about you is how I’d want to be
Your freedom comes naturally
Everything about you resonates happiness
Now I won’t settle for less
Give me
All the peace and joy in your mind…”
Bliss, Muse

“…Watching our flash backs intertwine
Memories I will never find
In spite of whatever you become
Forget that reckless thing turned on
I think our lives have just begun
I think our lives have just begun
And I’ll feel my world crumbling down
Feel my life crumbling now
Feel my soul crumbling away
Falling away
Falling away with you…”
Falling away with you, Muse

“I won’t stand in your way
Let your hatred grow
And she’ll scream
And she’ll shout
And she’ll pray
And she had a name
Yeah she had a name
And I won’t hold you back
Let your anger rise
And we’ll fly
And we’ll fall
And we’ll burn
No one will recall
No one will recall
This is the last time I’ll abandon you
And this is the last time I’ll forget you
I wish I could”
Stockhlom Syndrome, Muse

“…Free me
Free me
Free me from this world
I don’t belong here
It was a mistake imprisoning my soul
Can you free me
Free me from this world…”
Explorers, Muse

“My plug in baby
Crucifies my enemies
When I’m tired of giving
My plug in baby
In unbroken virgin realities
Is tired of living”
Plug in baby, Muse

In my very personal view, in my mind, so many of Muse’s song are dedicated to the anima, to their soul. I guess the name of the band, Muse, is not a coincidence…

“I have always entangled myself in seaweed
Tangle against my fingers
You close the hank
With the nuisance of fate
It is others who take a bite
Bleeding gums,
Criminal glances,
Broadly, it could be you
Throw the anchor to the port
And the ring in one end
And your heart in the other
Meanwhile, it bleeds
And the beggar always by your side
Your travel companion
When the stars fade away
Sooner or later
You will come too
Sleep a little longer
The eyelids can’t bear it any more
Then there’s the deceptions
When the wind does not seem to forgive
Mermaid, go back to the sea
Stranded in reality
Suffer hallucinations
When heaven doesn’t seem to listen
To dedicate a dream
To close your eyes and feel
Immense darkness
Surrendered to a light
Like a maze of uncertainty
You dodge the nightmare
And overfly exhaustion
And instantly
Back ashore again…”
The stranded mermaid, Heroes del Silencio

Of course, all of this is a projection, if not of the artists’ soul, surely of my own. They projected their unconscious onto these songs, which then served as hooks for my own projections. A strange and marvellous connection of the unconscious of different individuals that does not bow to the laws of physics, time and space. And I just want to thank them, for writing these songs, these mirrors on which I can get a glimpse of my own soul reflected.