Songwriting as Fairytale

I had a thought today as I continue reading Timothy Morton’s Dark Ecology.

He mentioned at one point getting lost in the dark forest and finding our way again, and I wondered how that pattern might be reflected in the common pop song structure.

Songs are built on this pattern of repetition and deviation — the deviation makes the repetition all the more sweet when it returns. I thought about how verses could be seen as straying off the forest path into a darker realm, and then the chorus comes in when we find the path again — let’s celebrate! We found the path!

Then I thought about the middle 8 — what some people also call “the bridge.” This is the part where we come across an entirely new melody and total deviation from all we’ve heard before. It’s at this point we’ve strayed so far off the woodland path that we’ve actually put ourselves in danger. We fight our way out (sometimes bridges in pop music end with a cry-out high note, think of Taylor Swift’s ‘Blank Space’) and the return to the chorus is hugely sweeter after that ordeal.

Another interesting thing is that the coda of pop songs is sometimes the combination of the chorus and the middle 8. Which gives the impression that the darkest part of our journey has also become an intrinsic part of it— in fact, it adds to the chorus: it imbues greater meaning and complexity, and adds to the bittersweet taste of the final sing-a-long. It’s like we’ve taken what we’ve learnt in the dark forest and applied it to our path.

Calling this place a “bridge” also makes me think of crossing over. Like a symbolic act of self-sacrifice in the hero’s journey which leaves them utterly transformed, but stronger than ever. Think about when Harry Potter decided to let himself be killed by Lord Voldemort. He crossed over to death, and then came back renewed to sing his final chorus, full of awareness about what lies on the other side of this existence.

Here’s a passage from Dark Ecology which reinforces this idea of how darkness and joy live inside each other, and we need that in order to create a world where the future is sustainable:

"within the melancholia is an unconditional sadness. And within the sadness is beauty. And within the beauty is longing. And within the longing is a plasma field of joy."

I think I could argue that this is a loop — lingering deep within joy itself is also sadness, which within lies joy, which within lies sadness, ad infinitum.

Into The Dark Ocean

i’m reeling over this essay about creating personal mythologies by Buster Benson.

He describes the personal myth as a way of looking at the dark, universal anxieties we have as humans and creating stories which serve as reminders to love, look and understand these problems. As Buster writes, the universe is a “dark forest,” and our awareness of this dark forest is our awareness of its mysteries and chilling truths. For example — we can’t stop bad things from happening, we’re all going to die, we may never have the lives we dreamed of living, etc, etc…

Mythology is about creating a sense of connection to the universe, ourselves, and thusly, creating a connection to meaning. Why is this happening? How can I make it make sense for me?

When I started to think about personal mythology, I also thought about personal symbolism — stuff that has specific meaning to us just because of how it shows up in our lives. For example, the traditional symbolism of a horse might be speed, messages, transit, freedom… but for me, horses make me sneeze and I think of my sister’s attempt at horse riding when she was a kid. Horses make me think of the forests by my hometown, trying something you’re not good at, mystery and weirdness (cause horses have this otherworldly quality to them).

Personal symbolism comes up naturally in dreams. It’s where our subconscious speaks to us through visual messages which can only be deciphered by ourselves. I have one dream I remember vividly, which also feels like it serves as the beginning of a personal myth:

I’m at Cape Horn — the most southernly point of South America. I’m standing high on a viewpoint, it’s a blue sunny day and I can see a small town. On the edge of this town by the ocean there’s a scientific research centre. Looking towards the research centre, I can see there’s an expedition of a submarine which is going down and off the edge of this most Southern point of the continent. It’s not a submarine that’s already submerged in water, but instead a vessel that starts on the land and then rolls off the edge of the rocks into the deep. Now I’m in the submarine that’s about to be submerged and I’m terrified to be this far South and going underwater — it feels like I’m heading into entirely unexplored territory with no way back. The water is icy and a deep blue and after the initial stomach-churning splash, we are moving through the water and down, down down… Looking out of these huge glass windows which panel the front of the submarine, I get an overwhelming feeling of the sublime — that experience where you are simultaneously in awe and on the edge of terror, but somehow it feels good. Swimming past us as in the distance I can see a large whale, a whale shark, a giant manta ray, everything is huge and formidable. It’s so beautiful. The terror doesn’t leave but I start to become thankful for being on the submarine, seeing these incredible, otherworldly things.

The ocean in this dream is also like the dark forest, in which it’s mysterious and potentially deadly, but also full of wonder.

Question: can we create personal mythologies that help us out of quiet times in our lives? Can we create personal mythologies around “wasted time” that turns it into something meaningful and full of connection?