Reflections

Primary Sources

Sunday, April 29, 2018

The Police, "Synchronicity II"


As a reference for Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.31:

I loved this song the moment I first heard it, and I immediately saw how it reflected modern alienation.

It took me a little while, however, to think through the Carl Jung connection, and how the wild beast and the father are connected. That only made the song all the more frightening.

The Police, "Synchronicity II", from Synchronicity (1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5FPPoLqkCk

Another suburban family morning
Grandmother screaming at the wall
We have to shout above the din of our rice crispies
We can't hear anything at all

Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration
But we know all her suicides are fake
Daddy only stares into the distance
There's only so much more that he can take


Many miles away something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark Scottish lake


Another industrial ugly morning
The factory belches filth into the sky
He walks unhindered through the picket lines today
He doesn't think to wonder why

The secretaries pout and preen like cheap tarts in a red light street
But all he ever thinks to do is watch
And every single meeting with his so-called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch


Many miles away something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish loch


Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race

Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance
He knows that something somewhere has to break
He sees the family home now looming in his headlights
The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache


Many miles away there's a shadow on the door
Of a cottage on the shore
Of a dark Scottish lake

Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away





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