Popular music is not generally known for its intellectual brilliance, but there is some music that expresses rational and rigorous reflection and specifically addresses psychological concepts. The turn of the decade from the 1960s to the 1970s gave birth to progressive rock and heavy metal alike, two strange products of an industrialized society that have been derided as refuges for the perpetually adolescent but from their roots have been fed by a magical imagination. This imagination produces visions and stories that shock or disgust many people, because they fill a psychic hunger which civilization may not like to admit. Heavy metal especially has filled an underrated and misunderstood role that provided a way to claim the shadow.

It was through a Rush song that I found my first substantial introduction to Carl Jung. In 1993, I was an awkward nerdy teenage boy – the stereotypical demographic of Rush fandom in those days. I already knew I was an introvert (in the common understanding) and had found a welcome affirmation of that in their song “Hand over Fist.” When the band was releasing their Counterparts album, I listened to an interview with their drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. I heard this:

“I draw upon my research, if you like, on this, everywhere from Carl Jung to Camille Paglia, about what the modern man was supposed to be, and to many people in the eighties, the modern man was supposed to be a woman. And, you know, to be sensitive and nurturing and all, and to completely lose the masculine side of the character, the animus.”

His grasp of the concepts of anima and animus may not have been accurate, but I knew nothing about that yet. All I knew was that I had been introduced to a new idea, through a song, with the appropriate title of “Animate.”  It was a strange message, but on reflection – and after hearing the song and reading its lyrics many times – it made sense.

Rush’s album, Animate, holds Jungian influences in its songwriting.

 

Much of my awkwardness as a teenager was due to my strong sense of androgyny in character, dating from well before puberty.  I have always been very sensitive, have never been physically strong or good at sports . . . and having (as you may suspect) struggled with my self-image and identity, it was life to hear this in the aforementioned interview:

“I feel that yes, men do have a large female component to their characters, as it can only be. . . In the song, I was trying to get at the idea that you can be both strong and sensitive, you can be both ambitious and soft, really, but not to deny either and to keep them in balance.”

“Animate” earnestly addresses the Anima figure with a male poetic voice. As such I consider it a ritual.  It was years after hearing it for the first time that I began my own serious research into Jung’s ideas, but the song definitely planted the seed of curiosity, and awoke my psychological imagination.  Now as an adult, listening to the song is a way for me to renew my intent to seek balance, wholeness and individuation.

 

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~Charles Stanford
Archivist, author, musician
Jung Society blog team member
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