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Music is Muse-ical
- Mark C.E. Peterson
- 1 hour ago
- 6 min read
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what love did seek.
—John Milton, “Il Penseroso”
The Mythblast series is looking into myth-and-music this year but, if you want the mythic in music, we need to reflect first of all on the bedrock of music—and to our hearts when they open to the call of music: the call of the Muses. So before we rush off to analyze our Spotify playlists, let’s take a moment to relocate the Muses in music, how music is Muse-ical, and how the Muse-ical is mythical.
Now, depending on the Muse, this can go a couple of different ways: there are nine of them. Orpheus (up there in our opening poem) was the son of the Muse Polyhymnia (Muse of Hymns), and he’s a metaphor for songs of sublime power that allowed him to separate himself from the mundane world of daily struggle to enter Hell and petition successfully for his true love, even in the face of Death. Polyhymnia’s sister Eutepre (Muse of song and elegiac poetry) didn’t have the same famously musical offspring, but she did invent the flute, which means Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull fame) and Orpheus are cousins—which, let’s face it, makes sense. The remaining seven sister Muses cover the rest of the arts, including history and even astronomy.
Myths are stories that put us into relationship with people, feelings, or ideas that can be mysterious, and there's something terrifically mysterious about why we find some music to be great and why some music seems to be… well, blah. I think we can find the mythological function of the Muses in the difference between the two: some songs feel Muse-ical and some don’t.
We've all heard tunes that leave us flat—even songs that most people like. For instance, and I hate to admit this, Taylor Swift doesn’t do anything for me. <Steady out there, Swifties!> I know this puts me in a tiny and hated minority, but, while I can still admire the craftsmanship, competence, and lyricism of her work, it just doesn't speak to me. I can't identify with her themes—which is probably generational at this point—but then, everybody has songs they can't identify with. Your own tastes probably have lots of contradictions like that. For instance: I really hate that overproduced, saccharine, Nashville-style country music. Ick. But the Carter family? Willie Nelson? Billy Strings? (even Ozzy and Black Sabbath?) Yep, they get to me every time.
Why is that?
Sounds like they wrote it for you
The best songs spark a kind of aesthetic arrest—that moment when we catch our breath and lose ourselves. Sometimes it’s as if we’re riding the music itself in a way that opens us to the possibility of … something more. (I’m looking at all you Dead Heads out there.) Moments like that can help us let go of the reins of control, and separate ourselves from the expectations of our well worn and socially accepted paths, like Parsifal did, and instead allow the energies of the universe carry us toward the Grail. The cause of that experience is always the same: when you feel as if the song was written just for you, personally. We ask ourselves things like, "How did they know I felt this way?" Something deep in us gets tapped, and, presto-chango, the music becomes deeply meaningful.
See it?
What is music when it puts us into relation with something in a meaningful way?
I’d say it’s Muse-ical music—and that relational component? That’s the power of myth in practice.
All the best music seems divinely inspired. I went to a wonderful production of the opera The Tales of Hoffman a few weekends ago here in Milwaukee, and this opera in particular explains why artists always have an ear out for their Muses. The poor poet Hoffman believes he can find ultimate fulfillment in the arms of his three great loves, but nope. In the end, only his Muse will do. The greatest works of art, which require technical virtuosity mixed with talent, always have a hint of something more. That more, that inspiration, the nectar that hooks us, is what we routinely refer to as the contribution of the Muses.
I heard Bob Dylan interviewed a few years ago and they asked him how he was able to write all those astonishing songs back in the early 60s. Dylan laughed and said, “Yeah, nobody can write like that.” I suspect Dylan well understands his own muse, and so did Leonard Cohen who wrote, at least this is my take, an entire song about it in “Coming Back to You.”
The best songs spark a kind of aesthetic arrest—that moment when we catch our breath and lose ourselves.
The power of Muse-ic
For any questions about the power of music informed by the Muses, consider Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen as singers. I don’t want to put too fine a point on it but, c’mon, they're terrible. It’s almost part of their charm, but think about it—if their songs are that good while their voices are that bad, it says something about how powerfully their music resonates with us, how relatable it is. We see, and hear, ourselves in their music, and that’s the presence of their Muses at work in their music—and the mythic power to create meaning in our lives.
If you live in a creative/creator universe—and, given the Mythblast audience, I'm pretty sure that’s a lot of us—you’ve surely had the experience of creating something amazing and having no idea where it came from or how you did it. That happens to me a lot. All of the best ideas I've had over the years seem not to have been provided by my own brain, but by something else: like a Muse.
Here’s Joe:
I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you.
Thanks for musing along.
MythBlast authored by:
Mark C.E. Peterson is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and past president of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture. Originally from Honolulu, raised in Minneapolis, Uppsala, Sweden, Chicago, Mobile, and Toronto. I’ve lived in Riga and Shanghai and West Bend, Wisconsin. A practitioner of taijiquan and kundalini yoga for over 40 years, I'm also a member of the Ukulele World Congress.
This MythBlast was inspired by the Separation stage of the hero's journey.
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This Week's Highlights
"I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you."
-- Joseph Campbell
