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The Living Memory of Song
- Stephanie Zajchowski, PhD
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
My memory is often elusive, hiding names or dates I am attempting to recall. And yet, when a random song from the 90s comes on the radio, I can recite every word.
Music seems to serve as a powerful mnemonic device. But we know this about music. Consider the alphabet song or nursery rhymes. To this day, I can recite the preamble to the Constitution because my elementary school teacher taught us with a song. Melody and meter have proven to be abiding memory aids.
The bards of old held stories in song. An epic poem like the Odyssey was recalled as it was sung. One can imagine the music itself helped the story stay in the storyteller's mind while transporting the tale into the listener's heart. In this way, myth, memory, and music intertwine.
Songs tell stories
Songs tell stories today too. One that immediately comes to mind is “Tam Lin (Child 39)” by Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer. Released in 2013, “Tam Lin” retells a medieval Scottish ballad about a man captured by fairies. The only way Tam Lin can return to human life is if his lover, Janet, holds him through a series of fantastic transformations, a key part of the initiation phase of the hero’s journey.
Mitchell’s skill in bringing ancient myth to life for modern audiences, as she does with Hadestown, an adaptation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, comes through in “Tam Lin.” Guitars accompanied by harmonic vocals hold the ancient tale in a simplicity that lets the story take center stage, allowing one to imagine this fairy world for themselves. It’s as if the musicians are simply telling us a story with a bit of song— the melody weightless and timeless, like myth.
Ethereal and eerie, the song describes mythical themes of picking flowers that summon fairies and magical worlds that live beyond our own. Repetition builds toward a shapeshifting sequence, and the lyrics begin to form an incantation, giving the song an air of magic that makes the transformations seem even more profound.
Tam Lin’s metamorphosis embodies the hero’s journey initiation phase with a series of trials that test Janet’s resolve and Tam Lin’s readiness to return to the human world. These tremendous transformations seem to also speak to the tumultuous changes life brings. From a wolf to a bear and finally a lion, all said to be wild and terrifying, both Tam Lin and Janet are unwavering during the initiatory experience. Through each transformation, Janet refuses to let go, showing how steadfast love can hold us through it all.
Mitchell and Hamer’s fidelity to the older ballad captures the story’s mystery, and their musical prowess allows the tale to permeate the depth of the listener’s soul. Artistic consciousness gives the medieval story modern resonance, recapitulating it for our time and demonstrating how music can keep stories present in our cultural memory.
Mnemosyne’s Daughters
Music not only helps us remember but also keeps stories alive in song. Memory and music are intertwined, and perhaps this is why we also see a relationship between music and memory in myth.
In Greek mythology, the Titaness Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Mnemosyne knows “what is, what will be, what was” (qtd. in Paris, Pagan Grace: Dionysos, Hermes, and Goddess Memory in Daily Life, 124). So she is not simply concerned with recalling the past, but with how the past is in relationship with the present and future.
Mnemosyne weaves threads of story on the loom of time. While we engage memory daily to remember where we placed our keys or what we need from the grocery store, this is not necessarily Mnemosyne’s domain. She enters the scene when we look back on the cumulative history of our lived experience. As we pull memories from the storehouse of our minds, we bring the past into presence according to its relevance to our current situation. Through this act of recollection, the fragments of events stored in our minds are given a form, a semblance of order, a cohering narrative. Ultimately, our lives are given a story. And it is here that Mnemosyne presides.
Memory then is not simply a recollection of facts, but rather an act of mythopoesis. And perhaps this is why Mnemosyne’s daughters are the nine Muses. Often known for their creative influence on artists, the Muses bestow divine insight on the earthly domain, connecting the celestial with the terrestrial. They are the conduits of the divine song of the universe pouring into the world.
As mother of the Muses, memory is in relationship with music. One of the gifts Mnemosyne’s daughters bestow is song. The Muses inspire the artist who then pours their rhythms into us. As Joseph Campbell explains, “Artists are magical helpers. Evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves, they can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives” (On the Hero’s Journey, 39).
In times of transformation, music often accompanies us. We make playlists to listen to as we process the emotions. And memory is often here too, as we try to make sense of what is happening to us, ask how we got here, and how to get beyond this moment. As Campbell says, “Are you going to try to hang onto what you have been, or are you going to let today burn you into something else?” (Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine, 259). Which is the apotheosis of the initiation phase, when the old self succumbs to the flames and a new one is born from the fire of experience. Memories, present experience, and future hopes all intermingle as we also metaphorically transform from wolf to bear to lion.
Memory is not simply a recollection of facts, but rather an act of mythopoesis.
Ultimately, we work with our story until our “history is transformed to revelation” (Goddesses, 261), until we can hear the Muses’ song of creative inspiration open our own imaginings so we can tell a new story.
Restoration through Remembering
Singing stories isn’t just for nursery rhymes or oral traditions; it's a form of storytelling that lets stories breathe and move, showing how meaning can persist across time. Music helps us remember by keeping stories alive, breathing them anew for each generation of listeners, and helping us make meaning.
Memory, then, is more than mere retrieval. Every act of remembering reshapes the past into current relevance. Remembrance is a making, an act of restoration.
Mitchell and Hamer's recording of “Tam Lin” is an example of a musical form durable enough to survive centuries of forgetting. The music allows the myth to move us in the present as we witness how the bards of old live on in today's artists, evoking meaning in the depths of our being. Something in us is still listening for the divine song the Muses first poured into the world.
Perhaps the invitation is to brave the adventure, to witness and surrender to our own initiatory transformation from wolf to bear to lion, all wild and unknown to us, until Mnemosyne weaves new identities onto the stories of old, and the Muses wrap us in their song to carry us home to ourselves.
May Mnemosyne see fit to inspire the Muses’ song.
MythBlast authored by:
Stephanie Zajchowski, PhD is a mythologist and writer based in Texas. She serves as the Director of Operations for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is a contributing author of Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide. Stephanie is also a co-founder of the Fates and Graces, hosting webinars and workshops for mythic readers and writers. Her work focuses on the intersection of mythology, religion, and women’s studies. For more information, visit stephaniezajchowski.com
This MythBlast was inspired by the Initiation stage of the hero's journey and The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on his Life and Work.
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"Artists are magical helpers. Evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves, they can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives."
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