Synchronicity II

Synchronicity II
by Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers, and Gordon Sumner CBE (aka Sting)

Synchronicity (noun): The coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality. Used especially in the psychology of Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung.

It’s Full-of-Woe Wednesday again and I’m your host, Fuelgrip Skip. We’re going to mix it up a little today. Usually, I share with you some of my Least Favorite Songs. Today though, I’d like to tell you about one of my all-time favorites, Synchronicity II by The Police. Why would I include a favorite song on a Full-of-Woe Wednesday, you may ask? Well, in a short 5:02, it explores a world as densely packed as a neutron star with unresolved mystical images, angst, frustration, and dysfunction – in short, woe with a capital P. I love it! Let’s begin.

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

Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration
But we all know 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

Carl Jung coined the word “synchronicity” to refer to “meaningful coincidences”. I love it that the Bible is full of such events (which, of course, are not “coincidences” at all). When the people bring to Jesus the woman who was caught in adultery, He is writing in the dirt. At the end of Acts 8, the Ethiopian eunuch is just stopped in his chariot reading the Scriptures when Phillip comes up to witness to him. In the world of Synchronicity II, though, the coincidences are between family dysfunction, work frustration, and a creature in a lake in Scotland. If you are unfamiliar with the musical structure of the song, the first four lines are what we might call a “verse”. They are in the major scale of the song. It’s interesting writing that The Police have (has?) managed to create such a world of tonal ambiguity that even the notes of the major scale in the verse seem dissonant. The next four lines begin to build: major third, perfect fourth, augmented fourth, perfect fifth, then an octave up on the tonic, but in a minor mode. By the time we get to the last two lines (beginning with “many miles away”), there is an almost mystical and ethereal quality, but is still a driving number. Now, on to verse two:

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

Verse two takes the fun of The Office and The Vicar of Dibley and turns it inside out. As we come to the end of the second verse, things gets more mysterious. And, believe me when I tell you this, the next seven lines are in the running for my favorite lyrical moments of all time (and yes, I have considered Sondheim, Lennon, McCartney, Hart, Hammerstein, Loesser, Cohan, Gilbert, Van Heusen, Ahrens and Gershwin):

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

Coincidentally (and probably meaningfully so), Carl Jung’s theories on synchronicity often refer to the writings of William of Ockham, an English logician and Franciscan friar of the 14th Century. Ockham wrote, “entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", or "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". Don’t worry: of course I looked that up – the Internet can be a wonderful thing! It is commonly paraphrased, "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best" and is known as “Ockham’s Razor”, referring to the “shaving down” of cause and effect.

Now, I have a confession to make: except for the work of Django Reinhardt, I really don’t care for the electric guitar all that much. I think it may actually be a genetic predisposition, just like I think some people are born with an anti-Cilantro gene in their tastebuds. As a Baby Boomer, it has always made me a bit of an outsider with my peers, but I always thought that most electric guitar solos were exploiting all the worst parts of the instrument. I mean, haven’t we learned anything from the saxophone? But where I do think the electric guitar shines as a solo instrument is when it is shaved down to its essence: barely controlled noise. Think of the strange glissandi and feedback in Jimmy Page’s solo during Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love (although, admittedly, it was heavily remixed and augmented by a Theremin). Better yet, think of how Trevor Rabin’s guitar makes the sparks fly in Yes’ Owner of a Lonely Heart: it sounds like a rotary saw striking metal (come to think of it, I seem to remember that the video of that solo portrayed exactly those images). And, for my money, Andy Summers’ inventive solo during Synchronicity II is at the top of the list. It’s full of almost non-tonal power chords, audible finger-fret screeches, and those diving slides down to a dark pool of low-register notes. In short, it’s not your grandmother’s electric guitar solo: but it’s darn near perfect.

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
Many miles away

Synchronicity. Meaningful coincidences. I think Jung’s on to something. As Obi Wan Kenobi told Han Solo, “In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.” More importantly for me, a leader of the Christian community agrees. Richard Halverson was the Chaplain of the United States Senate in the last couple of decades of the twentieth century. His “sending forth” struck a chord with many people and it is now universally known as “the Halverson Benediction”. How universal is it? When I searched for the words “Halverson Benediction” on Yahoo!, I was directed to websites located everywhere from America to Zambia. I leave you today with Chaplain Halverson’s words:

You go nowhere by accident.
Wherever you go, God is sending you.
Wherever you are, God has put you there.
He has a purpose in you being there.
Christ who indwells you has something
He wants to do through you wherever you are.
Believe this and go in His grace and love and power.

And Lord, if it’s not too much to ask, it would be just fine if your purpose did involve that Scottish lake, so many miles away.