Last Saturday it was King's Day again in the Netherlands, the traditional celebration of the fact that the country in which I live is ruled in name by a king, formerly queens. In my hometown, this is celebrated through a huge free market, which attracts a lot of people from all over the country. It was never my thing, but I've been in on it for about ten years, especially since my girlfriend, whom I met over ten years ago, is crazy about it. And because, not long after I got to know her, I revived an old hobby, namely the collection of long-played records, called vinyl or short-played album. However, this year I had no puff and lay around like a dishcloth in my house, which is near one of the most famous locations of that free market. My girlfriend was already out early, but was proud of me two hours later with thirty second-hand lps under her arm.
I've been playing these records for a few days now. It's mostly very old jazz. I have been listening to jazz regularly for a year or two and have a very modest collection, which largely consists of recordings by Miles Davis. This is quite different. The early jazz is lighter, sometimes even more cheerful. There's a box called "Collector History Of Classic Jazz" with five lp. Longplayer 1 starts with fascinating drum roll that the title "Examples Of African Tribal Music" has been given, so that's what the origin of jazz is. Tonight I'm ready for long player 3, whose music sounds like pretty old blues. On side 2 the text of the fifth song, with the title still unknown to me at that time, "Three Woman Blues" draws my attention.
The text of this issue is as follows:
♪ I ain't never loved ♪
But three women ruled my life.
The first was my mother,
The second was my sister
And the third was the girl that wrecked my life.
A wave of recognition went through me. But more important than that: Someone else, long ago had the same experience! In another time, another country, with a completely different background and in a completely different society probably. Soon I wondered if there was a pattern, if many more men felt it or experienced it? The step towards the idea of an underlying archetype was quickly made. Now if there is, that would make my problem much lighter and easier to handle. After all, the whole situation and life history, which I've been struggling with for a lifetime, suddenly looks very different in this light. The three supreme women then are only puppets in a game of a, albeit very powerful, inherited psychic phenomenon in my collective unconscious, which I myself am a willless victim of (become). And what's that like for women? Is the archetype manipulating them in a manly way? Through the experiences with a father, a brother and the first puppy to break their hearts? It gets you to think about and especially to relativize all that insoluble anger, frustration and impotence. Suddenly I felt less heavy and the energy started to flow a bit. Well, a little? I'm late at night typing this in my computer. What is music healing, I change my mind for the umpteenth time in my life.
